Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold

Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass,

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass—

A time that lovers’ sleights doth still conceal—

Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

HERMIA

And in the wood where often you and I

Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,

Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,

There my Lysander and myself shall meet,

And thence from Athens turn away our eyes

To seek new friends and stranger companies.

Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us,

And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius.—

Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight

From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.

LYSANDER

I will, my Hermia. Exit Hermia

Helena, adieu.

As you on him, Demetrius dote on you. Exit

HELENA

How happy some o’er other some can be!

Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.

But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.

He will not know what all but he do know.

And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,

So I, admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,

Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Nor hath love’s mind of any judgement taste;

Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

And therefore is love said to be a child

Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,

So the boy Love is perjured everywhere.

For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne

He hailed down oaths that he was only mine,

And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,

So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.

I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.

Then to the wood will he tomorrow night

Pursue her, and for this intelligence

If I have thanks it is a dear expense.

But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither and back again. Exit

1.2 Enter Quince the carpenter, and Snug the joiner, and Bottom the weaver, and Flute the bellows-mender, and Snout the tinker, and Starveling the tailor

QUINCE Is all our company here?

BOTTOM You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

QUINCE Here is the scroll of every man’s name which is thought fit through all Athens to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding day at night.

BOTTOM First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point. 10

QUINCE Marry, our play is The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.

BOTTOM A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.

QUINCE Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver?

BOTTOM Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.

QUINCE You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.

BOTTOM What is Pyramus? A lover or a tyrant?

QUINCE A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.

BOTTOM That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move stones. I will condole, in some measure. To the rest.—Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play ’erc’les rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

The raging rocks

And shivering shocks

Shall break the locks

Of prison gates,

And Phibus’ car

Shall shine from far

And make and mar

The foolish Fates.

This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players.—This is ’erc’les’ vein, a tyrant’s vein. A lover is more condoling.

QUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender?

FLUTE Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.

FLUTE What is Thisbe? A wand’ring knight?

QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

FLUTE Nay, faith, let not me play a woman. I have a beard coming.

QUINCE That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

BOTTOM An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too.

I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: ‘Thisne, Thisne!’—

‘Ah Pyramus, my lover dear, thy Thisbe dear and lady

dear.’

QUINCE No, no, you must play Pyramus; and Flute, you Thisbe.

BOTTOM Well, proceed.

QUINCE Robin Starveling, the tailor?

STARVELING Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother.

Tom Snout, the tinker?

SNOUT Here, Peter Quince.

QUINCE You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisbe’s father.

Snug the joiner, you the lion’s part; and I hope here is a play fitted.

SNUG Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me; for I am slow of study.

QUINCE You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

BOTTOM Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say ‘Let him roar again; let him roar again’.

QUINCE An you should do it too terribly you would fright the Duchess and the ladies that they would shriek, and that were enough to hang us all.

ALL THE REST That would hang us, every mother’s son.

BOTTOM I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits they would have no more discretion but to hang us, but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.

QUINCE You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely, gentlemanlike man. Therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

BOTTOM Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

QUINCE Why, what you will.

BOTTOM I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.