And, touching now the point of human skill,

Reason becomes the marshal to my will,

And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook

Love’s stories written in love’s richest book.

HELENA

Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?

When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?

Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man,

That I did never—no, nor never can—

Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,

But you must flout my insufficiency?

Good troth, you do me wrong; good sooth, you do,

In such disdainful manner me to woo.

But fare you well. Perforce I must confess

I thought you lord of more true gentleness.

O, that a lady of one man refused

Should of another therefore be abused! Exit

LYSANDER

She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there,

And never mayst thou come Lysander near;

For as a surfeit of the sweetest things

The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,

Or as the heresies that men do leave

Are hated most of those they did deceive,

So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,

Of all be hated, but the most of me;

And all my powers, address your love and might

To honour Helen, and to be her knight. Exit

HERMIA (awaking)

Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!

Ay me, for pity. What a dream was here?

Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.

Methought a serpent ate my heart away,

And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.

Lysander—what, removed? Lysander, lord—

What, out of hearing, gone? No sound, no word?

Alack, where are you? Speak an if you hear,

Speak, of all loves. I swoon almost with fear.

No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.

Either death or you I’ll find immediately. Exit

3.1 Enter the clowns: Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling

BOTTOM Are we all met?

QUINCE Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house, and we will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke.

bottom Peter Quince?

QUINCE What sayst thou, bully Bottom?

BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself, which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

SNOUT By’r la’kin, a parlous fear.

STARVELING I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

BOTTOM Not a whit. I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.

QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.

BOTTOM No, make it two more: let it be written in eight and eight.

SNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

STARVELING I fear it, I promise you.

BOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourself, to bring in—God shield us—a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild fowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to’t.

SNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

BOTTOM Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus or to the same defect: ‘ladies’, or ‘fair ladies, I would wish you’ or ‘I would request you’ or ‘I would entreat you not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such thing. I am a man, as other men are’—and there, indeed, let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.

QUINCE Well, it shall be so; but there is two hard things: that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber—for you know Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.

⌈SNOUT⌉ Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

BOTTOM A calendar, a catendar—took in the almanac, find out moonshine, find out moonshine.

⌈Enter Robin Goodfellow the puck, invisible⌉

QUINCE ⌈with a book⌉ Yes, it doth shine that night.

BOTTOM Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber window where we play open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.

QUINCE Ay, or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.

SNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?

BOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some roughcast about him, to signify ‘wall’; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper.

QUINCE If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so everyone according to his cue.

ROBIN (aside)

What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here

So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?

What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor—

An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.

QUINCE Speak, Pyramus. Thisbe, stand forth.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus)

Thisbe, the flowers of odious savours sweet.

QUINCE Odours, odours.

BOTTOM (as Pyramus) Odours savours sweet.

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.

But hark, a voice. Stay thou but here a while,

And by and by I will to thee appear. Exit

⌈ROBIN⌉ (aside)

A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here. Exit

FLUTE Must I speak now ?

QUINCE Ay, marry must you. For you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again. 86

FLUTE (as Thisbe)

Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,

Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier;

Most bristly juvenile, and eke most lovely Jew,

As true as truest horse that yet would never tire:

I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.

QUINCE Ninus’ tomb, man!—Why, you must not speak that yet. That you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues and all.—Pyramus, enter: your cue is past; it is ‘never tire’.