A Midsummer Night's Dream (13 page)

Come, Hippolyta.

Exeunt Duke and lords
[
and Hippolyta
]

DEMETRIUS
    These things seem small and
undistinguishable
¹⁸⁷
,

Like far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.

HERMIA
    Methinks I see these things with
parted
¹⁸⁹
eye,

When everything seems double.

HELENA
    So methinks:

And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,

Mine own and not mine own
¹⁹³
.

DEMETRIUS
    It seems to me

That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think

The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

HERMIA
    Yea, and my father.

HELENA
    And Hippolyta.

LYSANDER
    And he bid us follow to the temple.

Bottom wakes

DEMETRIUS
    Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him

And
by
²⁰¹
the way let us recount our dreams.

Exeunt lovers

BOTTOM
    When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My

next is, ‘Most fair Pyramus.' Hey-ho! Peter Quince? Flute, the

bellows-mender? Snout, the tinker? Starveling?
God's
²⁰⁴
my

life, stolen
hence
and left me asleep! I have had a most
rare
²⁰⁵

vision. I had a dream, past the
wit
²⁰⁶
of man to say what dream

it was. Man is but an ass, if he
go about
²⁰⁷
to expound this

dream. Methought I was — there is no man can tell what.

Methought I was — and methought I had — but man is but

a
patched
²¹⁰
fool if he will offer to say what methought I had.

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
²¹¹

seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive,

nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter

Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called

‘
Bottom's
²¹⁵
Dream', because it hath no bottom; and I will sing

it in the latter end of a play, before the duke.
Peradventure
²¹⁶
, to

make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at
her
²¹⁷
death.

QUINCE
    Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home

yet?

STARVELING
    He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is
transported
.

FLUTE
    If he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not

forward
⁵
, doth it?

QUINCE
    It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens

able to
discharge
⁷
Pyramus but he.

FLUTE
    No, he hath simply the best
wit
⁸
of any handicraft

man in Athens.

QUINCE
    Yea, and the best
person
¹⁰
too, and he is a very

paramour
¹¹
for a sweet voice.

FLUTE
    You must say ‘paragon'. A paramour is, God bless

us, a thing of
naught
¹³
.

SNUG
    Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and

there is two or three lords and ladies more married. If our

sport had gone forward,
we had all been made men
¹⁶
.

FLUTE
    O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost
sixpence a
¹⁷

day during his life; he could not have
scaped
¹⁸
sixpence a day.

An
¹⁹
the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing

Pyramus, I'll be hanged. He would have deserved it.

Sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.

BOTTOM
    Where are these lads? Where are these
hearts
²²
?

QUINCE
    Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy

hour!

BOTTOM
    Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not

what, for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you

everything as it
fell out
²⁷
.

QUINCE
    Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

BOTTOM
    Not a word
of
²⁹
me. All that I will tell you is that the

duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good
strings
³⁰
to

your beards, new ribbons to your
pumps
. Meet
presently
³¹
at

the palace, every man look o'er his part, for the short and the

long is, our play is
preferred
³³
. In any case, let Thisbe have

clean linen, and let not him that plays the lion
pare
³⁴
his nails,

for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear

actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet

breath, and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet

comedy. No more words: away! Go, away!

HIPPOLYTA
    'Tis strange, my Theseus,
that
¹
these lovers speak of.

THESEUS
    More strange than true. I never may believe

These
antic
fables, nor these
fairy toys
³
.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such
shaping
fantasies that
apprehend
⁵

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

Are of imagination all
compact
⁸
.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

That is the madman. The lover, all as
frantic
¹⁰
,

Sees
Helen's
beauty in a
brow of Egypt
¹¹
.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

And as imagination
bodies forth
¹⁴

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination,

That if it would but
apprehend
¹⁹
some joy,

It
comprehends
²⁰
some bringer of that joy.

Or in the night, imagining some fear,

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

HIPPOLYTA
    But all the story of the night told over,

And all their minds
transfigured
²⁴
so together,

More witnesseth
²⁵
than fancy's images

And grows to something of great
constancy
²⁶
;

But howsoever, strange and
admirable
²⁷
.

THESEUS
    Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.

Joy, gentle friends! Joy and fresh days of love

Accompany your hearts!

LYSANDER
    More than to us

Wait in your royal walks, your
board
³²
, your bed!

THESEUS
    Come now, what
masques
³³
, what dances shall we have,

To wear away this long age of three hours

Between our
after-supper
³⁵
and bedtime?

Where is our usual manager of mirth?

What revels are in hand? Is there no play

To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

Call Egeus.

EGEUS
    Here, mighty Theseus.

THESEUS
    Say, what
abridgement
⁴¹
have you for this evening?

What masque? What music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time, if not with some delight?

EGEUS
    There is a
brief
how many sports are
ripe
⁴⁴
:

Egeus gives a paper to Lysander

Make choice of which your highness will see first.

LYSANDER
    ‘The
battle with the Centaurs
⁴⁶
, to be sung

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'

Reads

THESEUS
    We'll none of that. That have I told my love,

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

LYSANDER
    ‘The
riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
⁵⁰

Reads

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'

THESEUS
    That is an old
device
⁵²
, and it was played

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

LYSANDER
    ‘The
thrice three Muses mourning for the death
⁵⁴

Reads

Of learning, late deceased in beggary.'

THESEUS
    That is some satire, keen and
critical
⁵⁶
,

Not
sorting with
⁵⁷
a nuptial ceremony.

LYSANDER
    ‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

Reads

And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'

THESEUS
    Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?

That is, hot ice and wondrous
strange snow
⁶¹
.

How shall we find the
concord
⁶²
of this discord?

EGEUS
    A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,

Which is as brief as I have known a play;

But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,

Which makes it tedious. For in all the play

There is not one word apt, one player
fitted
⁶⁷
.

And tragical, my noble lord, it is,

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.

Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,

Made mine eyes water, but more merry tears

The passion of loud laughter never shed.

THESEUS
    What are they that do play it?

EGEUS
    Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,

Which never laboured in their minds till now;

And now have
toiled
their
unbreathed
⁷⁶
memories

With this same play,
against
⁷⁷
your nuptial.

THESEUS
    And we will hear it.

EGEUS
    No, my noble lord,

It is not for you. I have heard it over,

And it is nothing, nothing in the world;

Unless you can find sport in their intents,

Extremely stretched and
conned
⁸³
with cruel pain,

To do you service.

THESEUS
    I will hear that play.

For never anything can be amiss,

When
simpleness
⁸⁷
and duty tender it.

Go, bring them in.— And take your places, ladies.

HIPPOLYTA
    I love not to see
wretchedness o'er-charged
⁸⁹

And duty in
his service
⁹⁰
perishing.

THESEUS
    Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

HIPPOLYTA
    He says they can do nothing in this
kind
⁹²
.

THESEUS
    The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.

Our sport shall be to
take
⁹⁴
what they mistake;

And what poor duty cannot do,
noble respect
⁹⁵

Takes it
in might, not merit
⁹⁶
.

Where I have come, great
clerks
⁹⁷
have purposèd

To greet me with premeditated welcomes;

Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,

Make periods
¹⁰⁰
in the midst of sentences,

Throttle their practised
accent
¹⁰¹
in their fears,

And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,

Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,

Out of this silence yet I
picked
¹⁰⁴
a welcome.

And in the
modesty
of
fearful
¹⁰⁵
duty

I read as much as from the rattling tongue

Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity

In least speak most, to my
capacity
¹⁰⁹
.