A Midsummer Night's Dream (8 page)

Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.

Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.

LYSANDER
    And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.

Transparent
Helena, nature shows her
art
¹⁰⁴

That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word

Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

HELENA
    Do not say so, Lysander, say not so.

What though
¹⁰⁹
he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.

LYSANDER
    Content with Hermia? No, I do repent

The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Not Hermia but Helena now I love;

Who will not change a raven for a dove?

The
will
¹¹⁵
of man is by his reason swayed,

And reason says you are the worthier maid.

Things growing are not ripe until their season;

So I, being young, till now
ripe not
¹¹⁸
to reason.

And touching now the
point
of human
skill
¹¹⁹
,

Reason becomes the
marshal
¹²⁰
to my will

And leads me to your eyes, where I
o'erlook
¹²¹

Love's
stories
¹²²
written in love's richest book.

HELENA
    
Wherefore
¹²³
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
¹²⁹
, 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
¹³²
.

O, that a lady of one man refused

Should
of
another therefore be
abused
¹³⁴
!

LYSANDER
    She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there,

And never mayst thou come Lysander near;

For as a
surfeit
¹³⁷
of the sweetest things

The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,

Or as the heresies that men do
leave
¹³⁹

Are hated most of
those they did deceive
¹⁴⁰
,

So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,

Of
¹⁴²
all be hated, but the most of me.

And all my powers
address
¹⁴³
your love and might

To honour Helen and to be her knight!

HERMIA
    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
¹⁵⁰
.

Lysander! What,
removed
¹⁵¹
? Lysander! Lord!

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

Alack, where are you? Speak,
an if
¹⁵³
you hear:

Speak,
of all loves
¹⁵⁴
! I swoon almost with fear.

No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.

Either death or you I'll find immediately.

BOTTOM
    Are we all met?

QUINCE
    
Pat
²
, pat, and here's a marvellous convenient place

for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this

hawthorn
brake
our
tiring-house
⁴
, and we will do it in action

as we will do it before the duke.

BOTTOM
    Peter Quince?

QUINCE
    What sayest thou,
bully
⁷
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 lakin
, a
parlous
¹²
fear.

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

done
¹⁴
.

BOTTOM
    Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.
Write
¹⁵

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
²²
.

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

eight.

SNOUT
    Will not the ladies be
afeard
²⁵
of the lion?

STARVELING
    I fear
it
²⁶
, I promise you.

BOTTOM
    Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves, to

bring in — God shield us! — a lion among ladies is a most

dreadful thing. For there is not a more
fearful
wild-fowl
²⁹
than

your lion living. And we ought to look to it.

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
³⁵
: ‘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
³⁷

yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were
pity of my
³⁸

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
⁴¹
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 calendar! Look in the
almanac
⁴⁶
. Find

out moonshine, find out moonshine.

QUINCE
    Yes, it doth shine that night.

BOTTOM
    Why, then may you leave a
casement
⁴⁹
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
⁵²

and a lantern, and say he comes to
disfigure
, or to
present
⁵³
,

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
rough-cast
⁶⁰
about

him, to signify wall; or 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
⁶⁵
your parts. Pyramus, you

begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that

brake, and so every one according to his cue.

ROBIN
    What
hempen home-spuns
have we
swagg'ring
⁶⁸
here,

Aside

So near the
cradle
⁶⁹
of the fairy queen?

What, a play
toward
⁷⁰
? I'll be an auditor,

An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.

QUINCE
    Speak, Pyramus.— Thisbe, stand forth.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]
    Thisbe, the flowers of odious savours sweet—

QUINCE
    Odours, odours.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]
    —odours savours sweet,

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.

But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,

And
by and by
⁷⁸
I will to thee appear.

ROBIN
    A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.

THISBE [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.

THISBE [FLUTE]
    Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,

Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,

Most
brisky juvenal
and
eke
most lovely
Jew
⁸⁵
,

As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,

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

QUINCE
    ‘
Ninus
⁸⁸
' tomb', man! Why, you must not speak that

yet; that you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your
part
⁸⁹
at

once, cues and all. Pyramus, enter: your cue is past; it is,

‘never tire'.

THISBE [FLUTE]
    O —

As true as truest horse that yet would never tire.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]
    If I
were
fair
⁹³
, Thisbe, I were only thine.

QUINCE
    O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray,

masters! Fly, masters! Help!

ROBIN
    I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a
round
⁹⁶
,

Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier.

Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,

A hog, a headless bear, sometime a
fire
⁹⁹
,

And neigh and bark and grunt and roar and burn,

Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.

BOTTOM
    Why do they run away? This is a
knavery
¹⁰²

of them to make me afeard.

SNOUT
    O Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on

thee?

BOTTOM
    What do you see? You see an asshead of your own,

do you?

QUINCE
    Bless thee, Bottom! Bless thee! Thou art

translated
¹⁰⁹
.

BOTTOM
    I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me, to

fright me, if they could; but I will not stir from this place, do

what they can. I will walk up and down here, and I will sing,

that they shall hear I am not afraid.