A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
By
William Shakespeare
Directed by Joseph Haj
Music and lyrics by Jack Herrick
Additional music by Royer Bockus
Private and confidential
Do not copy
*PROLOGUE
ACTOR/HELENA
WHO’S NEVER BEEN IN LOVE
WHO’S NEVER HAD THAT DIZZY FEELING
WHEN YOU’RE STANDING AT THE EDGE OF A CLIFF
LOOKING DOWN WONDERING IF
YOU’RE ABOUT TO GET THAT GENTLE SHOVE.
TELL ME WHO’S NEVER BEEN IN LOVE.
WHO’S EVER KNOWN THAT ACHE
WHEN YOUR HEART COMES APART
AND THE PARTS START TO BREAK
THERE’S A KNOCKING IN YOUR KNEES
IS IT LOVE OR A DISEASE
EITHER WAY YOU’VE GOT EVERY SYMPTOM OF
ALL THOSE WHO’VE BEEN ENCHANTED
HEAD SPINNING FEET UNPLANTED . . .
(Speaking.)
I’m sorry. [Observation about the audience.] You’re all here to see Midsummer? [Reaction: Alright! / Cool. / Holy smokes!] Y’know, many scholars agree that Midsummer was written to celebrate a wedding. It’s designed as an offering, an entertainment, an examination of partnered love. The play shows us young love, old love (and everything in between) oppressed and misplaced love, love that’s freely given… But ultimately, it’s a play about love, which is a pretty swell wedding gift. I think this makes a really great wedding gift because it shows the new couple so many things they’ll experience throughout their lives together. [Who here is married? Who has a partner, etc.?]
[ACTOR/HELENA selects and interviews a couple to gather material for a song which she’ll write during the course of the show, and then perform at the show’s close.]
ACTOR/HELENA
I love hearing stories about love
(sings)
THERE’S A KNOCKING IN YOUR KNEES
IS IT LOVE OR A DISEASE
EITHER WAY YOU’VE GOT EVERY SYMPTOM OF
ALL THOSE WHO’VE BEEN ENCHANTED
HEAD SPINNING FEET UNPLANTED
WHO’VE EVER BEEN . . .
ACTOR/PHILOSTRATE [entering interrupts]
Excuse me, what are you doing?
[ad lib exchange with ACTOR/HELENA]
[they exit.]
ACT I, SCENE I
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, with Attendants.
THESEUS
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires.
HIPPOLYTA
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
Enter PHILOSTRATE
THESEUS
Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
[Exit PHILOSTRATE.]
Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,
And won thy love doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.
Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS.
EGEUS
Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!
THESEUS
Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?
EGEUS
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
This hath bewitch’d the bosom of my child,
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchang’d love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With faining voice verses of feigning love,
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, knacks, trifles:
With cunning hast thou filch’d my daughter’s heart;
Turn’d her obedience (which is due to me)
To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
Be it so she will not here, before your Grace,
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
As she is mine, I may dispose of her;
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia?
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
HERMIA
So is Lysander.
THESEUS
In himself he is;
But in this kind, wanting your father’s voice,
The other must be held the worthier.
HERMIA
I would my father look’d but with my eyes.
THESEUS
Rather your eyes must with his judgement look.
HERMIA
I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts,
But I beseech your Grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
THESEUS
Either to die the death, or to abjure
Forever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold-fruitless moon.
HERMIA
So will I choose, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship whose unwished yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
THESEUS
Take time to pause; and by the next new moon,
The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
For everlasting bond of fellowship,
Upon that day either prepare to die
For disobedience to your father’s will,
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,
Or on Diana’s altar to protest,
For aye, austerity and single life.
DEMETRIUS
Relent, sweet Hermia; and Lysander, yield
Thy crazed title to my certain right.
LYSANDER
You have her father’s love, Demetrius:
Let me have Hermia’s; do you marry him.
EGEUS
Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
And what is mine my love shall render him;
And she is mine, and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.
LYSANDER
I am, my lord, as well deriv’d as he,
As well possess’d; my love is more than his;
My fortunes every way as fairly rank’d,
If not with vantage, as Demetrius’;
And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am belov’d of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
And won her soul: and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
THESEUS
I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come,
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me:
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father’s will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?
Demetrius and Egeus, go along;
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial, and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGEUS
With duty and desire we follow you.
Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA.
LYSANDER
How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA
Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER
Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But either it was different in blood—
HERMIA
O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.
LYSANDER
Or else misgraffed in respect of years—
HERMIA
O spite! too old to be engag’d to young.
LYSANDER
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—
HERMIA
O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.
LYSANDER
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
(more)
LYSANDER (cont’d)
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And, ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’,
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA
If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,
It stands as an edict in destiny.
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
LYSANDER
A good persuasion; therefore hear me, Hermia.
I have a widow aunt, a dowager
Of great revenue, and she hath no child—
From Athens is her house remote seven leagues—
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lov’st me then,
Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town
(Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May),
There will I stay for thee.
HERMIA
My good Lysander
I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
By all the vows that ever men have broke
(In number more than ever women spoke),
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
LYSANDER
Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.
Enter HELENA.
HERMIA
God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
HELENA
Call you me fair? That fair again unsay!
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars, and your tongue’s sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching; O were favour so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go:
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I’d give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.
HERMIA
I frown upon him; yet he loves me still.
HELENA
O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
HERMIA
I give him curses; yet he gives me love.
HELENA
O that my prayers could such affection move!
HERMIA
The more I hate, the more he follows me.
HELENA
The more I love, the more he hateth me.
HERMIA
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
HELENA
None but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
HERMIA
Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me.
O then what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn’d a heaven unto a hell!
LYSANDER
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
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’ flights doth still conceal),
Through Athens’ gates have we devis’d 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.
Exit HERMIA.
LYSANDER
I will, my Hermia. Helena, adieu;
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
Exit LYSANDER.
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.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
(more)
HELENA (cont’d)
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind;
For, ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv’d and show’rs 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.
ACT I, SCENE II
Enter QUINCE, the Carpenter; SNUG, the Joiner; BOTTOM,
the Weaver; FLUTE, the Bellows-mender SNOUT, the Tinker;
and STARVELING, the Tailor.
QUINCE
Is all our company here?
BOTTOM
You were best to call them generally, part by part,
according to the script.
QUINCE
Here is the list of every artisan 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.
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 list.
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 storms, I will condole in some measure.
To the rest— yet my chief humour is for a tyrant.
I could play Hercles rarely, to make all split.
The raging rocks,
And shivering shocks,
Shall break the locks
Of prison-gates;
And Phibbus’ car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar the foolish fates
That was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is
Hercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein: a lover is more condoling.
(BOTTOM sings)
TO MAKE AND MAR THE FOOLISH FATES.
THE FOOLISH FOOLISH FATES. . .
QUINCE
Francis Flute, the bellows-mender?
FLUTE
Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
FLUTE
What is Thisbe? A wandering 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
And 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 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
And 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
That would hang us, every mother’s child.
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 and
‘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, gentleman-like 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.
Masters, here are your parts; and I am to entreat you
to learn them by tomorrow night, and meet me in the
palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight;
there will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we
shall be dogged with company, and our devices known.
In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as
our play wants. I pray you fail me not.
BOTTOM
We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely
and courageously.
QUINCE
At the Duke’s oak we meet.
BOTTOM
Take pains, be perfect. Adieu!
Exeunt.
ACT II, SCENE I
Enter PUCK.
[SONG]: FELL AND WRATH
PUCK [sings]
THE KING DOTH KEEP HIS REVELS HERE TONIGHT;
AND I HOPE THAT THE QUEEN COME NOT WITHIN HIS SIGHT; FOR THE KING IS PASSING FELL AND WRATH,
BECAUSE THAT SHE FOR ATTENDANT HATH
A LOVELY BOY, STOLEN FROM AN INDIAN KING—
SHE NEVER HAD SO SWEET A CHANGELIN
AND JEALOUS OBERON WOULD HAVE THE CHILD
KNIGHT OF HIS TRAIN, TO TRACE THE FOREST WILD:
BUT SHE WITHHOLDS THE LOVED BOY,
CROWNS HIM; MAKES HIM ALL HER JOY.
AND NOW THEY NEVER MEET IN GROVE OR GREEN,
BY FOUNTAIN FAIR OR SPANGLED STARLIGHT SHEEN,
Room fairies; here comes Oberon.
And here Titania.
Enter OBERON, and TITANIA.
OBERON
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence;
I have forsworn his bed and company.
OBERON
Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
TITANIA
Then I must be thy lady; but I know
When thou hast stol’n away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin, sat all day
Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
(MORE)
TITANIA (CONT’D)
Come from the farthest step of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity?
OBERON
How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou has disturb’d our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge have suck’d up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land
Hath every pelting river made so full
That they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard;
The human mortals want their winter cheer:
No night is now with hymn or carol blest.
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old winter’s thin and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set; the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
(MORE)
TITANIA (CONT’D)
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
OBERON
Do you amend it then: it lies in you.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.
TITANIA
Set your heart at rest:
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votress of my order;
And in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip’d by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
Marking th’embarked traders on the flood:
When we have laugh’d to see -the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following (her womb then rich with my young squire),
Would imitate, and sail upon the land
To fetch me trifles, and return again
As from a voyage rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy;
And for her sake I will not part with him.
OBERON
How long within this wood intend you stay?
TITANIA
Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
OBERON
Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
TITANIA
Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
Exeunt TITANIA and her Train.
OBERON
Well, go thy way; thou thy shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid’s music?
PUCK
I remember.
OBERON
That very time I saw (but thou couldst not),
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west,
And loos’d his love-shaft smartly from his bow
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial votress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound:
And maidens call it ‘love-in-idleness’.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I show’d thee once.
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
(more)
OBERON (CONT’D)
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK
I’ll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.
[Exit.]
OBERON
Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes:
The next thing then she waking looks upon
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape)
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight
(As I can take it with another herb)
I’ll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
And I will overhear their conference.
Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him.
DEMETRIUS
I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told’st me they were stol’n unto this wood;
And here am I, and wood within this wood
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
HELENA
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant—
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
DEMETRIUS
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
Or rather do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
HELENA
And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love—
And yet a place of high respect with me—
Than to be used as you use your dog?
DEMETRIUS
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
HELENA
And I am sick when I look not on you.
DEMETRIUS
You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not,
To trust the opportunity of night
And the ill counsel of a desert place
With the rich worth of your virginity.
HELENA
Your virtue is my privilege: for that
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world;
Then how can it be said I am alone,
When all the world is here to look on me?
DEMETRIUS
I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
HELENA
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will; the story shall be chang’d:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin, the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger-bootless speed,
When gentleness pursues and valour flies!
DEMETRIUS
I will not stay thy questions; let me go,
Or if thou follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
HELENA
Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo.
[Exit DEMETRIUS.]
I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
Exit.
OBERON
Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove
Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.
Enter PUCK.
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
PUCK
Ay, there it is.
OBERON
I pray thee give it me.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
PUCK
Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
Exeunt.
ACT II, SCENE II
Enter TITANIA, and Fairies. Ocarina Music.
[SONG]: FAIRY SONG
TITANIA
Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
Sing me now asleep; and let me rest.
FAIRIES (Sing in round)
SLEEP GENTLE QUEEN IN YOUR BOWER SERENE
ON THE COOL MOSSY GREEN AS YOU LAY.
SAFE MAY YOU DREAM FREE FROM WOE UNFORESEEN
TIL YOU WAKE WITH YOUR CARE BOURNE AWAY.
RAISE UP THE ORGANS OF HER FANTASY
SLEEP SHE AS SOUND AS CARELESS INFANCY
BUT THOSE AS SLEEP AND THINK NOT ON THEIR SINS
PINCH THEM, ARM LEG BACK SHOULDER SIDE AND SHINS.
FAIRY
Hence, away! Now all is well;
One aloof stand sentinel.
[Exeunt Fairies.]
Enter OBERON; He squeezes the juice on TITANIA’s eyelids.]
OBERON
What thou seest when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true love take;
In thy eye what shall appear
When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near.
[Exit.]
Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA.
LYSANDER
Fair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood,
And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way.
We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
HERMIA
Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
LYSANDER
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
HERMIA
Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.
LYSANDER
O take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
So that but one heart we can make of it:
Two bosoms interchained with an oath,
So then, two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
HERMIA
Lysander riddles very prettily.
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy,
Lie further off, in human modesty;
Such separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend:
Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!
LYSANDER
Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;
And then end life when I end loyalty!
Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest.
HERMIA
With half that wish the wisher’s eyes be press’d.
They sleep. Enter PUCK.
[SONG]: ALL THROUGH THE FOREST
PUCK
ALL THROUGH THE FOREST I HAVE GONE
ALL FOR MY CAPTAIN OBERON
TO FIND THAT SCORNFUL YOUTH
AND FILL HIS EYE WITH TRUTH
BUT UP AND DOWN AND ROUND AND AROUND
NOT ONE ATHENIAN I FOUND
TO TRY THE FLOWER’S JUICE
AND TURN ITS POWERS LOOSE.
YESTERDAY IS LIKE TOMORROW
IT NEVER ENDS WHEN YOU’RE IMMORTAL.
Night and silence-Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he my master said
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul, she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe:
When thou wak’st, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.
Exit.
Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA; running.
HELENA
Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius!
DEMETRIUS
I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
HELENA
O wilt thou in darkness leave me? Do not so.
DEMETRIUS
Stay, on thy peril; I alone will go.
Exit.
HELENA
O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies,
For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;
If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.
No, no; I am as ugly as a bear,
For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?
But who is here? Lysander, on the ground?
Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake!
LYSANDER [Waking.]
And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake!
Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
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 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 I love:
Who will not change a pidgeon for a dove?
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 refus’d,
Should of another therefore be abus’d!
Exit.
LYSANDER
She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there,
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
And, all my powers, address your love and might
To honour Helen, and to be her knight!
Exit.
HERMIA [Starting.]
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, remov’d? Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? Speak, and 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.
[TITANIA remains lying asleep.]
ACT III, SCENE I
[TITANIA still lying asleep.]
Enter QUINCE, BOTTOM, SNUG, 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 sayest 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 our lady, 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, 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 calendar! Look in the almanac; find out
moonshine, find out moonshine!
QUINCE
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
Someone or other must present Wall; and let them have
some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about
her, to signify wall; and let her hold her 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 every one according to his cue.
Enter PUCK [behind].
PUCK
What hempen homespuns have we swaggering 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
Thisbe, the flowers of odious savours sweet—
QUINCE
‘Odorous’! ‘odorous’!
BOTTOM
Odorous savours sweet;
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.
But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
And by and by I will to thee appear.
PUCK
A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here!
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
FLUTE
Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant briar,
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’.
FLUTE
O—As true as truest horse that yet would never tire.
Enter [PUCK, and] BOTTOM with the ass-head [on].
BOTTOM
If I were fair, Thisbe, I were only thine.
QUINCE
| O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted! Pray, masters! |
| Fly, masters! Help! |
BOTTOM
Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make
me afeard.
Enter SNOUT.
SNOUT
O Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on thee?
BOTTOM
What do you see? You ass-head?
[Exit SNOUT.]
Enter QUINCE.
QUINCE
Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.
Exit.
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.
[sings] [SONG]: BOTTOM’S SONG
THE OUSEL COCK, SO BLACK OF HUE
WITH ORANGE-TAWNY BILL.
THE DAPPLED THRUSH WITH NOTE SO TRUE
THE WREN WITH LITTLE QUILL.
TITANIA
What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
BOTTOM
THE FINCH, THE SPARROW, AND THE LARK,
THE PLAIN-SONG CUCKOO GRAY,
WHOSE NOTE FULL MANY MEN DOTH MARK
AND DARE NOT ANSWER NAY.
TITANIA
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:
Mine, ear is much enamour’d of thy note;
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM
Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that.
And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep
little company together nowadays.
The more the pity that some honest neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
TITANIA
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM
Not so neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
TITANIA
Out of this wood do not desire to go:
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate;
The summer still doth tend upon my state
And I do love thee: therefore go with me
I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee;
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep:
(more)
TITANIA (cont’d)
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so,
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
Come along with me; we’ll to my bower.
The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye,
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
Lamenting some enforced chastity.
Exeunt.
ACT III, SCENE II
Enter OBERON, King of Fairies.
OBERON
I wonder if Titania be awak’d;
Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
Which she must dote on in extremity.
Enter PUCK.
Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit?
What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
PUCK
My mistress with a monster is in love
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play
Intended for great Theseus’ nuptial day.
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented in their sport,
Forsook his scene, and enter’d in a brake,
When I did him at this advantage take:
An ass’s nole I fixed on his head.
Anon, his Thisbe must be answered,
And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy—
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;
And at our stamp, here o’er and o’er one falls;
He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.
I led them on in this distracted fear,
And left sweet Pyramus translated there;
When in that moment, so it came to pass,
Titania wak’d, and straightway lov’d an ass.
OBERON
This falls out better than I could devise.
But hast thou yet latch’d the Athenian’s eyes
With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?
PUCK
I took him sleeping—that is finish’d too—
And the Athenian woman by his side,
That when he wak’d, of force she must by ey’d.
Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA.
OBERON
Stand close: this is the same Athenian.
PUCK
This is the woman, but not this the man.
[They stand apart.]
DEMETRIUS
O why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
HERMIA
Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,
For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
Being o’er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
And kill me too.
The sun was not so true unto the day
As he to me. Would he have stol’n away
From sleeping Hermia?
It cannot be but thou hast murder’d him:
So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim.
DEMETRIUS
So should the murder’d look, and so should I,
Pierc’d through the heart with your stern cruelty;
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
HERMIA
What’s this to my Lysander? Where is he?
Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
DEMETRIUS
I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
HERMIA
Out, dog! Out, cur! Thou driv’st me past the bounds
Of maiden’s patience. Hast thou slain him then?
Henceforth be never number’d among men!
O once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!
Durst thou have look’d upon him, being awake,
And hast thou kill’d him sleeping? O brave touch!
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung!
DEMETRIUS
You spend your passion on a mispris’d mood:
I am not guilty of Lysander’s blood;
Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
HERMIA
I pray thee tell me then that he is well.
DEMETRIUS
And if I could, what should I get therefore?
HERMIA
A privilege, never to see me more.
And from thy hated presence part I so:
See me no more, whether he be dead or no.
Exit.
DEMETRIUS
There is no following her in this fierce vein;
Here therefore for a while I will remain.
So sorrow’s heaviness doth heavier go
For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe
Lies down and sleeps.
[OBERON and PUCK come forward.]
OBERON
What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,
And laid the love-juice on some true love’s sight;
About the wood go swifter than the wind,
And Helena of Athens look thou find;
All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer
With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear.
By some illusion see thou bring her here;
I’ll charm his eyes against she do appear.
PUCK
I go, I go, look how I go!
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.
Exit.
OBERON
Flower of this purple dye,
Hit with Cupid’s archery,
Sink in apple of his eye.
When he doth his love espy,
When thou wak’st, if she be by,
Beg of her for remedy.
Enter PUCK
PUCK
Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand;
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover’s fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
OBERON
Stand aside. The noise they make
Will cause Demetrius to awake.
PUCK
Then will two at once woo one:
That must needs be sport alone;
And those things do best please me
That befall prepost’rously.
[They stand aside. Enter LYSANDER and HELENA.]
[SONG]: QUARTET
WHY SHOULD YOU THINK THAT I SHOULD WOO IN SCORN?
SCORN AND DERISION NEVER COME IN TEARS.
OH LOOK WHEN I VOW, I WEEP; AND VOWS SO BORN,
IN THEIR NATIVITY ALL TRUTH APPEARS.
OH HOW CAN THESE THINGS IN ME SEEM SCORN TO YOU,
BEARING THE BADGE OF FAITH TO PROVE THEM TRUE?
HELENA
You do advance your cunning more and more.
These vows are Hermia’s: will you give her o’er?
Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,
Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.
LYSANDER
I had no judgement when to her I swore.
HELENA
Nor none, to my mind, now you give her o’er.
LYSANDER
Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
DEMETRIUS (Waking, sings)
O HELEN, GODDESS, NYMPH, PERFECT, DIVINE!
TO WHAT, MY LOVE, SHALL I COMPARE THINE EYNE?
CRYSTAL IS MUDDY. O HOW RIPE IN SHOW
THY LIPS, THOSE KISSING CHERRIES, TEMPTING GROW
HELENA
O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment.
If you were civil, and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show,
You would not use a gentle lady so:
To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
And now both rival to mock Helena.
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
With your derision! None of noble sort
Would so offend a virgin, and extort
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.
LYSANDER (sings)
YOU ARE UNKIND, DEMETRIUS; BE NOT SO,
FOR YOU LOVE HERMIA; THIS YOU KNOW I KNOW:
AND HERE, WITH ALL GOOD WILL, WITH ALL MY HEART,
IN HERMIA’S LOVE I YIELD YOU UP MY PART;
And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
Whom I do love, and will do til my death.
HELENA
Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
DEMETRIUS
Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.
If ere I lov’d her, all that love is gone.
LYSANDER
Helen, it is not so.
DEMETRIUS
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
Lest to thy peril thou pay it dear.
Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.
Enter HERMIA.
HERMIA
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
LYSANDER
Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
HERMIA
What love could press Lysander from my side?
LYSANDER
Lysander’s love, that would not let him bide—
Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
Than all yon fiery stars and eyes of light.
Why seek’st thou me? Could not this make thee know
The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?
HERMIA
You speak not as you think; it cannot be!
HELENA
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoin’d all three
To fashion this false sport in spite of me.
Injurious Hermia! Most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspir’d, have you with these contriv’d,
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shar’d,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—O, is all forgot?
All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
(more)
HELENA (sings)
BOTH WARBLING OF ONE SONG, BOTH IN ONE KEY,
AS IF OUR HANDS, OUR SIDES, VOICES AND MINDS,
HAD BEEN INCORPORATE. SO WE GREW TOGETHER,
LIKE TO A DOUBLE CHERRY, SEEMING PARTED,
BUT YET AN UNION IN PARTITION,
HERMIA AND HELENA (sing)
TWO LOVELY BERRIES MOULDED ON ONE STEM;
SO, WITH TWO SEEMING BODIES, BUT ONE HEART;
HELENA
And will you rend our ancient love asunder
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, ‘tis not maidenly;
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.
HERMIA
I am amazed at your passionate words:
I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.
HELENA
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
To follow me, and praise my eyes and face;
And made your other love, Demetrius,
Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,
Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
And tender me, forsooth, affection,
But by your setting on, by your consent?
HERMIA
I understand not what you mean by this.
HELENA
Ay, do! Persever: counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up;
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
You would not make me such an argument.
But fare ye well; ‘tis partly my own fault,
Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.
LYSANDER
Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;
(sings)
MY LOVE, MY LIFE, MY SOUL, FAIR HELENA
HELENA
O excellent!
HERMIA
Sweet, do not scorn her so
DEMETRIUS
If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
LYSANDER
Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.
Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;
I swear by that which I will lose for thee
To prove him false that says I love thee not.
DEMETRIUS
I say I love thee more than he can do.
LYSANDER
If thou say so, withdraw and prove it too.
DEMETRIUS
Quick, come!
HERMIA
Lysander, whereto tends all this?
LYSANDER
Away, you clinging vine!
DEMETRIUS
No, no; he’ll
Seem to break loose—
[To LYSANDER.]
take on as you would follow,
But yet come not! You are a tame man, go!
LYSANDER
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose,
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.
HERMIA
Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,
Sweet love?
LYSANDER
Thy love? Out, monstrous creature, out!
Out, loathed medicine! O hated potion, hence.
HERMIA
Do you not jest?
HELENA
Yes sooth, and so do you.
LYSANDER
Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
DEMETRIUS
I would I had your bond, for I perceive
A weak bond holds you; I’ll not trust your word.
LYSANDER
What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.
WHAT CAN YOU DO ME GREATER HARM THAN HATE?
HATE ME? WHEREFORE? O ME! WHAT NEWS, MY LOVE?
Am I not Hermia? Are you not Lysander?
I AM AS FAIR NOW AS I EVER WAS.
SINCE NIGHT YOU LOVED ME; YET SINCE NIGHT YOU LEFT ME.
WHY, THEN YOU LEFT ME. YOU LEFT ME.
O the gods forbid!
In earnest, shall I say?
LYSANDER
Ay, by my life!
And never do desire to see thee more.
Therefore, be out of hope, of question, of doubt;
Be certain, nothing truer; ‘tis no jest
That I do hate thee, and love Helena.
HERMIA
O me!
[To HELENA.]
You juggler! You canker-blossom!
You thief of love! What, have you come by night
And stol’n my love’s heart from him?
HELENA
Fine, i’faith!
Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear
Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie, you counterfeit! You puppet you!
HERMIA
‘Puppet’! Why, so? Ay, that way goes the game!
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urg’d her height;
And with her personage, her tall personage,
(more)
HERMIA (cont’d)
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail’d with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem
Because I am so meager and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak:
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
HELENA
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.
HERMIA
‘Lower’? Hark, again!
HELENA
Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
I evermore did love you, Hermia,
Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong’d you,
Save- that, in love unto Demetrius,
I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
He follow’d you; for love I follow’d him;
But he hath chid me hence, and threaten’d me
To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too:
And now, so you will let me quiet go,
To Athens-will I bear my folly back,
And follow you no further. Let me go:
You see how simple and how fond I am.
HERMIA
Why, get you gone! Who is’t that hinders you?
HELENA
A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
HERMIA
What! with Lysander?
HELENA
With Demetrius.
LYSANDER
Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.
DEMETRIUS
No sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
HELENA (sings)
O, WHEN SHE IS ANGRY, SHE IS KEEN AND SHREWD;
SHE WAS A VIXEN WHEN WE WENT TO SCHOOL,
AND THOUGH SHE BE BUT LITTLE, SHE IS FIERCE.
‘LITTLE’ AGAIN? NOTHING BUT ‘LOW’ AND ‘LITTLE’!
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her!
LYSANDER
Get you gone, you smidge;
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn.
DEMETRIUS
Let her alone; speak not for Helena;
Take not her part; for if thou dost intend
Never so little show of love to her,
Thou shalt pay for it.
LYSANDER
Now she holds me not:
Now follow, if thou dar’st, to try whose right,
Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
DEMETRIUS
Follow? Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl.
Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS.
HERMIA
You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.
Nay, go not back.
HELENA
I will not trust you, I,
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray:
My legs are longer though, to run away.
Exit.
HERMIA
I am amaz’d, and know not what to say.
Exit.
PART TW O
Enter the LOVERS as before. OBERON and PUCK from above. The LOVERS recap the final moments of Part One as an up-tempo
HERMIA
I am amaz’d, and know not what to say.
OBERON and PUCK come forward.
OBERON
This is thy negligence: still thou mistak’st,
Or else committ’st thy knaveries wilfully.
PUCK
Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me I should know the man
By the Athenian garments he had on?
And so far blameless proves my enterprise
That I have ‘nointed an Athenian’s eyes:
And so far am I glad it so did sort,
As this their jangling I esteem a sport.
OBERON
Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
The starry welkin cover thou anon
With drooping fog, as black as Acheron,
And lead these testy rivals so astray
As one come not within another’s way.
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius:
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
Till o’er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye,
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his might,
(more)
OBERON (cont’d)
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
With league whose date till death shall never end.
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
I’ll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;
And then I will her charmed eye release
From monster’s view, and all things shall be peace.
PUCK
My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
For night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;
And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger,
At whose approach, ghosts wandering here and there
Already to their wormy beds are gone,
For fear lest day should look their shames upon.
OBERON
But we are spirits of another sort:
I with the Morning’s love have oft made sport.
But notwithstanding, haste, make no delay;
We may effect this business yet ere day.
[Exit.]
PUCK
Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down;
Here comes one.
Enter LYSANDER.
LYSANDER
Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.
PUCK
Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?
LYSANDER
I will be with thee straight.
PUCK
Follow me then
To plainer ground.
[Exit LYSANDER, as following the voice.]
Enter DEMETRIUS.
DEMETRIUS
Lysander, speak again.
Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
PUCK
Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars,
And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come thou child!
I’ll whip thee with a rod; he is defil’d
That draws a sword on thee.
DEMETRIUS
Yea, art thou there?
PUCK
Follow my voice; we’ll try no manhood here.
Exeunt.
[Enter LYSANDER.]
LYSANDER
He goes before me, and still dares me on;
When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
The villain is much lighter-heel’d than I:
I follow’d fast; but faster he did fly,
That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
And here will rest me:
(more)
LYSANDER (cont’d)
Come thou gentle day:
For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
I’ll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite. [Sleeps.]
Enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS.
PUCK
Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com’st thou not?
They dodge about the stage.
DEMETRIUS
Abide me if thou dar’st, for well I know
Thou runn’st before me, shifting every place,
And dar’st not stand, nor look me in the face.
Where art thou now?
PUCK
Come hither; I am here.
DEMETRIUS
Nay, then, thou mock’st me; thou shalt buy this dear
If ever I thy face by daylight see:
Now go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
To measure out my length on this cold bed.
[Lies down.]
By day’s approach look to be visited.
[Sleeps.]
Enter HELENA.
HELENA
O weary night, O long and tedious night,
Abate thy hours! Shine, comforts, from the east,
That I may back to Athens by daylight,
From these that my poor company detest.
And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye,
Steal me awhile from mine own company. [Lies down and sleeps]
PUCK
Yet but three? Come one more,
All the lovestruck makes up four.
Here she comes, curst and sad:
Cupid is a knavish lad
Thus to make poor females mad!
Enter HERMIA.
HERMIA
Never so weary, never so in woe,
Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briars,
I can no further crawl, no further go;
My legs can keep no pace with my desires.
Here will I rest me till the break of day.
[Lies down.]
Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!
[Sleeps.]
ACT IV, SCENE I
LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and
HERMIA still lying asleep.
Enter TITANIA, Queen of Fairies, BOTTOM; and other Fairies; OBERON, the King, behind [unseen].
COME SIT THEE DOWN UPON THIS FLOWERY BED,
WHILE I THY BLUSHING CHEEKS DO COY,
AND STICK MUSK-ROSES IN THY SLEEK SMOOTH HEAD,
AND KISS THY FAIR LARGE EARS, MY GENTLE JOY.
What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
BOTTOM
I have a reasonable good ear in music.
TITANIA
Or say, sweet Jove, what thou desir’st to eat?
BOTTOM
Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry
oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay:
good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
TITANIA
I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
BOTTOM
I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas.
But I pray you, let none of your people stir me:
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
TITANIA
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms
Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away
(more)
[Exeunt Fairies.]
TITANIA (cont’d)
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
(sings)
COME SIT THEE DOWN UPON THIS FLOWERY BED
WHILE I THY BLUSHING CHEEKS DO COY
AND STICK MUSK ROSES IN THY SLEEK SMOOTH HEAD
AND KISS THY FAIR LARGE EARS, MY GENTLY JOY
O how I love thee! How I dote on thee!
[They sleep.] Enter PUCK.
OBERON
[Advancing.]
Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?
Her dotage now I do begin to pity;
For, meeting her of late behind the wood
Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her:
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers.
When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
And she in mild terms begg’d my patience,
I then did ask of her changeling child;
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
And now I have the boy, I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
From off the head of this Athenian swain,
That he awaking when the other do,
May all to Athens back again repair,
And think no more of this night’s accidents
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
But first I will release the fairy queen.
[Squeezes the juice on her eyelids.]
(more)
OBERON (cont’d)
Be as thou wast wont to be;
See as thou wast wont to see:
Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
Now my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
TITANIA [Waking.]
My Oberon! What visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour’d of an ass.
OBERON
There lies your love.
TITANIA
How came these things to pass?
O how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
OBERON
Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
Titania, music call; and strike more dead
Than common sleep, of all these five the sense.
TITANIA
Music ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!
PUCK
[Taking the ass-head off BOTTOM.]
Now when thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.
OBERON
Ah! Music! Come my queen, take hands with me,
Now thou and I are new in amity,
And will to-morrow midnight, solemnly,
Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly.
And bless it to all fair prosperity.
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
PUCK
Fairy king, attend and mark:
I do hear the morning lark.
OBERON
Then my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after night’s shade:
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wandering moon.
TITANIA
Come my lord, and in our flight
Tell me how it came this night
That I sleeping here was found
With these mortals on the ground.
Exeunt. The four lovers and BOTTOM still lie asleep.
PUCK (sings) PUCKETTES
ON THE GROUND SLEEPING SOUND
TO YOUR EYE I’LL APPLY
THIS GENTLE REMEDY.
WHEN YOU WAKE YOU WILL TAKE OO-OO-OO-OO
TRUE DELIGHT IN THE SIGHT
OF YOUR SWEET LADY’S EYE.
THERE’S ONLY ONE CURE THIS IS IT ONLY ONE CURE
IT JUST TAKES A WEE LITTLE BIT
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE BOY
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE
PUCKETTES
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE BOY
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE
PUCK PUCKETTES
WHEN YOU WAKE UP YOU WILL ADORE
THE ONE YOU HAVE FORSAKEN AH-AH
I KNOW I DOSED YOU ONCE BEFORE
BUT I WAS MISTAKEN TAKEN
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE BOY
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE
PUCKETTES
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE BOY
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE
PUCK PUCKETTES
IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU TRY AH-AH-AH-AH-AH
TO RUN AWAY AND HIDE
OH NO YOU KNOW THAT
LOVE’LL COME AND HIT YA
KNOCK YOU DOWN AND GET YA
ONCE THE JUICE HAS BEEN APPLIED
ALL
BEEN APPLI-I-IED
(Helena tap dance break)
PUCK PUCKETTES
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE BOY
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE JUICE JUICE JUICE
ALL
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE BOY
YOU’RE GOING TO GET THE JUICE
PUCK and PUCKETTES
FOOLS WHAT FOOLS
LOVERS
WHAT FOOLS WE MORTALS BE GONNA TO GET THE
PUCK and PUCKETTES PUCKETTES
FOOLS WHAT FOOLS
LOVERS
WHAT FOOLS WE MORTALS BE GONNA TO GET THE
PUCK and PUCKETTES
JUICE JUICE
WHAT FOOLS THESE MORTALS BE (repeat chorus x2)
PUCK & PUCKETTES
YOU’RE GOING TO GET
YOU’RE GOING TO GET
YOU’RE GOING TO GET
PUCK
THE JUICE
PUCK applies juice. Exit PUCK.
THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and TRAIN enter.
EGEUS
My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,
And this Lysander; this Demetrius is,
This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena.
I wonder of their being here together.
THESEUS
No doubt they rose up early, to observe
The rite of May; and hearing our intent,
Came here in grace of our solemnity.
But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
EGEUS
It is, my lord.
The lovers wake and start up.
THESEUS
Good-morrow friends. Saint Valentine is past:
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
LYSANDER
Pardon, my lord.
THESEUS
I pray you all, stand up.
I know you two are rival enemies:
How comes this gentle concord in the world?
LYSANDER
My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
But as I think—for truly would I speak—
And now I do bethink me, so it is:
I came with Hermia hither; our intent
Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
Without the peril of the Athenian law—
EGEUS
Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough!
I beg the law, the law upon his head!
They would have stol’n away, they would, Demetrius,
Thereby to have defeated you and me:
You of your wife, and me of my consent,
Of my consent that she should be your wife.
DEMETRIUS
My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither follow’d them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.
But my good lord, I know not by what power—
But by some power it is—my love to Hermia,
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
(more)
DEMETRIUS (cont’d)
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betroth’d ere I saw Hermia;
But like a sickness did I loathe this food:
But as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now I do love her, long for her,
And will for evermore be true to her.
THESEUS
Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;
Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
Egeus, I will overbear your will;
For in the temple, by and by, with us,
These couples shall eternally be knit.
And, for the morning now is something worn,
Away, with us, to Athens: three and three,
We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.
Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and Train.
DEMETRIUS
These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
HERMIA
Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
When everything seems double.
HELENA
So methinks;
And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
Mine own, and not mine own.
DEMETRIUS
Are you sure
That we are awake? 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 did bid us follow to the temple.
DEMETRIUS
Why then, we are awake: let’s follow him,
And by the way let us recount our dreams.
Exeunt
BOTTOM
[Waking.]
When my cue comes, call me and I will answer. My next
is ‘Most fair Pyramus’. Heigh-ho! Peter Quince? Flute?
Snout, the tinker? Starveling? God’s my
life! Stolen hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most
rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about
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 fool if he will offer to say
what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard,
the ear of man hath not 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 Dream’,
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter
end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it
the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
Exit.
ACT IV, SCENE II
Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.
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, doth it?
QUINCE
It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.
FLUTE
No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.
QUINCE
Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour
for a sweet voice.
FLUTE
You must say paragon. A paramour is, God bless us, a thing
of naught.
Enter SNUG the Joiner.
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 rich.
FLUTE
O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day
during his life; he could not have ‘scaped sixpence a day.
And 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.
Enter BOTTOM.
BOTTOM
Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
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 not true Athenian. I will tell
you everything, right as it fell out.
QUINCE
Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
BOTTOM
Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the Duke
hath dined. Get your apparel together, new ribbons to
your pumps; meet presently
at the palace; every one look o’er your part: for the short
and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let
Thisbe have clean linen; and let not him that plays the
lion pare 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!
Exeunt.
ACT V, SCENE I
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA; Lords and Attendants,
among them PHILOSTRATE.
HIPPOLYTA
‘Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
THESEUS
More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in the dunes of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
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, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos’d a bear!
HIPPOLYTA
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy’s images
And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
Enter the lovers: LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS,
HERMIA, and HELENA.
THESEUS
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love
Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER
And so to you, my lord!
THESEUS
Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
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 Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE [Advancing.]
Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS
Say, what abridgement have you for this evening,
How shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight?
PHILOSTRATE
There is a brief how many sports are ripe:
Make choice of which your Highness will see first
[Giving a paper.]
THESEUS [Reads.]
‘The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp’?
We’ll none of that.
[Reads.]
‘The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage’?
That is an old device, and it was play’d
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
(more)
THESEUS (cont’d) [Reads.]
A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth’?
Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?
That is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow!
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
PHILOSTRATE
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.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is,
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself;
Which; when I saw rehears’d, 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?
PHILOSTRATE
Hard-handed folk that work in Athens here,
Which never labour’d in their minds till now;
And now have toil’d their unbreath’d memories
With this same play, against your nuptial.
THESEUS
And we will hear it.
PHILOSTRATE
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 stretch’d and conn’d with cruel pain
To do you service.
THESEUS
I will hear that play;
For never anything can be amiss
When simpleness and duty tender it.
Go bring them in; and take your places, lovers.
[Exit PHILOSTRATE.]
HIPPOLYTA
I love not to see wretchedness o’er-charg’d.
THESEUS
Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
HIPPOLYTA
He says they can do nothing in this kind.
THESEUS
The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis’d accent in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most, to my capacity.
[Enter PHILOSTRATE.]
PHILOSTRATE
So please your grace, the Prologue is address’d.
THESEUS
Let him approach.
Enter QUINCE for the Prologue.
QUINCE
If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then, we come but in despite.
We do not come, as minding to content you,
Our true intent is. All for your delight,
We are not here. That you should here repent you,
The actors are at hand; and by their show,
You shall know all, that you are like to know.
THESEUS
His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired,
but all disordered. Who is next?
Enter [BOTTOM as] PYRAMUS, [FLUTE as] THISBE, [SNOUT as] WALL, [STARVELING as] MOONSHINE, and [SNUG as] LION.
BOTTOM (sings)
GENTLES, PERCHANCE YOU WONDER AT THIS SHOW;
BUT WONDER ON, TILL TRUTH MAKE ALL THINGS PLAIN.
QUINCE
THIS MAN IS PYRAMUS, IF YOU WOULD KNOW;
BOTTOM AND QUINCE
THIS BEAUTEOUS LADY THISBE IS HER NAME.
FLUTE
MY NAME IS THISBE.
QUINCE
SHE HERE WITH TIME AND ROUGHCAST DOTH PRESENT
SNOUT
I DOTH PRESENT
QUINCE
THAT VILE WALL
BOTTOM
THAT WALL
BOTTOM AND QUINCE
WHICH DID THESE LOVERS SUNDER
BOTTOM, QUINCE, STARVELING, AND SNOUT
AND THROUGH WALL’S CHINK,
POOR SOULS, THEY ARE CONTENT
ALL
TO WHISPER, WHISPER
QUINCE
THIS LADY WITH HER DOG AND BUSH OF THORN
STARVELING
THIS BUSH OF THORN
QUINCE
PRESENTETH MOONSHINE; FOR, IF YOU WILL KNOW,
STARVELING AND SNOUT
WE KNOW IN SOOTH
ALL
BY MOONSHINE DID THESE LOVERS THINK NO SCORN
TO MEET AT NINUS’ TOMB AND THERE TO WOO.
STARVELING
THIS GRIZZLY BEAST, WHICH LION HIGHT BY NAME,
SNUG
ROAR.
SNOUT
THE TRUSTY THISBE, COMING FIRST BY NIGHT
SNUG
ROAR.
STARVELING
DID SCARE AWAY, OR RATHER DID AFFRIGHT;
SNUG
ROAR.
STARVELING AND SNOUT
AND AS SHE FLED, HER MANTLE SHE DID FALL,
SNUG
ROAR.
STARVELING AND SNOUT
WHICH LION VILE WITH BLOODY MOUTH DID STAIN.
SNUG
ROAR.
BOTTOM
ANON COMES PYRAMUS, SWEET YOUTH AND TALL.
ALL
AND FINDS HIS TRUSTY THISBE’S MANTLE SLAIN
SNUG
WHEREAT WITH BLADE, WITH BLOODY BLAMEFUL BLADE, HE BRAVELY BROACH’D HIS BOILING BLOODY BREAST;
MECHANICALS
(THROUGHOUT ABOVE)
BLADE, BLAME, BRAVE, BOIL, BREAST
SNUG
ROAR.
FLUTE
AND THISBE,
ALL
TARRYING IN MULBERRY SHADE, HIS DAGGER DREW, AND DIED.
BOTTOM
FOR ALL THE REST.
QUINCE
LET LION, MOONSHINE, WALL, AND LOVERS TWAIN
AT LARGE DISCOURSE,
ALL
WHILE HERE THEY DO REMAIN.
Exeunt PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBE, LION, and MOONSHINE.
THESEUS
I wonder if the lion be to speak?
DEMETRIUS
No wonder, my lord; one lion may when many asses do
SNOUT
In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall as I would have you think
That had in it a crannied hole, or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,
Did whisper often, very secretly.
I AM THAT WALL
THAT TRUTH IS SO
THIS LOAM, ROUGH-CAST, AND STONE DO SHOW
MAKE ME A DOOR TO OPEN WIDE
AND LET LOVE IN FROM EITHER SIDE
I AM THAT WALL.
THESEUS
Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
HELENA
It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse,
my lord.
Enter PYRAMUS.
LYSANDER
Pyramus draws near the wall; silence!
PYRAMUS
O grim-look’d night! O night with hue so black!
O night, which ever art when day is not!
O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,
I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot!
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
That stand’st between her father’s ground and mine;
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
[WALL stretches out her fingers.]
Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.
O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,
Curs’d be thy stones for deceiving me!
THESEUS
The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
PYRAMUS
No, in truth sir, she should not. ‘Deceiving me’ is Thisbe’s
cue: she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through
the wall. You shall see it will fall pat as I told you: yonder
she comes.
Enter THISBE.
THISBE
O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
PYRAMUS
I see a voice; now will I to the chink,
To spy and I can hear my Thisbe’s face.
Thisbe?
THISBE
My love thou art, my love I think!
PYRAMUS
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace;
O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
THISBE
I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
PYRAMUS
Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
QUINCE
NINUS!
THISBE
‘Tide life, ‘tide death, I come without delay.
Exeunt PYRAMUS and THISBE [, severally].
WALL
Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
(Sings.)
I AM THAT WALL.
Exit
HIPPOLYTA
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THESEUS
The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst
are no worse, if imagination amend them.
HIPPOLYTA
It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
THESEUS
If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves,
they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble
beasts in, a woman and a lion.
Enter LION and MOONSHINE.
LION
You ladies, you whose gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
But know that I as Snug the joiner do
Only pretend to play a lion fierce.
THESEUS
A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
It is well: let us listen to the moon.
THIS LANTERN DOTH THE HORNED MOON PRESENT—
DEMETRIUS
She should have worn the horns on her head.
MOON
THIS LANTERN DOTH THE HORNED MOON PRESENT;
MYSELF THE MAN I’TH’ MOON DO SEEM TO BE.
HELENA
This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should
be put into the lantern. How is it else the Man i’the Moon?
HIPPOLYTA
I am a weary of this moon. Would she would change!
HERMIA
It appears by her small light of discretion that she is in the wane; but yet in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay
the time.
LYSANDER
Proceed, Moon.
MOON
All that I have to say is, to tell you that the lantern is
the moon; I the Man i’th’ Moon; this thorn-bush my
thorn-bush; and this dog my dog.
HELENA
Why, all these should be in the lantern, for all these are
in the moon.
HERMIA
But silence: here comes Thisbe.
Enter THISBE.
THISBE
This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?
LION
ROAR—!
THISBE [, dropping her mantle,] runs off.
DEMETRIUS
Well roared, Lion!
LYSANDER
Well run, Thisbe!
HIPPOLYTA
Well shone, Moon! Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.
HERMIA
Well moused, Lion!
DEMETRIUS
And then came Pyramus—
HELENA
And so the lion vanished.
Enter PYRAMUS.
PYRAMUS
Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.
But stay! O spite!
But mark, poor knight,
What dreadful dole is here?
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck! O dear!
Thy mantle good,
What! Stain’d with blood?
Approach, ye furies fell!
O fates, come, come!
Cut thread and thrum:
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.
THESEUS
This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man feel sad.
HIPPOLYTA
Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
O WHEREFORE, NATURE, DIDST THOU LIONS FRAME,
SINCE LION HATH HERE DEFLOWER’D MY DEAR?
WHICH IS—NO, NO—WHICH WAS THE FAIREST DAME
THAT LIV’D, THAT LOV’D, THAT LIK’D,
THAT LOOK’D WITH CHEER.
COME TEARS, CONFOUND
OUT SWORD, AND WOUND
THE PAP OF PYRAMUS;
AY, THAT LEFT PAP,
WHERE HEART DOTH HOP:
THUS DIE I, THUS, THUS, THUS!
NOW I AM DEAD,
NOW I AM FLED;
MY SOUL IS IN THE SKY.
TONGUE, LOSE THY LIGHT;
MOON, TAKE THY FLIGHT!
NOW DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE.
HIPPOLYTA
How chance Moonshine is gone, before Thisbe comes
back and finds her lover?
THESEUS
She will find him by starlight.
Enter THISBE.
HERMIA
Here she comes, and her passion ends the play.
LYSANDER
She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
ASLEEP, MY LOVE?
WHAT, DEAD, MY DOVE?
O PYRAMUS, ARISE!
SPEAK, SPEAK! QUITE DUMB?
DEAD, DEAD? A TOMB
MUST COVER THY SWEET EYES.
THESE LILY LIPS,
THIS CHERRY NOSE,
THESE YELLOW COWSLIP CHEEKS,
ARE GONE, ARE GONE
LOVERS, MAKE MOAN;
HIS EYES WERE GREEN AS LEEKS.
O SISTERS THREE,
COME, COME TO ME,
WITH HANDS AS PALE AS MILK;
LAY THEM IN GORE,
SINCE YOU HAVE SHORE
WITH SHEARS HIS THREAD OF SILK.
TONGUE, NOT A WORD:
COME, TRUSTY SWORD,
COME, BLADE, MY BREAST IMBRUE!
AND FAREWELL, FRIENDS;
THUS THISBE ENDS:
ADIEU, ADIEU, ADIEU!
[Dies.]
HELENA
Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
DEMETRIUS
Ay, and Wall too.
BOTTOM
No, I assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers.
[FLUTE rises.]
Will it please you to see an epilogue, or to hear a dance
between some of our company?
THESEUS
No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.
Never excuse. Let your epilogue alone.
[MECHANICALS bow and exit]
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
Lovers, to bed; ‘tis almost fairy time.
I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn
As much as we this night have overwatch’d.
This palpable-gross play hath well beguil’d
The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
A fortnight hold we this solemnity
In nightly revels and new jollity.
Enter PUCK.
PUCK
Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic: not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house.
Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
We will sing, and bless this place.
(more)
SONG: SOMEBODY’S DREAMING
PUCK (sings)
SOON MUST COME THE BREAK OF DAY
PUCK & OTHERS (as they enter)
MOONLIGHT SHADOWS FADE AWAY
AND WHERE’S THAT DREAM YOU HELD SO TIGHT
GONE LIKE MIST IN MORNING’S EARLY LIGHT
SO YOU PRAY FOR THE NIGHT TO RETURN
TAKE AWAY EVERY CARE AND CONCERN
LET YOU DREAM ONCE AGAIN
JUST LIKE BACK THEN BUT RECALL
DAY WILL END, NIGHT WILL FALL
ALL
SOON YOU WILL BE DREAMING
THAT SAME FEELING WILL COME STEALING O’ER YOUR EYES
AND WHILE YOU’RE SLEEPING
I WILL FOLLOW WHERE YOU WANDER
SURE AS SUMMER FOLLOWS SPRING
DON’T BE SURPRISED
WHEN DAWN COMES CREEPING
IF YOU GO ON DREAMING EVEN WHEN THE NIGHT IS THROUGH
ACTOR/HELENA
JUST SMILE FOR SOMEONE’S DREAMING OF YOU
[ACTOR/HELENA sings the “song gift” which she’s written for the audience couple who were interviewed during the PRLOLOGUE. The printed copy is then passed back to the couple.]
PUCK [To the audience, as music continues.]
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call.
So, goodnight unto you all.
ACTOR/HELENA (sings)
IF YOU GO ON DREAMING EVEN WHEN THE NIGHT IS THROUGH
ALL
JUST SMILE AND GO ON DREAMING
NEVER STOP BELIEVING
JUST SMILE ‘CAUSE SOMEONE’S DREAMING OF YOU.
PUCK
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.