Page images
PDF
EPUB

Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.

Lrs. And run through fire I will, for thy sweet sake.
Transparent Helena! Nature shows her arta,

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!
HEL. 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.
Lys. 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 of man is by his reason sway'd:
And reason says you are the worthier maid.
Things growing are not ripe until their season;
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
And leads me to your eyes; where I o'erlook
Love's stories, written in love's richest book.
HEL. 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!

Lys. She sees not Hermia:-Hermia, sleep thou there;
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!

For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things

The deepest loathing to the stomach brings;
Or, as the heresies that men do leave
Are hated most of those they did deceive;
So thou, my surfeit, and my heresy,

Of all be hated; but the most of me!

[Waking.

[Exit.

• Nature shows her art. The quartos read, "Nature shows art;" the folio, "Nature her shows art." This is clearly a typographical error; and we agree, with Malone, that "Nature shows her art" is more probably a genuine reading than "Nature here shows art," which is the received one. Now is found in the folio, and in Roberts's quarto. In Fisher's quarto the emphatic now is omitted; and it is held that it can only be retained "to the injury of the metre."

And all my powers address your love and might

To honour Helen, and to be her knight.

[Exit.

HER. [starting.] Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best,

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!

Ah 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, an if you hear;
Speak, of all lovesa; I swoon almost with fear.
No?-then I well perceive you are not nigh:

Either death, or you, I'll find immediately.

[ocr errors]

[Exit.

⚫ Of all loves. We have this phrase in 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' and in 'Othello.'

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]
[graphic][ocr errors]

["I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid."]

ACT III.

SCENE I.-The Wood. The Queen of Fairies lying asleep.

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.

BOT. Are we all met?

QUIN. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal : This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tyring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the duke.

Bor. Peter Quince,

QUIN. What say'st thou, bully Bottom?

Bor. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby' that will never

please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

b

SNOUT. By 'rlakin, a parlous fear.

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

BOT. 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.

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

BOT. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

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

STAR. I fear it, I promise you.

15

BOT. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in, God shield us! a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing15: for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion, living; and we ought to look to it.

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

Bor. 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 16.

QUIN. 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 Thisby meet by moonlight.

[ocr errors]

SNUG. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

BOT. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine", find out moonshine.

QUIN. Yes, it doth shine that night.

BOT. 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.

QUIN. 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 Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall. SNUG. You can never bring in a wall.-What say you, Bottom? Bor. Some man or other must present wall: and let him have some plaster, or some lome, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; or let him hold

[blocks in formation]

his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

QUIN. 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.

QUIN. Speak, Pyramus :-Thisby, stand forth.

PYR. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet.

[blocks in formation]

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
But, hark, a voice! stay thou but here a while,
And by and by I will to thee appear.

PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er play'd here!

THIS. Must I speak now?

[Exit. [Aside.-Exit.

QUIN. Ay, marry, must you: for you must understand he goes but to see

a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

THIS. 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,

As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.

QUIN. 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.

Re-enter PUCK, and ВоттOм with an ass's head.

THIS. 0,-As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
PYR. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine :—

QUIN. O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted.
Pray, masters! fly, masters! help!

PUCK. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,

[Exeunt Clowns.

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;

Quince's description of Bottom going "to see a noise" is akin to Sir Toby Belch's notion of

[ocr errors][merged small]

to hear by the nose." (Twelfth Night,' Act II., Scene 3.)

VOL. I.

GG

« PreviousContinue »