ACT III. SCENE I. The Wood. TITANIA 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 'tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke. Bot. Peter Quince, Quin. What say'st thou, bully Bottom? Bot. 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 fear.1 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 kill'd 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.2 1 By'r lakin is a diminutive of by'r Lady, which, again, is a contraction of by our Lady, an old oath of frequent occurrence in these plays; Lady meaning the Virgin Mary. Parlous is a corruption of perilous. 2 In alternate verses of eight and six syllables. 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. Bot. 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 than your lion living; and we ought to look to it. Snout. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion. Bot. 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 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.3 you, - 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 Thisbe meet by moonlight. 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. 3 Shakespeare may here allude to an incident said to have occurred in his time, which is recorded in a collection entitled Merry Passages and Jests: "There was a spectacle presented to Queen Elizabeth upon the water, and among others Harry Goldingham was to represent Arion upon the Dolphin's backe; but finding his voice to be verye hoarse and unpleasant when he came to perform it, he tears off his disguise, and swears he was none of Arion, not he, but even honest Harry Goldenham; which blunt discoverie pleased the queen better than if he had gone through in the right way: - yet he could order his voice to an instrument exceeding well.' 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 Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wail. Snug. You can never bring in a wall. Bottom? What say you, Bot. Some man or other must present wall: and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe 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 home-spuns have we swaggering here, So near the cradle of the fairy Queen? What, a play toward !4 I'll be an auditor ; An actor too perhaps, if I see cause. Quin. Speak, Pyramus. - Thisbe, stand forth. 4 Toward, here, is at hand, in hand, or forthcoming. Very often used so by the Poet. Nor is the usage altogether out of date now. So doth thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear. But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile, [Exit. Puck. [Aside.] A stranger Pyramus than e'er play'd here. This. Must I speak now? [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,5 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. This. O, tire. ·As true as truest horse, that yet would never Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head. Pyr. An if I were, fair Thisbe, I were only thine: Quin. O monstrous ! O strange! we are haunted. — Pray, masters! fly, masters! - Help! [Exit with SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. Puck. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier: Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, 5 Juvenal is youth; so used several times by Shakespeare. 6 The cues were the last words of the preceding speech, which served as a hint to him who was to speak next. A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire ; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, [Exit. Bot. Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to make me afeard. Re-enter SNOUT. Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee! Bot. What do you see? you see an ass-head of your own, do you? [Exit SNOUT. Re-enter QUINCE. Quin. Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated. [Exit. Bot. 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.] The ousel-cock so black of hue, 7 The Protean versatility of Puck is celebrated in whatsoever has come down to us respecting him. Thus in an old tract entitled Robin Goodfellow, his Mad Pranks and Merry Jests: Thou hast the power to change thy shape 8 In the opinion of some commentators, the Poet or Bottom is a little out here in his ornithology. This opinion has probably arisen from a change in the use of the name since Shakespeare's day; ousel being then used to denote the blackbird. Bottom's orange-tawny bill accords with what Yarrel says of the blackbird: "The beak and the edges of the eyelids in the adult male are gamboge yellow." The whistling of the blackbird is thus noted in Spenser's Epithalamion: The merry Larke hir mattins sings aloft; The Thrush replyes; the Mavis descant playes; |