HER. O hell! to choose love by another's eye! Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, HER. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross; As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, Lys. 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 remov'd seven leagues; There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee; HER. My good Lysander! I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow; By his best arrow with the golden head; By the simplicity of Venus' doves; By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves; Lys. Keep promise, love: Look, here comes Helena. Enter HELENA. HER. God speed fair Helena! Whither away? HEL. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. Your eyes are load-stars; and your tongue's sweet air When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. HER. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. HEL. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! HEL. O, that my prayers could such affection move! HEL. None. mine! But your beauty; would that fault were HER. 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 like a paradise to me: O then, what graces in my love do dwell, LYS. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: HER. And in the wood, where often you and I Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, Lys. I will, my Hermia.-Helena, adieu: [Exit HER. [Exit LYSANDER. HEL. How happy some o'er other some can be! Things base and vild, holding no quantity, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; [Exit. SCENE II.-The same. A Room in a Cottage. Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and QUIN. Is all our company here ? BOT. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. QUIN. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his wedding-day at night. BOT. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow on to a point. QUIN. Marry, our play is―The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. BOT. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll: Masters, spread yourselves. QUIN. Answer, as I call you.-Nick Bottom, the weaver. QUIN. A lover, that kills himself most gallantly for love. BOT. 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 Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. "The raging rocks And shivering shocks, Of prison-gates; And make and mar The foolish fates." This was lofty! - Now name the rest of the players.-This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. QUIN. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. FLU. Here, Peter Quince. QUIN. You must take Thisby on you. FLU. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? QUIN. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. FLU. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. QUIN. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. BOT. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;—“ Thisne, Thisne,—— Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!" QUIN. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby. BOT. Well, proceed. QUIN. Robin Starveling, the tailor. STAR. Here, Peter Quince. QUIN. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. -Tom Snout, the tinker. SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince. QUIN. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father;Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:-and, I hope, here is a play fitted. SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. QUIN. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. BOT. 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." QUIN. An 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 son. Bor. I grant you, friends, if that 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 an 't were any nightingale. QUIN. You can play no part but Pyramus: for Pyramus |