SCENE changes to the Town.

Enter Quince, Flute, Snowt, and Starveling.
Ave fent to Bottom's houfe? is he come
home yet?

Quin. H

you

Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is tranfported.

Flute. If he come not, then the play is marr'd. It goes not forward, doth it?

Quin. It is not poffible; you have not a man, Athens, able to difcharge Pyramus, but he.

in all

Flute. No, he hath fimply the beft wit of any handy

craft man in Athens.

Quin. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

Flute. You must fay, paragon; (30) a paramour is (God bless us!) a thing of naught.

Enter Snug.

Snug. Mafters, the Duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three Lords and Ladies more married; if our fport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

Flute. O fweet bully Bottom! thus hath he loft fixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'fcap'd fix-pence a-day; an the Duke had not given him fixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hang'd; he would have deferv'd it. Six-pence a day, in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter Bottom.

Bot. Where are thefe lads? where are thefe hearts? Quin. Bottom-O moft courageous day! O moft happy hour!

(30) A paramour is (God blefs us) a thing of nought.] This is a reading, I am fure, of nought. My change of a fingle letter gives a very important change to the humour of the paffage -A thing of naught, means, a naughty thing, little better than downright bawdry. So, in Hamlet, Ophelia, when he talks a little grofsly to her, replies; You're naught, you're naught, my Lord, &c. ̧

Bot.

Bot. Mafters, I am to difcourfe wonders; but afk me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing as it fell out.

Quin. Let us hear, fweet Bottom.

Bot. Not a word of me; all I will tell you, is, that the Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good ftrings to your beards, new ribbons to your. pumps; meet prefently at the palace, every man look o'er his part; for the fhort and the long is, (31) our play is referred in any cafe, let Thisby have clean linnen; and let not him, that plays the lion, pare his nails, for they fhall hang out for the lion's claws; and, moft dear actors! eat no onions, nor garlick, for we are to utter fweet breath; and I do not doubt to hear them fay, it is a fweet comedy. No more words;

away; go, away.

[Exeunt.

A CT V.

SCENE, the Palace.

Enter Thefeus, Hippolita, Egeus, and his Lords.

HIPPOLITA.

Thef. More Rtrange than true. I never may believe

IS ftrange, my Thefeus, what thefe lovers fpeak of.

Thefe antic fables, nor these fairy toys;
Lovers and madmen have fuch feething brains,
Such fhaping fantafies, that apprehend
More than cool reafon ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

(31) Our play is preferr'd:] This word is not to be taken in its most common acceptation here, as if their play was chofen in preference to the others; (for that appears afterwards not to be the fact;) but means, that it was given in, among others, for the Duke's option: And, in this fenfe, we fay, preferr a petition; i. e. give it in, lodge it, for the Judge's anfwer. So, in Julius Cafar, Decius fays; Where is Metellus Cimber? let him go, And prefently prefer bis fuit to Cæfar.

Are

Are of imagination all compact:

One fees more devils than vaft hell can hold;
The madman. While the lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heav'n;
And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to aiery nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if he would but apprehend fome joy,
It comprehends fome bringer of that joy;
Or in the night imagining fome fear,
How easy is a bufh fuppos'd a bear?

Hip. But all the ftory of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigur'd fo together,
More witneffeth than fancy's images,

And grows to fomething of great conftancy;
But, howfoever, ftrange and admirable.

Enter Lyfander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena.

Thef. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends; joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts.

Lyf. More than to us,

Wait on your royal walks, your board, your bed.

Thef. Come now, what marks, what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours, Between our after-fupper and bed-time? Where is our ufual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? is there no play, To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? Call Philoftrate.

Enter Philoftrate.

Philoft. Here, mighty Thefeus.

Thef. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?

What mafque? what mufic? how shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with fome delight?

Philoft

Philoft. There is a brief, how many fports are ripe: (32) Make choice of which your Highness will fee first.

[Giving a paper.

Thef.reads.] The battel with the Centaurs, to be fung (33)

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.

We'll none of that. That I have told my love,
In glory of my kinfman Hercules.

The riot of the tiply Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian finger in their rage.
That is an old device; and it was plaid,
When I from Thebes came laft a conqueror.
The thrice three mufes mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceas'd in beggary.
That is fome fatire, keen and critical;
Not forting with a nuptial ceremony.
A tedious brief fcene of young Pyramus,
And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.
Merry and tragical? tedious and brief?
That is hot ice, and wond'rous ftrange fnow.
How fhall we find the concord of this difcord?

Philoft. A play there is, my Lord, fome 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:

(32) how many fports are rife:] I have chosen to restore from one of the old quartos printed in 1600, ripe, as the most proper word here: ripe, fignifying any thing ready for use'; rife, only the great increase of any thing.

(33) Lyf. The battel with the Centaurs----] Here the fixteen lines, that follow, from the time of the firft folio edition put out by the players, have impertinently been divided, by two verfes alternately, betwixt Thefeus and Lyfander. But what has Lyfander to do in the affair? He is no courtier of befeus's, but only an occasional guests and just come out of the woods, fo not likely to know what sports were in preparation. I have taken the old quarts for my guides, in regulating this paffage. Thefeus afks after entertainment. Philaftrate, who is his master of the revels, gives him in a lift of what Sports are ready: upon which, Thefens reads the titles of them out of the lift, and then alternately makes his remarks upon them. And this, I dare fay, was the Poet's own defign and distribution.

For

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.

Which, when I faw rehears'd, I must confefs,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The paffion of loud laughter never shed.
Thef. What are they, that do play it?

Philoft. Hard-handed men, 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 fame play against your nuptials.
Thef. And we will hear it.
Philoft. 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 ftretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
To do you service.

Thef. I will hear that play:

For never any thing can be amifs,

When fimpleness and duty tender it.

Go, bring them in, and take your places Ladies. [Exit Phil. Hip. I love not to fee wretchedness o'ercharg'd,

And duty in his fervice perishing.

Thef. Why, gentle fweet, you shall fee no fuch thing. Hip. He fays, they can do nothing in this kind. Thef. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake; And what poor [willing] duty cannot do, (34) Noble refpect takes it in might, not merit. Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have feen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midft of fentences, Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears, And, in conclufion, dumbly have broke off,

(34) And what poor duty cannot do, noble refpect

Takes it in might, not merit.] What ears have these poetical Editors, to palm this line upon us as a verse of Shakespeare? "Tis certain, an epithet had flipt out, and I have ventur'd to reftore fuch a one as the fenfe may difpenfe with; and which makes the two verfes flowing and perfect.

Not