Flute. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Quince. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Flute. Nay, faith, let me not 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.

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!'

Quince. No, no; you must play Pyramus, and, Flute, you, Thisby.

Bot. Well, proceed.

Quince. Robin Starveling, the tailor.

Starve. Here, Peter Quince,

Quince. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.-Tom Snout, the tinker.

Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

:

Quince. 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.

Quince. 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.'

Quince. 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. Bot. 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 'twere1 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.

Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

Quince. Why, what you will.

Bot. I will discharge it in either your strawcolored beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-color beard, your perfect yellow.

Quince. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced.-But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by tomorrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we

1 As if it were.

In

rehearse for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. the mean time, I will draw a bill of properties,1 such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.

Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.

Quince. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bot. Enough. Hold, or cut bowstrings.?

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

A wood near Athens.

Enter a FAIRY at one door, and PUCK at another.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fai. Over hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones sphere;

• Circles supposed to be made by the fairies on the ground, hose verdure proceeds from their care to water them.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see :
Those be rubies, fairy favors;

In those freckles live their savors:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob1 of spirits; I'll be gone:
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.

Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to

night;

Take heed, the queen come not within his sight:
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,

Because that she, as her attendant, hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling :
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild :

But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,

Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy :

2

And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen,
But they do square; 3 that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,

Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Good-fellow: are you not he,

1 A term of contempt.

2 Shining.

3 Quarrel.