And all their minds transfigured so together,

More witnesseth than fancy’s images

And grows to something of great constancy,

But, howsoever, strange and admirable.

Enter Lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena.

THESEUS

Here come the lovers full of joy and mirth.—

Joy, gentle friends! Joy and fresh days of love

Accompany your hearts!

LYSANDER More than to us

Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!

THESEUS

Come now, what masques, what dances shall we

have

To wear away this long age of three hours

Between our after-supper and bedtime?

Where is our usual manager of mirth?

What revels are in hand? Is there no play

To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

Call Philostrate.

PHILOSTRATE, coming forward Here, mighty Theseus.

THESEUS

Say what abridgment have you for this evening,

What masque, what music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time if not with some delight?

PHILOSTRATE, giving Theseus a paper

There is a brief how many sports are ripe.

Make choice of which your Highness will see first.

THESEUS

“The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.”

We’ll none of that. That have I told my love

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

“The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.”

That is an old device, and it was played

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

“The thrice-three Muses mourning for the death

Of learning, late deceased in beggary.”

That is some satire, keen and critical,

Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

“A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth.”

“Merry” and “tragical”? “Tedious” and “brief”?

That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow!

How shall we find the concord of this discord?

PHILOSTRATE

A play there is, my lord, some 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.

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself,

Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,

Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears

The passion of loud laughter never shed.

THESEUS

What are they that do play it?

PHILOSTRATE

Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,

Which never labored in their minds till now,

And now have toiled their unbreathed memories

With this same play, against your nuptial.

THESEUS

And we will hear it.

PHILOSTRATE 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 stretched and conned with cruel pain

To do you service.

THESEUS I will hear that play,

For never anything can be amiss

When simpleness and duty tender it.

Go, bring them in—and take your places, ladies.

Philostrate exits.

HIPPOLYTA

I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged,

And duty in his service perishing.

THESEUS

Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

HIPPOLYTA

He says they can do nothing in this kind.

THESEUS

The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.

Our sport shall be to take what they mistake;

And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect

Takes it in might, not merit.

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed

To greet me with premeditated welcomes,

Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,

Make periods in the midst of sentences,

Throttle their practiced accent in their fears,

And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,

Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,

Out of this silence yet I picked a welcome,

And in the modesty of fearful duty,

I read as much as from the rattling tongue

Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity

In least speak most, to my capacity.

Enter Philostrate.

PHILOSTRATE

So please your Grace, the Prologue is addressed.

THESEUS Let him approach.

Enter the Prologue.

PROLOGUE

If we offend, it is with our goodwill.

That you should think we come not to offend,

But with goodwill. To show our simple skill,

That is the true beginning of our end.

Consider, then, we come but in despite.

We do not come, as minding to content you,

Our true intent is. All for your delight

We are not here. That you should here repent

you,

The actors are at hand, and, by their show,

You shall know all that you are like to know.

Prologue exits.

THESEUS This fellow doth not stand upon points.

LYSANDER He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt;

he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is

not enough to speak, but to speak true.

HIPPOLYTA Indeed he hath played on this prologue like

a child on a recorder—a sound, but not in

government.

THESEUS His speech was like a tangled chain—nothing

impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?

Enter Pyramus (Bottom), and Thisbe (Flute), and

Wall (Snout), and Moonshine (Starveling), and Lion

(Snug), and Prologue (Quince).

QUINCE, as Prologue

Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show.

But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.

This man is Pyramus, if you would know.

This beauteous lady Thisbe is certain.

This man with lime and roughcast doth present

“Wall,” that vile wall which did these lovers

sunder;

And through Wall’s chink, poor souls, they are

content

To whisper, at the which let no man wonder.

This man, with lantern, dog, and bush of thorn,

Presenteth “Moonshine,” for, if you will know,

By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn

To meet at Ninus’ tomb, there, there to woo.

This grisly beast (which “Lion” hight by name)

The trusty Thisbe coming first by night

Did scare away or rather did affright;

And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,

Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,

And finds his trusty Thisbe’s mantle slain.

Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,

He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.

And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade,

His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,

Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain

At large discourse, while here they do remain.

THESEUS I wonder if the lion be to speak.

DEMETRIUS No wonder, my lord. One lion may when

many asses do.

Lion, Thisbe, Moonshine, and Prologue exit.

SNOUT, as Wall

In this same interlude it doth befall

That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;

And such a wall as I would have you think

That had in it a crannied hole or chink,

Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,

Did whisper often, very secretly.

This loam, this roughcast, and this stone doth show

That I am that same wall. The truth is so.

And this the cranny is, right and sinister,

Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.