Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.

LYSANDER, waking up

And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.

Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,

That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word

Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

HELENA

Do not say so. Lysander, say not so.

What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what

though?

Yet Hermia still loves you. Then be content.

LYSANDER

Content with Hermia? No, I do repent

The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Not Hermia, but Helena I love.

Who will not change a raven for a dove?

The will of man is by his reason swayed,

And reason says you are the worthier maid.

Things growing are not ripe until their season;

So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason.

And touching now the point of human skill,

Reason becomes the marshal to my will

And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook

Love’s stories written in love’s richest book.

HELENA

Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?

When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?

Is ’t not enough, is ’t not enough, young man,

That I did never, no, nor never can

Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,

But you must flout my insufficiency?

Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,

In such disdainful manner me to woo.

But fare you well. Perforce I must confess

I thought you lord of more true gentleness.

O, that a lady of one man refused

Should of another therefore be abused!      She exits.

LYSANDER

She sees not Hermia.—Hermia, sleep thou there,

And never mayst thou come Lysander near.

For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things

The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,

Or as the heresies that men do leave

Are hated most of those they did deceive,

So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,

Of all be hated, but the most of me!

And, all my powers, address your love and might

To honor Helen and to be her knight.      He exits.

HERMIA, waking up

Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.

Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!

Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.

Methought a serpent ate my heart away,

And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.

Lysander! What, removed? Lysander, lord!

What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?

Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear.

Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.—

No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.

Either death or you I’ll find immediately.

She exits.

Scene 1

With Titania still asleep onstage, enter the Clowns,

Bottom, Quince, Snout, Starveling, Snug, and Flute.

BOTTOM Are we all met?

QUINCE Pat, pat. And here’s a marvels 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.

BOTTOM Peter Quince?

QUINCE What sayest thou, bully Bottom?

BOTTOM 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.

STARVELING I believe we must leave the killing out,

when all is done.

BOTTOM 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 killed 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.

QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue, and it shall

be written in eight and six.

BOTTOM No, make it two more. Let it be written in

eight and eight.

SNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

STARVELING I fear it, I promise you.

BOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourself,

to bring in (God shield us!) a lion among ladies is a

most dreadful thing. For there is not a more fearful

wildfowl than your lion living, and we ought to look

to ’t.

SNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not

a lion.

BOTTOM 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 you,” 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.

QUINCE 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.

SNOUT Doth the moon shine that night we play our

play?

BOTTOM A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanac.

Find out moonshine, find out moonshine.

Quince takes out a book.

QUINCE Yes, it doth shine that night.

BOTTOM 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.

QUINCE 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 wall.

SNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you,

Bottom?

BOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall. And

let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some

roughcast about him to signify wall, or let him

hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall

Pyramus and Thisbe whisper.

QUINCE 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 everyone

according to his cue.

Enter Robin invisible to those onstage.

ROBIN, aside

What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here

So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?

What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor—

An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.

QUINCE Speak, Pyramus.—Thisbe, stand forth.

BOTTOM, as Pyramus

Thisbe, the flowers of odious savors sweet—

QUINCE Odors, odors!

BOTTOM, as Pyramus

      …odors savors sweet.

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.—

But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,

And by and by I will to thee appear.      He exits.

ROBIN, aside

A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here.      He exits.

FLUTE Must I speak now?

QUINCE Ay, marry, must you, for you must understand

he goes but to see a noise that he heard and is to

come again.

FLUTE, as Thisbe

Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,

Of color like the red rose on triumphant brier,

Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,