184 MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.1 my And since we have the vaward of the day, OBERON advances. Enter PUCK. Obc. Welcome, good Robin. See'st thou this And mark the musical confusion sweet sight? Her dotage now I do begin to pity. And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp Of hounds and echo in conjunction. Hip. I was with Hercules, and Cadmus, once, The. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, Ege. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep: I wonder of their being here together. The. No doubt, they rose up early, to observe [Touching her eyes with an herb. That Hermia should give answer of her choice? See, as thou wast wont to see: power. Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen. Obe. There lies your love. Puck. Now, when thou wak'st, with thine own Obe. Sound, music. [Still music.] Come, my And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Puck. Fairy king, attend and mark; Obe. Then, my queen, in silence sad,4 Tita. Come, my lord; and in our fight, [Exeunt. 1 Steevens says, what Shakspeare seems to mean is this-So the woodbine, i. e. the sweet honeysuckle doth gently entwist the barky fingers of the elm, and so doth the female ivy enring the same fingers. 2 This was the phraseology of the time. So in K. Henry IV. Part I. and unbound the rest, and then came in the other.' 3 Dian's bud is the bud of the Agnus Castus, or Chaste Tree. 'The vertue of this hearbe is, that he will kepe man and woman chaste.' 4 Sad here signifies only grave, serious. Ege. It is, my lord. The. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. Horns, and shout within. DEMETRIUS, LYSANDEr, Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? The. [He and the rest kneel to THESEUS. I know you are two rival enemies; Lys. My lord, I shall reply amazedly, I came with Hermia hither: our intent Ege. Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough: Dem. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, Fair Helena in fancy 10 following me. 5 i. e. the honours due to the morning of May. So in 7 Chiding means here the cry of hounds. To chide is used sometimes for to sound, or make a noise, without any reference to scolding. s The flews are the large chaps of a deep-mouthed hound. 9 Sanded means of a sandy colour, which is one of the true denotements of a blood-hound." 10 Fancy is here love or affection, and is opposed to 11 Toy. |fury. And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, The. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: And, for the morning now is something worn, [Exeunt THE. HIP. EGE. and Train. Dem. These things seem small and undistinguish able, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. Quin. Yea, and the best person too: and he is a Enter SNUG. Snug Masters, the duke is coming from the tem→ ple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men. Flu. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost Sixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a-day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hang'd; he would have deserved it: sixpence a-day, in Pyramus, or nothing." Enter BOTTOM. Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts? Quin. Bottom!-O most courageous day! O most happy hour! Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for, if I tell you, I am no true Her. Methinks, I see these things with parted eye, Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it When every thing seems double. Hel. So methinks: And I have found Demetrius like a jewel, Dem. Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me, And Hippolyta. Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple.. if he fell out. Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom. Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you, is, that the Duke hath dined: Get your apparel together; good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for, the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him, that plays the lion, pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions, nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and do not doubt, but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away. ACT V. [Exeunt. SCENE I. The same. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHis LOSTRATE, Lords, and Attendants. Hip. "Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. As they go out, ВоTтOм awakes. Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer:-my next is, Most fair Pyramus.-Hey, ho!-Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life! stolen hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream,-past the wit of man to say what dream it was: Man is but an ass, go about to expound this dream. Methought I was there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had-But man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream; it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke: Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.2 [Exit. SCENE II. Athens. A Room in Quince's House. Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVE-The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation, and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination; That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or, in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear? The. More strange than true. I never may believe Hip. But all the story of the night told over, 1 Helena, perhaps, means to say, that having found 3 Steevens says that Preston, the actor and author of Demetrius unexpectedly, she considered her property in him as insecure as that which a person has in a jewel Cambyses, was meant to be ridiculed here. The queen that he has found by accident, which he knows not having bestowed a pension on him of twenty pounds a whether he shall retain, and which therefore may pro-year for the pleasure she received from his acting in the perly enough be called his own and not his own. War-play of Dido, at Cambridge, in 1564. burton proposed to read gemell, i. e. double; and it has also been proposed to read gimmal, which signifies a pouble ring. 2 Theobald conjectured, happily enough, that we should read after death." 4 So in the Tempest: thy brains, Now useless, boil'd within thy skull. 5 i. e. are made of mere imagination. 6 i. e. consistency, stability, certainty. sung By an Athenian eunuch to the harp. The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals, Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage. A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus, long; Which is as brief as I have known a play; The. What are they that do play it? 1 Steevens thought, that by abridgment was meant a dramatic performance which crowds the events of years into a few hours. Surely the context seems to require a different explanation; an abridgment appears to mean some pastime to shorten the tedious evening. 2 Short account. 3 This may be an allusion to Spenser's poem: The Tears of the Muses on the Neglect and Contempt of Learning first printed in 1591. For never any thing can be amiss, The. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing. Hip. He says they can do nothing in this kind. The. The kinder we, to give them thanks for no thing. Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake: Noble respect takes it in might, not merit." I read as much, as from the rattling tongue Philost. So please your grace, the prologue is The. Let him approach. [Flourish of trumpets.” Prol. If we offend, it is with our good will. 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. The. This fellow doth not stand upon points. Lys. 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. Hip. Indeed he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder;10 a sound, but not in government.11 The. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next? Enter PYRAMUS and THISBE, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion, as in dumb show. Prol. "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 Thisby is, certain." "This man, with lime and rough-cast doth present "Wall, that vile wall which did these lovers sun der: "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 thorr "Presenteth moon-shine; for, if you will know, "By moon-shine did these lovers think no scorn 6 Intents may be put for the object of their attention. To intend and to attend were anciently synonymous. 7 The sense of this passage appears to be :-"What dutifulness tries to perform without ability, regardful ge. nerosity receives with complacency; estimating it, not by the actual merit, but according to the power or might of the humble but zealous performers.' 8 Ready. 9 Anciently the prologue entered after the third soundcer-ing of the trumpets, or, as we should now say, after the third music. 4 It is thought that Shakspeare alludes here to tain good hearted men of Coventry,' who petitioned that they mought renew their old storial shew' before the Queen at Kenilworth: where the poet himself may have Deen present, as he was then twelve years old. 61.e. unexercised, unpractised. 10 A kind of flageolet. To record anciently signified to modulate; perhaps the name arose from birds being taught to record by it. 11 i. e. not regularly, according to the time. "To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo. "This grisly beast, which by name lion hight,' "The trusty Thisby, 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, swee youth, and tall, "And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain: "Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, "He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast; "And, Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade, "His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest, "Let lion, moon-shine, wall, and lovers twain, "At large discourse, while here they do remain." [Exeunt Prol. THISBE, Lion, and Moonshine. The. I wonder, if the lion be to speak. Dem. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do. 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 cranny'd hole, or chink, "Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby, Did whisper often very secretly. "This loam, this rough-cast, 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." The. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better? Dem. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord. The. Pyramus draws near the wall: silence! Pyr. "O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black; "O night, which ever art, when day is not! "O night, O night, alack, alack, alack, "I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!"And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall, "That stand'st between her father's ground and mine; "Thou wall, O wall, O sweet, and lovely wall, "Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne. [Wall holds up his Fingers. "Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this! "But what see I? No Thisby do I see. "O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss: "Curst be thy stones for thus deceiving me!" The. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again. Pyr. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me, is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I told you :-Yonder she comes. This. "I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all." Pyr. "Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?" This. "Tide life, tide death, I come without delay." Wall. "Thus have I, wall, my part discharged so; "And, being done, thus wall away doth go." [Exeunt Wall, PYRAMUS, and THISBE. The. Now is the mural down between the two neighbours. Dem. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning. Hip. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard. The. The best in this kind are but shadows: and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them. Hip. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs. The. If we imagine no worse of them, than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a moon' and a lion. Enter Lion and Moonshine. Lion. "You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear "The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor, "May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here, "When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar. "No lion fell, nor else no lion's dam: "Then know, that I, one Snug the joiner, am "For if I should as lion come in strife "Into this place, 'twere pity on my life." The. A very gentle beast, and of a good con science Dem. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw. Lys. This lion is a very fox for his valour." The. True; and a goose for his discretion. Dem. Not so, my lord: for his valour cannot carry his discretion; and the fox carries the goose. The. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for the goose carries not the fox. It is well: leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon. Moon. "This lantern doth the horned moon pre sent:" Dem. He should have worn the horns on his head. The. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference. Moon. "This lantern doth the horned moon present: "Myself the man i'the'moon do seem to be." The. This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lantern: How is it else the man i'the moon? Dem. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it is already in snuff. Hip. I am aweary of this moon: Would he would change! The. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane: but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time. Lys, Proceed, moon. Moon. All that I have to say, is, to tell you, that the lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn bush, my thorn bush; and this dog my dog. Dem. Why, all these should be in the lantern; for they are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisbe. Enter THISBE. This. "This is old Ninny's tomb: Where is my love ?" Lion. "Oh- ̧” [The Lion roars.—THISBE runs off. down, were it to exercise this faculty without previous warning. 4 The old copies read, a mun, &c. The emendation is by Theobald. 5 An equivoque. Snuff signifies both the cinder of a candle and hasty anger. "Since lion vile hath here deflour'd my dear: "Which is no, no-which was the fairest dame, "That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer." "Come, tears, confound: "Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. [Dies.-Exit Moonshine. Dem. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one. Hip. Methinks, she should not use a long one, for such a Pyramus: I hope, she will be brief. Dem. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better. Lys. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes. 1 To mouse, according to Malone, signified to mammock, to tear in pieces, as a cat tears a mouse. 2 Dr. Farmer thought this was written in ridicule of a passage in Damon and Pythias, by Richard Edwards, 1582; Ye furies, all at once On me your torments tire. And present pangues of death; You sisters three, with cruel hands, 8 Thrum is the end or extremity of a weaver's warp. It is used for any collection or tuft of short thread. 4 Destroy. 5 Countenance. 6 The character of Theseus throughout this play is more exalted in its humanity than in its greatness. Though some sensible observations on life and animated descriptions fall from him, as it is said of Iago, Dem. And thus she moans," videlicet.This. "Asleep, my love? "What, dead, my dove? "O Pyramus, arise, "Speak, speak. Quite dumb? "This cherry nose, "Come, come, to me, "Since you have shore "With shears his thread of silk. "Tongue, not a word : "Come, trusty sword; "Come, blade, my breast imbrue : "And farewell, friends ; "Thus Thisby ends: "Adieu, adieu, adieu." [Dies. The. Moonshine and lion are left to bury the dead. Dem. Ay, and wall too. Bot. No, I assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Burgomask dance," between two of our company? The. No epilogue, I pray you: for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it, had play'd Pyramus, and hanged himself with Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your epilogue alone. [Here a dance of Clowns. The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn, [Exeunt. SCENE II. Enter PUCK. In remembrance of a shroud. That the graves all gaping wide, By the triple Hecat's team, Following darkness like a dream, Shall disturb this hallow'd house: 'You shall taste him more as a soldier than as a wit, which is a distinction he is here striving to deserve, though with little success; as in support of his preten sions he never rises higher than a pun, and frequently sinks as low as a quibble. 7 The old copies read means, which had anciently the same signification as moans. Theobald made the alteration. 8 The old copies read lips instead of brows. The alteration was made for the sake of the rhyme by Theo bald. 9 A rustic dance framed in imitation of the people of Bergamasco (a province in the state of Venice,) whe are ridiculed as being more clownish in their manners and dialect than any other people of Italy. The lingua rustica of the buffoons, in the old Italian comedies, is an imitation of their jargon. 10 i. e. slow passage, progress. 11 Overcome. |