A Midsummer Night’s Dream - William Shakespeare (best classic novels txt) 📗

mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured everywhere:
For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again. Exit. Scene II

Athens. Quince’s house.

Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. Quince Is all our company here? Bottom You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. Quince Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and duchess, on his wedding-day at night. Bottom First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point. Quince Marry, our play is The Most Lamentable Comedy, and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe. Bottom A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves. Quince Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. Bottom Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. Quince You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. Bottom What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? Quince A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. Bottom

That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus’ car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.

This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein; a lover is more condoling.

Quince Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Flute Here, Peter Quince. Quince Flute, you must take Thisby on you. Flute What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Quince It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Flute Nay, faith, let not me 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. Bottom And 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 Thisbe dear, and lady dear!” Quince No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby. Bottom Well, proceed. Quince Robin Starveling, the tailor. Starveling Here, Peter Quince. Quince Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. Snout Here, Peter Quince. Quince

You, Pyramus’ 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. Bottom 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. Bottom I grant you, friends, if 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 ’twere 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. Bottom Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? Quince Why, what you will. Bottom I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour 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 rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not. Bottom We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu. Quince At the duke’s oak we meet. Bottom Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings. Exeunt. Act II Scene I

A wood near Athens.

Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck. Puck How now, spirit! whither wander you? Fairy

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s