A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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 Thisbe on you.

FLUTE What is Thisbe—a wand’ring 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 An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe 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 Thisbe.

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, Thisbe’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 gentlemanlike

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-color

beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain

beard, or your French-crown-color beard,

your perfit yellow.

QUINCE Some of your French crowns have no hair at

all, and then you will play barefaced. But, masters,

here are your parts, giving out the 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

perfit. Adieu.

QUINCE At the Duke’s Oak we meet.

BOTTOM Enough. Hold or cut bowstrings.

They exit.

ACT 2

Scene 1

Enter a Fairy at one door and Robin Goodfellow at

another.

ROBIN

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 favors;

In those freckles live their savors.

I must go seek some dewdrops here

And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

Farewell, thou lob of spirits. I’ll be gone.

Our queen and all her elves come here anon.

ROBIN

The King doth keep his revels here tonight.

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.

And now they never meet in grove or green,

By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen,

But they do square, that all their elves for fear

Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

FAIRY

Either I mistake your shape and making quite,

Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite

Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he

That frights the maidens of the villagery,

Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern

And bootless make the breathless huswife churn,

And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,

Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm?

Those that “Hobgoblin” call you and “sweet Puck,”

You do their work, and they shall have good luck.

Are not you he?

ROBIN Thou speakest aright.

I am that merry wanderer of the night.

I jest to Oberon and make him smile

When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,

Neighing in likeness of a filly foal.

And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl

In very likeness of a roasted crab,

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob

And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.

The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,

Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;

Then slip I from her bum, down topples she

And “Tailor!” cries and falls into a cough,

And then the whole choir hold their hips and loffe

And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear

A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But room, fairy. Here comes Oberon.

FAIRY

And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Enter Oberon the King of Fairies at one door, with his

train, and Titania the Queen at another, with hers.

OBERON

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

TITANIA

What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence.

I have forsworn his bed and company.

OBERON

Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?

TITANIA

Then I must be thy lady. But I know

When thou hast stolen away from Fairyland

And in the shape of Corin sat all day

Playing on pipes of corn and versing love

To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,

Come from the farthest steep of India,

But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,

Your buskined mistress and your warrior love,

To Theseus must be wedded, and you come

To give their bed joy and prosperity?

OBERON

How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,

Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,

Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering

night

From Perigouna, whom he ravished,