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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 ma
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.
ACT 3
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
ca
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 cra
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,