For in the temple, by and by with us, [Exeunt THE., HIP., EGE., and Train. Dem. These things seem small and undistinguishable, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds. Her. Methinks, I see these things with parted eye, When every thing seems double. Hel. So methinks: And I have found Demetrius like a jewel, Dem. That we are awake? Are you sure It seems to me, That yet we sleep, we dream. — Do not you think The duke was here, and bid us follow him? Her. Yea; and my father. Hel. And Hippolyta. Lys. And he did bid us follow to the temple. Dem. Why, then we are awake: let's follow him; And by the way let us recount our dreams. [Exeunt. Bot. [Awaking.] 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 13 That is, as the jewel which one finds is his own and not his own; his own unless the loser claim it. H. is but an ass, if he 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 patch'd 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 was. 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." 14 [Exit. SCENE II. Athens. A Room in QUINCE's House. Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. Quin. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet? Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported. Flu. If he come not, then the play is marr'd: It goes not forward, doth it? Quin. It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus, but he. Flu. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens. Quin. Yea; and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice. Flu. You must say, paragon: a paramour is, God bless us! a thing of nought. 14 That is, at Thisbe's death, Bottom's head being full of the part he is going to play. Theobald could not imagine what her meant, and therefore proposed after death. H 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 Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it fell out. Bottom. All that I will tell you Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bot. Not a word of me. 3, 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 garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy No more words: away! go, away! [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I. The same. An Apartment in the Palace of THESEUS. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Hip. "Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. The. More strange than true: I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers, and madmen, have such seething brains,1 One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 1 So, in The Tempest: "Thy brains, now useless, boil'd within thy skull." And in The Winter's Tale: "Would any but these boil'd brains of three and twenty hunt this weather?" Drayton, in his Epistle to Reynolds on poets and poetry, seems to have had this in his mind, when, speaking of Marlowe, he says: "That fine madness still he did retain, Which rightly should possess a poet's brain." A local habitation, and a name. That, if it would but apprehend some joy, Hip. But all the story of the night told over 3 Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.— Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love, Accompany your hearts! Lys. More than to us Wait on your royal walks, your board, your bed! The. Come now; what masks, what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours, Where is our usual manager of mirth? To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? Call Philostrate. Philost. Here, mighty Theseus. The. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening? What mask ? what music ? How shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with some delight? That is, consistency, stability, certainty. 4 Abridgment appears to mean some pastime to shorten the tedious evening. |