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SCENE II.—ATHENS. A Room in QUINCE'S House.

Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING. Quince. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?

Starveling. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported.

Flute. If he come not, then the play is marred; It goes not forward, doth it!

Quince. It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens, able to discharge Pyramus, but he.

Flute. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handycraft man in Athens.

Quince. Yea, and the best person too: and he is a very paramour, for a sweet voice.

Flute. You must say, paragon: a paramour is a thing of nought.

Enter SNUG. Snug. Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

Flute. 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 hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a-day, in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter BOTTOM, Bottom. Where are these lads? where are these hearts?

Quince. Bottom !—0 most courageous day! O most happy hour!

Bottom. 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.

Quince. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
Bottom. Not a word of me.

All that I will tell you, is, that the duke hath dined: Get your apparel together;

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food 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 I do not doubt, but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away. .

[Exeunt.

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ACT V.
SCENE I.-An Apartment in the Palace of THESEUS.
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, LORDS, and

ATTENDANTS.
Hippolyta. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers

speak of.
Theseus. More strange than true. I never may

believe
These antique fables nor these fairy toys.
Lovers, and madmen, have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatick, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantick,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And, as imagination bodies forth
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;

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Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?

Hippolyta. But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigur'd so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,
And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.

Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA.

Theseus. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth,Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love, Accompany your hearts ! Lysander.

More than to us
Wait on your royal walks, your board, your bed!
Theseus. Come now; what masks, what dances shall

we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours,
Between our after-supper, and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.

Philostrate. Here, mighty Theseus.
Theseus. Say what abridgments have you for this

evening?
What mask? what musick? How shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight?

Philostrate. There is a brief, how many sports are ripe; Make choice of which your highness will see first.

[Giving a paper. THESEUS. [Reads.] The battle with the Centaurs, to be

sung,
By an Athenian songster to the harp,
We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.

5 Pastime.

6 Short account

That is an old device; and it was play'd
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

The thrice three muses mourning for the death

Of learning, late deceas'd in beggary. That is some satire, keen, and critical, Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus,

And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.
Merry and tragical ? Tedious and brief?
That is, hot ice, and wonderous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
Philostrate. A play there is, my lord, some ten words

long;
Which is as brief as have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long;
Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which, when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed,

Theseus. What are they, that do play it?
Philostrate. Hard-handed men, that work in Athens

here,
Which never labour'd in their minds till now,
And now have toild their unbreath'd memories
With this same play, against your nuptial.

Theseus. And we will hear it.
Philostrate.

No, my noble lord,
It is not for you: I have heard it over,
And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
Unless you can find sport in their intents,
Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain,
To do

you

service.
Theseus.

I will hear that play;
For never any thing can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.
Go, bring them in ;-and take your places, ladies.

[Exit PHILOSTRATE.

:

Hippolyta. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing.

Theseus. Why, gentlesweet, you shall see no such thing. Hippolyta. He says, they can do nothing in this kind.

Theseus. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake: And what poor duty can do, Noble respect takes it in might, not merit. Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears, And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome: Trust me, sweet, Out of this silence, yet, I pick'd a welcome; And in the modesty of fearful duty I read as much, as from the rattling tongue Of sawcy and audacious eloquence. Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity, In least, speak most, to my capacity.

Enter PHILOSTRATE. Philostrate. So please your grace, the prologue is

addrest.? Theseus. Let him approach. [Flourish of trumpets.

Enter PROLOGUE.
PROLOGUE. If we offend, it is with our goodwill.
That
you

should think, we come not to offend, But with good-will. To show our simple skill,

That is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then, we come but in despite.

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.

Ready

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