A Midsummer Night's Dream • Act 5 Scene 1 • Shakespeare at Play

'Tis strange my Theseus,

that these lovers speak of. More strange than true.

I never may believe these antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

Oh,

lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

such shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic,

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 frantic sees Helen’s beauty

in a brow of Egypt.

The poet’s eye

in the fine frenzy rolling death lands from heaven to earth,

from earth to heaven, and his imagination bodies forth the form of things unknown.

The poet's pen turns them to shapes and gives to

airy nothing. A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks have strong

imagination that if it would but apprehend some joy, it

comprehends some bringer of that joy

in the night

imagining some fear.

How easy is a bush supposed to bear! But all the story of the night

told over, and all their minds transfigured

so together more witnesses than fancies

images and grows to something of great constancy.

But howsoever

strange and admirable.

Here come the lovers full of joy and mirth.

Joy, gentle friends! Joy

and fresh days of love accompany your hearts. More than to us,

wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed.

Come now,

what masques, what dances shall we have to wear away this long age of three hours

between or 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.

Here, mighty Theseus.

Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?

What masque? What music? How shall we beguile the lazy time, if not with some delight?

There is a brief how many sports are ripe.

Make choice of which your highness will see first.

Ok.

“The battle with the Centaurs

to be sung by

an Athenian

eunuch 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.”

That is an old device, and it was played when I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

“The thrice three Muses mourning for the death of Learning, late deceased in

beggary.”

That is some satire, keen and critical, not sorting with a natural 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 wondrous strange snow.

How shall we find the concord of this discord?

A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, which is as brief as I 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 rehearsed, I must confess, made mine eyes water;

but more merry tears, the passion of loud laughter never shed.

What are they that do play it?

Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,

which never laboured in their minds till now,

and now have toiled their unbreathed

memories with this same play, against your nuptial.

And we will hear it. 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 stretched and conned with cruel pain to do you service.

I will hear that play;

for never anything can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it.

Go, bring them in

and take your places, ladies.

I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged and duty in his service perishing.

Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

He says they can do nothing in this kind.

The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.

Our sport shall be to take what they mistake,

and what poor duty cannot 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 practised 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 picked a welcome,

and in the modesty of fearful duty,

I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence.

Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity in least speak most, to my capacity.

Yeah.

So, please your grace,

the Prologue is addressed.

Let him approach.

If we offend, it is with our good will.

That you should think,

we come not to offend, but with goodwill.

To show our simple skill, that is the true beginning of our

end.

Consider then

we come but despite.

We do not come as minding to contest 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.

This fellow do not stand upon points. He hath rid his prologue

like a rough colt. He knows not to stop.

A good moral, my Lord: it

is not enough to speak but to speak, but to true. Indeed,

he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder:

a sound,

but not in government.

His speech was like a tangled chain: nothing impaired but all disordered.

Who is next?

Gentles,

perchance you wonder at this show,

but wonder on, till truth make all things plain.

This man

is Pyramus,

if you would know;

beauteous lady Thisby

is certain.

This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present wall,

that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder; and through Wall's chink,

poor souls, they are content to whisper.

At the which let no man wonder.

This man,

with lantern,

dog, and bush of thorn, presenteth moonshine; for, if you will know, by moonshine

did these lovers think no scorn to meet at

Ninus' tomb,

there

there to woo.

This grisly beast,

which Lion hight by name, the trusty Thisby, coming first by night, did

stare away, or rather did affright. And, as she fled, her mantle

she did fall, which lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall and finds his trusty

Thisby's mantle slain.

Whereat, with blade,

with bloody blameful blade, he bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.

And Thisby,

tarrying

in mulberry shade,

his dagger drew,

and died.

For all the rest, let lion, moonshine, wall,

and lovers twain at large discourse while here they do remain.

I wonder if the lion be to speak. No wonder my Lord. One lion may when many asses do.

Yeah.

In this

same

interlude,

it doth befall

that I,

one

Snout

by name

present.

a wall.

And such a wall,

as I would have you think,

that had in it

a crannied hole or chink,

through which

the fearful lovers,

Pyramus

and Thisby,

did whisper

often very secretly.

This loam,

this rough cast, and this stone

doth

show that

I am that same wall;

the truth is so.

And this

the cranny is,

right

and sinister,

through which

the fearful lovers are to whisper.

Would you

desire lime and hair to speak better?

It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse. My Lord.

Pyramus draws near the wall. Silence!

O grim-looked night!

O night with hue so black!

O night, whichever art when day is not!

O night, O night!

Alack,

alack, alack,

I fear my Thisby's

promise is forgot!

And thou,

O wall,

O sweet, O lovely wall, that stand'st between her father's ground and mine!

Thou wall, O wall,

O sweet

and lovely wall,

show me thy chink, to blink through with mine

eyne!

Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!

But what see I? No

Thisby do I see. O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss! Cursed be

thy stones for thus deceiving me!

The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.

No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me' is Thisby's cue.

She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see,

it will fall pat as I told you.

Yonder she comes.

O wall,

full often hast

thou heard my moans,

for parting my fair Pyramus and me!

My cherry lips have often kissed

thy stones,

thy stones with lime and hair

knit up in thee.

I see a voice. Now will I to the chink, to spy an I can hear my Thisbe's face.

Thisbe!

My love

thou art,

my love

I think. Think what thou

wilt, I am

thy lover's grace, and, like, Lemander, am I trusty still.

And I

like Helen,

till the Fates me kill.

Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.

As Shafalus to

Procrus, I to you.

O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!

I kiss the wall's hole,

not your lips at all. Wilt thou at

Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?

'Tide life, 'tide death,

I come without delay.

Thus, have I,

Wall, my part dischargèd so

and, being done, thus Wall away

doth go.

Now is the mural down between the two neighbors. No remedy. My Lord.

when walls are so wilful to hear without warning.

This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard. The best

in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse,

if imagination amend them. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.

If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves,

they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a man

and a lion.

You, ladies,

you, whose gentle hearts do fear the smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,

may now perchance both quake and tremble here, when

lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.

Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am the lion-fell, nor else no lion's

dam; for, if I should as lion come in strife into this place, 'twere pity on my life.

Wrong.

Oh, a very gentle beast of a good conscience. The very best at a beast,

my lord, that e'er I saw. This lion is a very fox for his valour.

True, and a goose for his discretion.

Not so, my Lord, for his valor cannot carry his

discretion, and the fox carries the goose. His discretion,

I am sure, cannot carry his valor, for the goose carries not the fox.

It is well. Leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to

the moon.

Ok.

This lantern doth the hornèd moon present—

He should have worn the horns on his head.

He is no crescent, and his

horns are invisible within the circumference.

This lantern doth the hornèd moon present,

myself the man i' the moon do seem to be. This is the greatest error of all the rest:

the man should be put into the lantern.

How is it else the man i' the moon? He dares not come there for the candle; for, you

see, it is already in snuff. I am aweary of this moon.

Would he would change!

It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane;

but yet, in courtesy, in all reason,

we must stay the time.

Proceed, moon.

All

that I have to say,

is, to tell you

that the lantern is the moon. I'm the man in the moon.

This thorn bush, my thorn bush, and this dog, my dog.

Why, all these should be in the lantern, for all these are in the moon.

But silence! Here comes Thisbe.

This is

old

Ninny's tomb.

Where is my love?

Well roared, Lion. Well run, Thisbe.

Well shone, Moon.

Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.

Well moused, Lion.

And so, the lion vanished.

And then came Pyramus.

Sweet Moon,

I thank thee for thy sunny beams.

I thank thee, Moon, for shining now

so bright; for, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,

I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.

But stay, O spite!

But mark, poor knight, what dreadful dole is here!

Eyes,

do you see?

How can it be?

O dainty duck! O dear!

Thy mantle good, what,

stained with blood!

Approach, ye Furies fell!

O Fates, come, come, cut thread and thrum

quail, crush,

conclude, and quell! This passion, and the death of a

dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.

Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.

O wherefore,

Nature,

didst thou lions frame? Since lion vile hath here deflowered my dear:

which is—

no,

no—

which was the fairest dame that lived, that loved, that liked, that looked with cheer.

Come, tears, confound.

Out, sword, and wound the pap of Pyramus;

Ay, that left pap, where heart doth hop.

Oh,

thus die I,

thus,

thus,

thus.

Now am I dead.

Oh,

am I right?

My soul is in the sky.

Tongue,

lose that light.

Moon

take thy flight.

Oh!

Now die, die, die, die,

die.

Yeah. No die

but an ace, for him; for he is but one. Less than an ace, man, for he is dead;

he is nothing. With the help of a surgeon

he might yet recover and prove an ass. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe

comes back and finds her lover?

She will find him by starlight.

Here she comes, and her passion ends the play.

Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus.

I hope she will be breif. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe,

is the better; he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us.

She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes. And thus she means, videlicet—

Asleep, my love?

What, dead,

my dove?

O Pyramus, arise! Speak, speak.

Quite dumb?

Dead,

dead?

A tomb must cover thy sweet eyes.

These lily lips, this cherry nose, these yellow cowslip cheeks, are gone,

are gone.

Lovers, make moan.

His eyes were green as leeks.

O Sisters Three, come,

come to me with hands as pale as milk;

lay them in gore. Since you have shore with shears his thread of silk.

Tongue, not a word.

Come, trusty sword,

come, blade,

my breast imbrue.

And, farewell, friends,

thus Thisbe ends.

Adieu,

adieu,

adieu.

Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.

Ay, and Wall

too. No

assure you;

the wall is down that parted their fathers.

Will it please you to

see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergamask dance between two of our company? No

epilogue.

I pray you;

for your play

needs no excuse.

Never excuse;

for when the players are all dead,

there needs none to be blamed.

Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe's garter,

it would have been a fine tragedy.

And so it is,

truly,

you did,

very notably discharged. But come, your Bergamask.

Let

your

epilogue

alone.

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.

Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.

I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn as much as we this night have overwatched.

This

palpable-gross play hath

well beguiled

the heavy gait of night. Sweet friends,

to bed.

A fortnight hold we this solemnity,

in nightly revels and new

jollity.

Now the hungry lion roars and the wolf

behowls the moon, whilst the heavy ploughman snores,

all with weary task fordone.

Now the wasted

brands do glow, whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, puts

the wretch that lies in woe in remembrance of a shroud.

Now

it is the time of night that the graves all gaping wide, everyone lets forth

his sprite. In the church-way paths to glide,

and we fairies,

that do run by the triple Hecate's team, from the presence of the sun,

following darkness like a dream,

now are frolic.

Not a mouse shall disturb this hallowed house.

I'm sent with broom before to sweep the dust behind the door.

Through the house give gathering light.

By the dead and drowsy fire:

every elf and fairy sprite hop as light as bird from brier,

and this ditty,

after me, sing,

and dance it trippingly.

First, rehearse your song by rote to each word a warbling note.

Hand in hand, with fairy grace, will we sing, and bless this place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

True.

Yeah.

Now until the break of day, through this house each fairy stray.

To the best bride-bed will we, which by us shall blessèd be,

and the issue there createever shall be fortunate.

So, shall all the couples three ever true in loving be,

and the blots of Nature's hand shall not in their issue stand.

Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,

nor mark prodigious, such as are despisèd in nativity, shall upon their children be.

With this field-dew consecrate,

every fairy take his gait;

and each several chamber bless, through this palace, with sweet peace;

and the owner of it blessed ever shall in

safety rest.

Trip away, make no stay,

meet me all by break of day.

If we shadows have offended,

think but this, and all is mended,

that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream, gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend.

And,

as I am an honest Puck,

if we have unearnèd luck now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,

we will make amends ere long,

else the Puck a liar call.

So,

good night unto you all.

Give me your hands,

if we be friends,

and Robin shall restore amends.