Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

HER. And in the Wood, where often you and I
Upon faint1 primrose-beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet:
There my Lysander and myself shall meet,
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet Playfellow: pray thou for us;
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius !
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
Lys. I will, my Hermia.

Helena, adieu :

220

[Exit HERMIA.

As you on him, Demetrius doat on you!
HEL. How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know:
And as he errs, doating on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,2
Love can transpose to form and dignity :
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind :
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste,
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game3 themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjur'd every where:
For, ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv'd, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the Wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:*
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.

[blocks in formation]

[exit.

230

240

250

[exit.

4 dearly bought.

ACT I

Sc. I

[graphic]

ACT I

Sc. II

SCENE II. The Same. QUINCE's House.

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT,
and STARVELING.

QUIN. Is all our company here?

BOT. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.'

1

QUIN. Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is
thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our Interlude
before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding-day
at night.

BOT. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats
on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow
to a point.2
QUIN. Marry, our play is The most lamentable Comedy
and most cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.

IO

BOT. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and
a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your
actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
QUIN. Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom the Weaver.
BOT. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUIN. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOT. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant?
QUIN. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. 20
BOT. That will ask some tears in the true performing of
it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will
move storms, I will condole3 in some measure. To the
rest! Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could
play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make
all split.

1 list.
164

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.

2 make an end of these beginnings, and get to work.

4 Now deal with the others.

3 lament.

30

This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. QUIN. Francis Flute the Bellows-mender.

FLU. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. You must take Thisby on you.

FLU. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?
QUIN. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

40

FLU. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.

QUIN. That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

BOT. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice. [calling as PYRAMUS.] Thisne,1 Thisne! [answering as THISBE.] Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear! QUIN. No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby.

Bor. Well, proceed.

QUIN. Robin Starveling the Tailor.

STAR. Here, Peter Quince.

51

QUIN. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.

Tom Snout the Tinker.

SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug the Joiner, you the Lion's part: and, I hope, here is a play fitted!

60

SNUG. Have you the Lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

QUIN. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

BOT. 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. QUIN. 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.

70

ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.
BOT. I grant you, Friends, if that you should fright the
ladies out of their wits, they would have no more
discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my

II : Y

1 meant, perhaps, as a pet form.

165

ACT I
Sc. II

ACT I
Sc. II

voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale. QUIN. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-fac❜d man; a proper man as one shall see in a Summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

80

BOT. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

QUIN. Why, what you will.

BOT. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain1 beard, or your French-crown-colour2 beard, your perfect yellow. QUIN. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all,

and then you will play barefac'd. But, Masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow 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 dogg'd 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. BOT. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely* and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu.

QUIN. At the Duke's Oak we meet.

BOT. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.5

99

[exeunt.

ACT II

SCENE I. A Wood.

Enter a Fairy at one door, and ROBIN GOODFELLOW

[blocks in formation]

1 dyed red with grain: i.c. with kermes, an insect of the genus coccus. 2 the hue of gold.

3 heads: with an allusion to some grave consequences of the morbus Gallicus.

166 * (archers') 'expect us, or cut our strings.' 6 stage-entrance.

4 seemly.

I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the Moon's sphere ;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs1 upon the green.
The cowslips tall her Pensioners2 be:
In their gold coats spots you see:
Those be rubies, fairy favours,3

In those freckles live their savours:
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.
PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night:
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 Changëling,
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,

8

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.
FAI. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish spright
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he,
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
Skim milk, and sometime labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
And sometimes 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?

PUCK.

I am thou speak'st aright;

I am that merry Wanderer of the night.

1 fairy-rings.

[ocr errors][merged small]

2 a reference to Elizabeth's body-guard: composed of gentlemen

choicely tall, handsome, and well dressed.
5 embittered.
6 roam.

3 jewels. 4 clown, jester.
8 chide. 167

7 shining.

30

[merged small][ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »