*antique fables, nor these fairy toys” meaning old legends and fairytales
Act 5, Scene 1
464 of 464 rows
ACT V
SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants
HIPPOLYTA:
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Tis strange my Theseus, that these
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lovers speak of.
THESEUS:
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More strange than true: I never may believe
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The lunatic, the lover and the poet
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One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
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Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
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The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
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A local habitation and a name.
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Such tricks hath strong imagination,
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That if it would but apprehend some joy,
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It comprehends some bringer of that joy,
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Or in the night, imagining some fear,
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How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
HIPPOLYTA:
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But all the story of the night told over,
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But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
THESEUS:
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Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA
THESEUS:
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Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love
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Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER:
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THESEUS:
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masques meaning performances
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To wear away this long age of three hours
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To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
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Call Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE:
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Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS:
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The lazy time, if not with some delight?
PHILOSTRATE:
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Make choice of which your highness will see first.
Giving a paper
THESEUS:
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[Reads] 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
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By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
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We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
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In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
Reads
THESEUS:
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The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
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Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
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That is an old device, and it was play'd
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When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
Reads
THESEUS:
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The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
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That is some satire, keen and critical,
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Reads
THESEUS:
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Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
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That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
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PHILOSTRATE:
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A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
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Which is as brief as I have known a play,
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But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
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Which makes it tedious, for in all the play
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And tragical, my noble lord, it is,
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For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
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Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
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Made mine eyes water, but more merry tears
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The passion of loud laughter never shed.
THESEUS:
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What are they that do play it?
PHILOSTRATE:
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Which never labour'd in their minds till now,
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THESEUS:
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And we will hear it.
PHILOSTRATE:
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No, my noble lord,
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It is not for you: I have heard it over,
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And it is nothing, nothing in the world,
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To do you service.
THESEUS:
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I will hear that play,
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For never anything can be amiss,
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Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
Exit PHILOSTRATE
HIPPOLYTA:
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THESEUS:
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Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
HIPPOLYTA:
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He says they can do nothing in this kind.
THESEUS:
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The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
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And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
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Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
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Make periods in the midst of sentences,
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And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,
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Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
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Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome,
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And in the modesty of fearful duty
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I read as much as from the rattling tongue
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Re-enter PHILOSTRATE
PHILOSTRATE:
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So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.
THESEUS:
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Let him approach.
Flourish of trumpets
Enter QUINCE for the Prologue
Prologue:
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If we offend, it is with our good will.
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That you should think, we come not to offend,
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But with good will. To show our simple skill,
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That is the true beginning of our end.
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Consider then we come but in despite.
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We do not come as minding to contest you,
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Our true intent is. All for your delight
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We are not here. That you should here repent you,
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The actors are at hand and by their show
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You shall know all that you are like to know.
THESEUS:
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LYSANDER:
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He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt, he knows
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not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not
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enough to speak, but to speak true.
HIPPOLYTA:
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Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child
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THESEUS:
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His speech, was like a tangled chain, nothing
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impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?
Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion
Prologue:
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Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show,
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But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
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This man is Pyramus, if you would know,
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This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.
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This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
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Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder,
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And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content
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To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
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This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
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Presenteth Moonshine, for, if you will know,
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By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
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To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
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This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
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The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
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Did scare away, or rather did affright,
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And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
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Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
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Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
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And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:
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Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
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He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast,
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And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
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His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
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Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
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At large discourse, while here they do remain.
Exeunt Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine
THESEUS:
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DEMETRIUS:
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Wall:
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In this same interlude it doth befall
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That I, one Snout by name, present a wall,
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And such a wall, as I would have you think,
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That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
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Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
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Did whisper often very secretly.
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This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show
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That I am that same wall, the truth is so:
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And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
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Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
THESEUS:
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DEMETRIUS:
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It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard
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discourse, my lord.
Enter Pyramus
THESEUS:
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Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!
Pyramus:
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O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!
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O night, which ever art when day is not!
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O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,
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I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!
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And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
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That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!
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Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
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Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
Wall holds up his fingers
Pyramus:
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Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
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But what see I? No Thisby do I see.
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O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!
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Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
THESEUS:
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Pyramus:
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No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'
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is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to
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spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will
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fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
Enter Thisbe
Thisbe:
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O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
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For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
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My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,
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Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
Pyramus:
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I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
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To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!
Thisbe:
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My love thou art, my love I think.
Pyramus:
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Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace,
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And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
Thisbe:
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And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
Pyramus:
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Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
Thisbe:
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As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
Pyramus:
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O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
Thisbe:
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I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
Pyramus:
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Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
Thisbe:
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Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.
Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe
Wall:
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Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so,
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And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
Exit
THESEUS:
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Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
DEMETRIUS:
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without warning.
HIPPOLYTA:
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This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THESEUS:
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are no worse, if imagination amend them.
HIPPOLYTA:
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It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
THESEUS:
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If we imagine no worse of them than they of
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come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
Enter Lion and Moonshine
Lion:
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You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
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The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
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May now perchance both quake and tremble here,
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When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
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Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
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A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam,
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For, if I should as lion come in strife
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Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.
THESEUS:
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A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.
DEMETRIUS:
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The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.
LYSANDER:
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This lion is a very fox for his valour.
THESEUS:
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True, and a goose for his discretion.
DEMETRIUS:
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discretion, and the fox carries the goose.
THESEUS:
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His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour,
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for the goose carries not the fox. It is well:
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leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.
Moonshine:
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This lanthorn doth the horned moon present,--
DEMETRIUS:
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He should have worn the horns on his head.
THESEUS:
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He is no crescent, and his horns are
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invisible within the circumference.
Moonshine:
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This lanthorn doth the horned moon present,
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Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.
THESEUS:
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This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man
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should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the
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man i' the moon?
DEMETRIUS:
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He dares not come there for the candle, for, you
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see, it is already in snuff.
HIPPOLYTA:
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I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!
THESEUS:
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It appears, by his small light of discretion, that
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reason, we must stay the time.
LYSANDER:
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Proceed, Moon.
Moonshine:
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All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the
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lanthorn is the moon, I, the man in the moon, this
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thorn-bush, my thorn-bush, and this dog, my dog.
DEMETRIUS:
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Why, all these should be in the lanthorn, for all
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these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.
Enter Thisbe
Thisbe:
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This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?
Lion:
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[Roaring] Oh--
Thisbe runs off
DEMETRIUS:
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Well roared, Lion.
THESEUS:
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Well run, Thisbe.
HIPPOLYTA:
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Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a
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The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit
THESEUS:
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Well moused, Lion.
LYSANDER:
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And so the lion vanished.
DEMETRIUS:
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And then came Pyramus.
Enter Pyramus
Pyramus:
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Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams,
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I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright,
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For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
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I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
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But stay, O spite!
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But mark, poor knight,
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What dreadful dole is here!
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Eyes, do you see?
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How can it be?
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O dainty duck! O dear!
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Thy mantle good,
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What, stain'd with blood!
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Approach, ye Furies fell!
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O Fates, come, come,
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Cut thread and thrum,
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Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
THESEUS:
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This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would
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go near to make a man look sad.
HIPPOLYTA:
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Pyramus:
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O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
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Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
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Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame
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That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd
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with cheer.
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Come, tears, confound,
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Out, sword, and wound
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The pap of Pyramus,
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Ay, that left pap,
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Where heart doth hop:
Stabs himself
Pyramus:
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Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
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Now am I dead,
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Now am I fled,
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My soul is in the sky:
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Tongue, lose thy light,
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Moon take thy flight:
Exit Moonshine
Pyramus:
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Now die, die, die, die, die.
Dies
DEMETRIUS:
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LYSANDER:
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THESEUS:
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With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and
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prove an ass.
HIPPOLYTA:
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How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes
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back and finds her lover?
THESEUS:
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She will find him by starlight. Here she comes, and
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her passion ends the play.
Re-enter Thisbe
HIPPOLYTA:
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Methinks she should not use a long one for such a
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Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.
DEMETRIUS:
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Thisbe, is the better, he for a man, God warrant us,
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she for a woman, God bless us.
LYSANDER:
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She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
DEMETRIUS:
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Thisbe:
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Asleep, my love?
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What, dead, my dove?
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O Pyramus, arise!
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Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
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Dead, dead? A tomb
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Must cover thy sweet eyes.
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These My lips,
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This cherry nose,
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These yellow cowslip cheeks,
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Are gone, are gone:
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Lovers, make moan:
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His eyes were green as leeks.
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O Sisters Three,
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Come, come to me,
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With hands as pale as milk,
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Lay them in gore,
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Since you have shore
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With shears his thread of silk.
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Tongue, not a word:
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Come, trusty sword,
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Come, blade, my breast imbrue:
Stabs herself
Thisbe:
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And, farewell, friends,
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Thus Thisby ends:
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Adieu, adieu, adieu.
Dies
THESEUS:
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Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
DEMETRIUS:
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Ay, and Wall too.
BOTTOM:
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[Starting up] No assure you, the wall is down that
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parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the
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epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two
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of our company?
THESEUS:
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No epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no
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347
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that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself
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in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine
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epilogue alone.
A dance
THESEUS:
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The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:
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Lovers, to bed, 'tis almost fairy time.
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I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn
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In nightly revels and new jollity.
Exeunt
Enter PUCK
PUCK:
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Now the hungry lion roars,
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And the wolf behowls the moon,
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Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
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All with weary task fordone.
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Now the wasted brands do glow,
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Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
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Puts the wretch that lies in woe
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In remembrance of a shroud.
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Now it is the time of night
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That the graves all gaping wide,
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Every one lets forth his sprite,
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In the church-way paths to glide:
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And we fairies, that do run
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By the triple Hecate's team,
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From the presence of the sun,
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Following darkness like a dream,
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Now are frolic: not a mouse
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Shall disturb this hallow'd house:
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I am sent with broom before,
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To sweep the dust behind the door.
Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train
OBERON:
381
Through the house give gathering light,
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By the dead and drowsy fire:
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Every elf and fairy sprite
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Hop as light as bird from brier,
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And this ditty, after me,
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Sing, and dance it trippingly.
TITANIA:
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First, rehearse your song by rote
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To each word a warbling note:
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Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
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Will we sing, and bless this place.
Song and dance
OBERON:
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Now, until the break of day,
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Through this house each fairy stray.
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To the best bride-bed will we,
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Which by us shall blessed be,
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And the issue there create
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Ever shall be fortunate.
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So shall all the couples three
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Ever true in loving be,
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And the blots of Nature's hand
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Shall not in their issue stand,
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Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
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Nor mark prodigious, such as are
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Despised in nativity,
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Shall upon their children be.
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With this field-dew consecrate,
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Every fairy take his gait,
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And each several chamber bless,
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Through this palace, with sweet peace,
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And the owner of it blest
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Ever shall in safety rest.
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Trip away, make no stay,
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Meet me all by break of day.
Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train
PUCK:
413
If we shadows have offended,
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Think but this, and all is mended,
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That you have but slumber'd here
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While these visions did appear.
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And this weak and idle theme,
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No more yielding but a dream,
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Gentles, do not reprehend:
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if you pardon, we will mend:
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And, as I am an honest Puck,
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If we have unearned luck
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Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
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We will make amends ere long,
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Else the Puck a liar call,
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So, good night unto you all.
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Give me your hands, if we be friends,
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And Robin shall restore amends.