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 everything, right as it fell

out.

Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

33

Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, 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. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords, and Attendants. Hip. T is strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

The. More strange than true: I never may believe

30. true= genuine. Cf. Acts xvii. 21.

34. What is the purpose of Bottom's hurried speech? Why not satisfy their curiosity at once?

36. strings. Probably to tie on the false beards.

37. pumps shoes. See the Century Dictionary for the derivation of the word.

...

2. "In the attitude of Theseus towards the supernatural there is something essentially modern. . . . There is something that reminds one of Scott himself. . . . Scott thought that any contemporary who believed himself to have seen a ghost must be

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 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 a fine frenzy rolling,

10

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;
[Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!]

Hip. 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.

20

20

insane; yet when he paints the appearance of the gray spectre we feel that something within him believes in the possibility of that which he paints, and that this something is deeper than his denial. .. Perhaps Shakespeare was much nearer an actual belief in the fairy mythology he has half created than seems possible to a spectator of the nineteenth century. Wedgewood. See Hamlet, I. v. 166.

The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.

Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA. Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!

Lys.

More than to us

30

Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
The. Come now; what masques, 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.

Phil.

Here, mighty Theseus.

The. Say, what abridgement have you for this

evening?

What masque? what music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time, if not with some delight?

41

Phil. There is a brief how many sports are

ripe :

Make choice of which your highness will see first.

[Giving a paper.

The. [Reads.]" The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.”

"Supper

34. after-supper = what we should term dessert. was usually served between five and six; and this . . . was frequently followed by a collation consisting of fruits and sweetmeats, called the rere-supper.". Staunton.

38. The Master of the Revels. This officer, at the court of Elizabeth, had oversight of all dramatic performances.

39. abridgement:

=

diversion, that which abridges time.

40. masque. See I. i. 19.

43. Read this story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, XII. 240–535.

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 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?

50

60

Phil. 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 rehears'd, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.

70

48. Read Ovid, Metamorphoses, XI. 1-84. Cf. Lycidas, 58–62. 51. Read Seven against Thebes in Plumptre's translation of Eschylus.

52, 53. There are two suggestions for this reference: Spenser's Tears of the Muses, 1591, on the neglect and contempt of learning; or a reference to the death of Robert Greene, the dramatist, who died in poverty, 1592.

56, 57. Shakespeare is here satirizing the contradictory titles of current plays.

The. What are they that do play it?

Phil. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,, Which never labour'd in their minds till now, And now have toil'd their unbreath'd memories With this same play, against your nuptial.

The. And we will hear it.

Phil.

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.

The.

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.

80

[Exit Philostrate.

Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd

And duty in his service perishing.

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

Hip. He says they can do nothing in this kind. The. 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.

74. unbreath'd unexercised, unpractised.

=

90

79, 80. The sense is: "Unless you can find entertainment in their endeavors, which they have stretched to the utmost in studying with cruel pain the lines of the play."- Baker.

85. What does Hippolyta fear, that she wishes not to see the play merely to mock it?

92. "Noble respect or consideration accepts the effort to please without regard to the merit of the performance.” — Wright.