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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 3Scene 1
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"to disfigure or to present"
Humor
Act 3,
Scene 1
Lines 43-60

An explanation of the humor in Quince’s misuse of “disfigure” and “present” in Act 3, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Quince

Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things:
that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber, for you
know Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.

Snug

Doth the moon shine that night we play our
play?

Bottom

A calendar, a calendar — look in the almanac,
find out moonshine, find out moonshine.
[Enter Robin, invisible]

Quince

[Consulting an almanac] Yes, it doth shine that
night.

Bottom

Why, then may you leave a casement of the great
chamber window where we play open, and the moon
may shine in at the casement.

Quince

Ay, or else one must come in with a bush of
thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or
to present the person of Moonshine. Then there is
another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber,
for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk
through the chink of a wall.

What Quince meant to say is that he comes to "figure or present" the person of Moonshine, not "disfigure" (ruin) him.