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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 3Scene 1
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Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling, Lines 1-32
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Act 3,
Scene 1
Lines 1-32

A performance of lines 1-32 by Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling in Act 3, Scene 1 of myShakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

myShakespeare | Midsummer Night's Dream 3.1 Performance: Quince et al Lines 1-32

[The same woods as the previous scene. Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling to rehearse their play]

Bottom

Are we all met?

Quince

Pat, pat. And here's a marvelous convenient
place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our
stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house, and we
will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke.

Bottom

Peter Quince?

Quince

What sayst thou, bully Bottom?

Bottom

There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and
Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw
a sword to kill himself, which the ladies cannot abide.
How answer you that?

Snout

By'r la'kin, a parlous fear.

Starveling

I believe we must leave the killing out when
all is done.

Bottom

Not a whit. I have a device to make all well. Write
me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say we will
do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not
killed indeed, and for the more better assurance, tell
them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the
weaver. This will put them out of fear.

Quince

Well, we will have such a prologue, and it shall be
written in eight and six.

Bottom

No, make it two more. Let it be written in eight
and eight.

Snout

Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

Starveling

I fear it, I promise you.

Bottom

Masters, you ought to consider with yourself: to
bring in — God shield us — a lion among ladies is a most
dreadful thing, for there is not a more fearful wild fowl
than your lion living, and we ought to look to't.

Snout

Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a
lion.