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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 4Scene 1
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"The eye of man"
Humor
Act 4,
Scene 1
Lines 205-219

An explanation of Bottom’s Bible misquote in Act 4, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Bottom

had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit
of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he
go about to expound this dream. Methought I was —
there is no man can tell what methought I was and
methought I had — but man is but a patched fool if he
will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man
hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's
hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his
heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter
Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called
“Bottom's Dream,” because it hath no bottom, and I will
sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.
Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing
it at her death.
[Exit Bottom]

Bottom is misquoting a passage from the Bible: "the eye hath not seen, and the ear hath not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man” (1 Corinthians 2:9).