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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 5Scene 1
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Bottom, Flute, Snug, Theseus, Hippolyta, and Demetrius, Lines 169-216
Performance Videos
Act 5,
Scene 1
Lines 169-216

A performance of lines 169-216 by Bottom, Flute, Snug, Theseus, Hippolyta, and Demetrius in Act 5, Scene 1 of myShakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

myShakespeare | Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1 Performance: Theseus, Snug, Bottom et al Lines 169-216

Bottom (as Pyramus)

O grim-looked night, O night with hue so black,
O night which ever art when day is not,
O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,
I fear my Thisbe's promise is forgot.
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall
That stand'st between her father's ground and mine,
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
[Snout, as Wall, indicates the slit with his hand]
Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this.
But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.
O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me.

Theseus

The wall methinks, being sensible, should curse
Again.

Bottom

[To Theseus] No, in truth, sir, he should not.
“Deceiving me” is Thisbe's cue. She is to enter now,
and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see,
it will fall pat as I told you.
[Enter Flute as Thisbe]
Yonder she comes.

Flute (as Thisbe)

O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans
For parting my fair Pyramus and me.
My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.

Bottom (as Pyramus)

I see a voice. Now will I to the chink
To spy an I can hear my Thisbe's face.
Thisbe?

Flute (as Thisbe)

               My love — thou art my love, I think.

Bottom (as Pyramus)

Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace,
And like Lemander am I trusty still.

Flute (as Thisbe)

And I, like Helen, till the fates me kill.

Bottom (as Pyramus)

Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.

Flute (as Thisbe)

As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

Bottom (as Pyramus)

O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.

Flute (as Thisbe)

I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.

Bottom (as Pyramus)

Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?

Flute (as Thisbe)

Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.
[Exit Bottom and Flute separately]

Snout (as Wall)

Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so;
And being done, thus Wall away doth go.
[Exit Snout]

Theseus

Now is the wall down between the two neighbors.

Demetrius

No remedy, my lord, when walls are so willful
to hear without warning.

Hippolyta

This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.

Theseus

The best in this kind are but shadows, and the
worst are no worse if imagination amend them.

Hippolyta

It must be your imagination, then, and not
theirs.

Theseus

If we imagine no worse of them than they of
themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here
come two noble beasts in: a man and a lion.