Midsummer Night's Dream

Bottom

acquaintance too — Your name, I beseech you, sir?

Mustardseed

Mustardseed.

Bottom

Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience
well. That same cowardly giantlike ox-beef hath
devoured many a gentleman of your house. I promise
you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now. I
desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed.

Bottom

I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of me,
to fright me if they could. But I will not stir from this
place, do what they can. I will walk up and down here,
and I will sing that they shall hear I am not afraid.
[Sings]
The ousel cock so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill;
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill.

Bottom

I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of me,
to fright me if they could. But I will not stir from this
place, do what they can. I will walk up and down here,
and I will sing that they shall hear I am not afraid.
[Sings]
The ousel cock so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill;
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill.
[The Fairy Queen Titania has been asleep on the edge of the stage since Oberon placed the love potion on her eyelids in the prior scene. She now wakes up and sees Bottom with the ass's head.]

Titania

[Waking] What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?

Bottom

[Sings]
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plainsong cuckoo grey,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer “Nay” —
[Speaks to himself]
For indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?
Who would give a bird the lie, though he cry “cuckoo”
never so?

Quince

your part at once, cues and all. — Pyramus, enter. Your
cue is past; it is “never tire.”

Flute

O!
[As Thisbe]
As true as truest horse that yet would never tire.
[Enter Robin and Bottom, whose head has been transformed by Robin into that of an ass. He recites his line as he comes around the hedge.]

Bottom (as Pyramus)

If I were fair, Thisbe, I were only thine.

Quince

O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray,
Masters, fly, masters. Help!

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.

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.

Bottom

Nay, you must name his name, and half his face
must be seen through the lion's neck, and he himself
must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect:
“ladies,” or “fair ladies, I would wish you” or “I would
request you” or “I would entreat you not to fear, not to
tremble. My life for yours; if you think I come hither as
a lion, it were pity — of my life. No, I am no such thing.
I am a man as other men are.” And there, indeed, let
him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug
the joiner.

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