1

Bottom

their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to
hear a bergamask dance between two of our company?
[Bottom and Flute stand up]

Theseus

No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no
excuse. Never excuse, for when the players are all dead
there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it
had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe's
garter, it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is,
truly and very notably discharged. But come, your
bergamask. Let your epilogue alone.

Flute (as Thisbe)

Asleep, my love?
What, dead, my dove?
O Pyramus, arise.
Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
Dead, dead? A tomb
Must cover thy sweet eyes.
These lily lips,
This cherry nose,
These yellow cowslip cheeks
Are gone, are gone.
Lovers, make moan.
His eyes were green as leeks.
O sisters three,
Come, come to me
With hands as pale as milk.
Lay them in gore,
Since you have shore
With shears his thread of silk.
Tongue, not a word.
Come, trusty sword,
Come, blade, my breast imbrue.
[She stabs herself]
And farewell friends,
Thus Thisbe ends.
Adieu, adieu, adieu.

Bottom (as Pyramus)

Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams.
I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright;
For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams
I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.
[Seeing Thisbe's bloody cloak on the ground]
But stay! O spite!
But mark, poor night,
What dreadful dole is here?
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck, O dear!
Thy mantle good,
What, stained with blood?
Approach, ye Furies fell.
O Fates, come, come,
Cut thread and thrum,
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.

Starveling (as Moonshine)

This lantern doth the hornèd moon present,
Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be —

Theseus

This is the greatest error of all the rest. The man
should be put into the lantern. How is it else the
"man i' the moon"?

Demetrius

He dares not come there for the candle; for
you see it is already in snuff.

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.

Bottom

My next is, “most fair Pyramus.” Heigh-ho. Peter Quince?
Flute the bellows-mender? Snout the tinker? Starveling?
God's my life! Stolen hence, and left me asleep? I have
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]

Pages