A Midsummer Night's Dream Page #7

I'll be hanged.

He would've deserved it.

Six pence a day in Pyramus,

or nothing.

[ Cart Approaching ]

Where are these lads?

- Bottom!

- Bottom!

Where are these hearts?

- Bottom!

-O courageous day!

- Bottom!

- Bottom!

O most happy hour!

Masters, I am to

discourse wonders,

but ask me not what.

Letus hear, sweet Bottom.

Not a word of me.

All I will tell you

is that the duke hath dined.

Get your apparel together.

Everyman, look o'er his part.

Let Thisby have clean linen,

and let not him that plays

the lion pare his nails,

for they shall hang out

for the lion's claws!

[ Operatic Tenor

Singing In Italian ]

Rrahhrr!

If it please you.

These things seem small

and indistinguishable,

like far-off mountains

turning into clouds.

And I have found my Demetrius

like a jewel mine own,

and not mine own.

Oh.

'Tis strange, my Theseus,

that these lovers speak of.

More strange than true.

I never may believe

these antique fables,

nor these fairy toys.

Lovers and madmen

have such seething brains,

such shaping fantasies

that apprehend more

than cool reason

ever comprehends.

Such tricks hath

strong imagination,

that if it would

but apprehend some joy,

itcomprehends

some bringerofthe joy.

But all the story

of the night told over,

and all their minds

transfigured so together,

more witnesseth

than fancy images

and grows to something

of great constancy,

but, howsoever,

strange and admirable.

[ Tapping Glass ]

Joy, gentle friends.

Joy and fresh days of love

accompany your hearts.

More than to us wait

in your royal walks,

your board, your bed.

[ Bangs Down Fork ]

[ Quartet Resumes Playing ]

Come now, what masques,

what dances shall we have

to wear away this long age

of 3 hours

between our after-supper

and bed time?

Where is our usual

manager of mirth?

Here, mighty Theseus.

What revels are in hand?

Is there no play

to ease the anguish

of a torturing hour?

There is a brief how

many sports are ripe.

"Battle with the Centaurs,

to be sung by an Athenian

eunuch to the harp."

We'll none of that.

"The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

tearing the Thracian singer

in their rage."

That is an old device,

and it was played

when I from Thebes

came last a conqueror.

"The thrice three Muses

mourning for

the death of learning,

late deceased in beggary."

That is some satire,

keen and critical,

not sorting with

a nuptial ceremony.

"A tedious brief scene

of young Pyramus

and his love Thisby.

Very tragical mirth."

Merry and tragical?

Tedious and brief?

That is hot ice

and wondrous strange snow.

What are they that do play it?

Hard-handed men

that work in Athens here,

which never labored

in their mind till now,

and now have toiled

their unbreathed memories

with this same play

against your nuptial.

We will hear it.

No, no, my lord.

I did hear it over,

and it is nothing,

nothing in the world.

I will hear that play.

The, um, short

and the long is...

our play is preferred.

For never anything

can be amiss

when simpleness

and duty tender it.

[ Praying ]

[ Procession Plays ]

Moonshine shall shine in

at the casement.

So please, your grace,

the prologue is addressed.

Let him approach.

Courage, man, courage.

In this same interlude

it doth befall that I,

one Snout by name,

present a wall.

And such a wall as I would

have you think that had in it

a crannied hole... or chink...

through which the lovers--

through which the lovers--

Pyramus and Thisby.

[ Louder ]

Pyramus and Thisby.

Pyramus and Thisby!

Pyramus and Thisby did

whisper often very secretly.

And this the cranny is,

right and sinister,

through which

the fearful lovers are to--

Whisper.

[ Audience Laughs ]

Would you desire lime and hair

to speak better?

It is the wittiest partition

as ever I heard discourse,

my lord.

Pyramus draws near the wall.

Silence.

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 Thisby's promise

is forgot.

And thou, O wall,

O sweet, O lovely wall,

that stands

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.

Thanks, courteous wall.

Jove,

shield thee well for this.

But what see I?

No Thisby do I see.

Oh, wicked wall

through whom I see no bliss,

curse be thy stones

for thus deceiving me.

The wall, methinks, being sensible,

should curse again.

No, in truth, sire,

he should not.

"Deceiving me"

is Thisby's cue.

He--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.

Yonder she comes.

[ Falsetto Voice ]

Oh, wall,

full often hast thou

heard my moans

for--

[ Audience Laughing ]

For parting--

For parting

my fair Pyramus and me.

My ch-cherry lips have often

kissed thy stones--

thy stones with lime

and hair knit up in thee.

I see a voice.

Now will I to the chink to spy

and I can hear my Thisby's face.

This by...

my love?

Thou art my love, I think.

Think what thou wilt,

I am thy lover's grace.

And like Limander,

am I trusty still.

And I, like Helen,

till the fates me kill.

Oh, kiss me through

the hole of this vile wall.

I kiss the wall's hole,

not your lips at all.

Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb--

That's Ninus' tomb.

That's Ninus' tomb--

Meet me straightway?

'Tide life, 'tide death,

I come without delay.

Thus have I, wall,

my part discharged so.

And being done,

thus wall away doth go.

Here come two noble beasts in,

a man and a lion.

You ladies, you,

whose gentle hearts do fear

the smallest monstrous mouse

that creeps on floor,

may now perchance

both quake and tremble here

when lion rough

in wildest rage doth roar.

Rrrroowwrr!

For know that I,

as Snug the joiner,

am a lion-fell

nor else no lion's dam.

For if I should as lion

come in strife into this place,

'twere pity on my life.

Rowr!

Rowr!

[ Louder Applause ]

Moonshine.

Moonshine.

Let me play the moon.

I--

This lantern doth

the horned moon present--

[ Laughter ]

This lantern doth

the horned moon present

myself the man in the moon

do seem to be--

[ Laughter ]

All I have to say is to tell you

that this lantern

is the moon,

I'm the man in the moon,

this thorn bush, my thorn bush--

[ Barks ]

And this dog...my dog.

Oh. Oh, silence.

Here comes Thisby.

Where is my love?

- [ Roars ]

- [ Screams ]

[ Barking ]

Well roared, lion.

Well run, Thisby.

Well shone, moon.

And then came 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 Thisby sight.

But stay...O spite.

But mark,

O light,

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.

[ Dog Barks ]

O fates, come, come...

Cut thread and thrum.

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