| [Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING] |
|
| QUINCE | Is all our company here? |
| BOTTOM | You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. |
| QUINCE | Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his wedding-day at night. |
| BOTTOM | First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point. |
| QUINCE | Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. |
| BOTTOM | A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves. |
| QUINCE | Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. |
| BOTTOM | Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. |
| QUINCE | You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. |
| BOTTOM | What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? |
| QUINCE | A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. |
| BOTTOM | That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. The raging rocks And shivering shocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far And make and mar The foolish Fates. This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. |
| QUINCE | Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. |
| FLUTE | Here, Peter Quince. |
| QUINCE | Flute, you must take Thisby on you. |
| FLUTE | What is Thisby? a wandering knight? |
| QUINCE | It is the lady that Pyramus must love. |
| FLUTE | Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming. |
| QUINCE | That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. |
| BOTTOM | An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne, Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!' |
| QUINCE | No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby. |
| BOTTOM | Well, proceed. |
| QUINCE | Robin Starveling, the tailor. |
| STARVELING | Here, Peter Quince. |
| QUINCE | Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. |
| SNOUT | Here, Peter Quince. |
| QUINCE | You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby's father: Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I hope, here is a play fitted. |
| SNUG | Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. |
| QUINCE | You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. |
| BOTTOM | Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.' |
| QUINCE | An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all. |
| ALL | That would hang us, every mother's son. |
| BOTTOM | I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale. |
| QUINCE | You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus. |
| BOTTOM | Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? |
| QUINCE | Why, what you will. |
| BOTTOM | I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. |
| QUINCE | Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not. |
| BOTTOM | We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu. |
| QUINCE | At the duke's oak we meet. |
| BOTTOM | Enough; hold or cut bow-strings. |
| [Exeunt] |