Midsummer Lines Flashcards
1
Q
How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.
He will not know what all but he do know.
And, as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste.
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured everywhere.
For, ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and show’rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her. And, for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.
A
Helena
2
Q
Is all our company here?
A
Quince
3
Q
You were best to call them generally, man by
man, according to the scrip.
A
Bottom
4
Q
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.
A
Quince
5
Q
First, good Peter Quince, say what the play
treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so
grow to a point.
A
Bottom
6
Q
Marry, our play is “The most lamentable
comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and
Thisbe.”
A
Quince
7
Q
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.
A
Bottom
8
Q
Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
A
Quince
9
Q
Ready. Name what part I am for, and
proceed.
A
Bottom
10
Q
You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
A
Quince
11
Q
What is Pyramus—a lover or a tyrant?
A
Bottom
12
Q
A lover that kills himself most gallant for love.
A
Quince
13
Q
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 humor 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.
A
Bottom
14
Q
Francis Flute, the bellows-mender
A
Quince
15
Q
Here, Peter Quince.
A
Flute
16
Q
Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
A
Quince
17
Q
What is Thisbe—a wand’ring knight?
A
Flute
18
Q
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
A
Quince
19
Q
Nay, faith, let not me play a woman. I have a
beard coming.
A
Flute
20
Q
That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask, and
you may speak as small as you will.
A
Quince
21
Q
An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too.
I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: “Thisne,
Thisne!”—“Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy Thisbe
dear and lady dear!”
A
Bottom
22
Q
No, no, you must play Pyramus—and, Flute,
you Thisbe.
A
Quince
23
Q
Well, proceed.
A
Bottom
24
Q
Robin Starveling, the tailor.
A
Quince
25
Here, Peter Quince.
Starveling
26
Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s
mother.—Tom Snout, the tinker.
Quince
27
Here, Peter Quince.
Snout
28
You, Pyramus’ father.—Myself, Thisbe’s
father.—Snug the joiner, you the lion’s part.—
And I hope here is a play fitted.
Quince
29
Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it
be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
Snug
30
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but
roaring.
Quince
31
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!”
Bottom
32
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.
Quince
33
That would hang us, every mother’s son.
All mechanicals
34
I grant you, friends, if 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.
Bottom
35
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 gentlemanlike
man. Therefore you must needs play
Pyramus.
Quince
36
Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I
best to play it in?
Bottom
37
Why, what you will.
Quince
38
I will discharge it in either your straw-color
beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain
beard, or your French-crown-color beard,
your perfit yellow.
Bottom
39
Some of your French crowns have no hair at
all, and then you will play barefaced. But, masters,
here are your parts, giving out the parts, and I am
to entreat you, request you, and desire you to con
them by tomorrow 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.
Quince
40
We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains. Be
perfit. Adieu.
Bottom
41
At the Duke’s Oak we meet.
Quince
42
Enough. Hold or cut bowstrings.
Bottom
43
And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she
And “Tailor!” cries and falls into a cough,
And then the whole choir hold their hips and loffe
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
Robin (Puck)
44
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon,
And the imperial vot’ress passèd on
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before, milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it “love-in-idleness.”
Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Oberon
45
I love thee not; therefore pursue me not.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I’ll stay; the other stayeth me.
Thou told’st me they were stol’n unto this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
Demetrius
46
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant!
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.
Helena
47
Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
Or rather do I not in plainest truth
Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?
Demetrius
48
And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave
(Unworthy as I am) to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love
(And yet a place of high respect with me)
Than to be usèd as you use your dog?
Helena
49
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
Demetrius
50
And I am sick when I look not on you.
Helena
51
You do impeach your modesty too much
To leave the city and commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not,
To trust the opportunity of night
And the ill counsel of a desert place
With the rich worth of your virginity.
Demetrius
52
Your virtue is my privilege. For that
It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night.
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then, how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?
Helena
53
I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
Demetrius
54
We cannot fight for love as men may do.
We should be wooed and were not made to woo.
Helena
55
We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
And tarry for the comfort of the day.
Lysander
56
Be it so, Lysander. Find you out a bed,
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
Hermia
57
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
Lysander
58
Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet. Do not lie so near.
Hermia
59
O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
So that but one heart we can make of it;
Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath—
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
Lysander
60
Lysander riddles very prettily.
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy,
Lie further off in human modesty.
Such separation, as may well be said,
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.
Hermia
61
Are we all met?
Bottom
62
Pat, pat. And here’s a marvels convenient
place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be
our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house,
and we will do it in action as we will do it before
the Duke.
Quince
63
Peter Quince?
Bottom
64
What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
Quince
65
There are things in this comedy of Pyramus
and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus
must draw a sword to kill himself, which the ladies
cannot abide. How answer you that?
Bottom
66
By ’r lakin, a parlous fear.
Snout
67
I believe we must leave the killing out,
when all is done.
Starveling
68
Not a whit! I have a device to make all well.
Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to
say we will do no harm with our swords and that
Pyramus is not killed indeed. And, for the more
better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not
Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. This will put them
out of fear.
Bottom
69
Well, we will have such a prologue, and it shall
be written in eight and six.
Quince
70
No, make it two more. Let it be written in
eight and eight.
Bottom
71
Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
Snout
72
I fear it, I promise you.
Starveling
73
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
wildfowl than your lion living, and we ought to look
to ’t.
Bottom
74
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not
a lion.
Snout
75
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.
Bottom
76
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.
Quince
77
Doth the moon shine that night we play our
play?
Snout
78
A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanac.
Find out moonshine, find out moonshine.
Bottom
79
Yes, it doth shine that night.
Quince
80
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.
Bottom
81
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.
Quince
82
You can never bring in a wall. What say you,
Bottom?
Snout
83
Some man or other must present Wall. And
let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some
roughcast about him to signify wall, or let him
hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall
Pyramus and Thisbe whisper.
Bottom
84
If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,
every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus,
you begin. When you have spoken your
speech, enter into that brake, and so everyone
according to his cue.
Quince
85
And yet, to say the truth, reason
and love keep little company together nowadays.
Bottom
86
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Robin (Puck)
87
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoined all three
To fashion this false sport in spite of me.—
Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid,
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived,
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—O, is all forgot?
All schooldays’ friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds
Had been incorporate. So we grew together
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries molded on one stem;
So with two seeming bodies but one heart,
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crownèd with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly; ’tis not maidenly.
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.
Helena
88
Of thy former lady’s eye.
And the country proverb known,
That every man should take his own,
In your waking shall be shown.
Jack shall have Jill;
Naught shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be
well.
Robin (Puck)
89
Come, sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick muskroses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
Titania
90
Where’s Peaseblossom?
Bottom
91
Ready.
Peaseblossom
92
Scratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s
Monsieur Cobweb?
Bottom
93
Ready.
Cobweb
94
Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get you
your weapons in your hand and kill me a red-hipped
humble-bee on the top of a thistle, and, good
monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret
yourself too much in the action, monsieur, and,
good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break
not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a
honey-bag, signior. Cobweb exits. Where’s Monsieur
Mustardseed?
Bottom
95
Ready.
Mustardseed
96
Give me your neaf, Monsieur Mustardseed.
Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur.
Bottom
97
What’s your will?
Mustardseed
98
Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery
Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber’s,
monsieur, for methinks I am marvels hairy about
the face. And I am such a tender ass, if my hair do
but tickle me, I must scratch.
Bottom
99
What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
Titania
100
I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s
have the tongs and the bones.
Bottom
101
Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
Titania
102
Truly, a peck of provender. I could munch
your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire
to a bottle of hay. Good hay, sweet hay, hath no
fellow.
Bottom
103
I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
The squirrel’s hoard and fetch thee new nuts.
Titania
104
I had rather have a handful or two of dried
peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir
me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
Bottom
105
Methought I was enamored of an ass.
Titania
106
There lies your love
Oberon
107
Now thou and I are new in amity,
And will tomorrow midnight solemnly
Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair prosperity.
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.
Oberon
108
My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood,
And I in fury hither followed them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power
(But by some power it is) my love to Hermia,
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon,
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betrothed ere I saw Hermia.
But like a sickness did I loathe this food.
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
And will forevermore be true to it
Demetrius
109
Fair lovers, you are fortunately met.
Of this discourse we more will hear anon.—
Egeus, I will overbear your will,
For in the temple by and by, with us,
These couples shall eternally be knit.—
And, for the morning now is something worn,
Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.
Away with us to Athens. Three and three,
We’ll hold a feast in great solemnity.
Come, Hippolyta.
Thesus
110
When my cue comes, call me,
and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.”
Hey-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.
Bottom
111
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.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to
heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
Theseus
112
Come now, what masques, what dances shall we
have
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bedtime?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Thesus
113
“A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth.”
“Merry” and “tragical”? “Tedious” and “brief”?
That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow!
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
Thesus
114
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long
(Which is as brief as I have known a play),
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious; for in all the play,
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is.
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself,
Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
Philostrate
115
What are they that do play it?
Theseus
116
Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
Which never labored in their minds till now,
Philostrate
117
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.
Quince, as prologue
118
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.
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, as Pyramus
119
The wall, methinks, being sensible, should
curse again.
Theseus
120
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. Yonder she comes.
Bottom
121
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.—
But stay! O spite!
But mark, poor knight,
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!
Bottom, as Pyramus
122
This passion, and the death of a dear friend,
would go near to make a man look sad.
Theseus
123
Beshrew my heart but I pity the man
Hippolyta
124
O, wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame,
Since lion vile hath here deflowered my dear,
Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame
That lived, that loved, that liked, that looked with
cheer?
Come, tears, confound!
Out, sword, and wound
The pap of Pyramus;
Ay, that left pap,
Where heart doth hop.
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead;
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light!
Moon, take thy flight!
Now die, die, die, die, die.
Bottom, as Pyramus
125
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!
And farewell, friends.
Thus Thisbe ends.
Adieu, adieu, adieu.
Flute, as Thisbe
126
Lovers, to bed! ’Tis almost fairy time.
Theseus
127
Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessèd be,
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be,
And the blots of Nature’s hand
Shall not in their issue stand.
Never mole, harelip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despisèd in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field-dew consecrate
Every fairy take his gait,
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace.
And the owner of it blest,
Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away. Make no stay.
Meet me all by break of day.
Oberon
128
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearnèd luck
Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long.
Else the Puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
Robin (Puck)
129
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in
Another moon. But, O, methinks how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires
Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
Thesus
130
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
Hippolyta
131
Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments.
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
Thesus
