[instrumental music]
[music heightens]
[Male] Hahh!
[chainsaw noise]
[alarm clock]
[instrumental music]
[man exclaims]
[indistinct chatter]
Come on, come on!
[Theseus] Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace;
four happy days bring in another moon.
But, ahh, methinks how slow this old moon wanes!
She lingers my desires like to a step-dame or a dowager
long withering out a young man's revenue.
[Hippolyta] 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.
Go, tell Philostrate to 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.
Hippolyta.
I woo'd thee with my sword
and won thy love doing thee injuries.
But I will wed thee in another key,
with pomp, with triumph and with reveling.
[Egeus] Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!
[Theseus] Thanks, good Egeus, what's the news with thee?
Full of vexation come I with complaint against my child,
my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius.
My noble lord, this man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander and my gracious duke.
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.
Thou, though, Lysander, thou has given her rhymes,
and interchanged love-tokens with my child.
Thou has by moonlight at her window sung,
with feigning voice verses of feigning love,
and stolen the impression of her fantasy with bracelets
of thy hair, rings, gawds,
conceits, knacks, trifles, sweetmeats,
messengers of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth.
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart,
turned her obedience which is due to me,
to stubborn harshness.
And my gracious duke, be it so she will not here
before your grace consent to marry with Demetrius.
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,
as she is mine, I may dispose of her.
Which shall be either to this gentleman or to her death,
according to our law immediately provided in that case.
[Theseus] What say you, Hermia?
Be advised, fair maid, to you your father should be as a god,
one that composed your beauty, yeah,
and one to whom you are but as a form in wax by him imprinted
and within his power to leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
Oh so is Lysander.
In himself he is.
But in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
the other must be held the worthier.
I would my father looked but with my eyes.
Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
nor how it may concern my modesty in such a presence here
to plead my thoughts.
But I beseech your grace that I may know the worst that may
befall me in this case, if I refuse to wed Demetrius.
Either to die the death
or to abjure forever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
know of your youth, examine well your blood,
whether if you yield not to your father's choice
you can endure the livery of a nun.
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
to live a barren sister all your life,
chanting faint hymns to a cold fruitless moon.
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
to undergo such maiden pilgrimage.
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled,
than that which withering on a virgin thorn grows,
lives and dies in single blessedness.
So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord.
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up unto his lordship
whose unwished yoke my soul
consents not to give sovereignty.
Take time to pause.
And by the next new moon, the sealing day betwixt my love
and me for everlasting bond of fellowship,
upon that day either prepare to die for disobedience
to your father's will or else to wed Demetrius as he would
or on Diana's altar to protest
for aye austerity and single life.
[Demetrius] Relent, sweet Hermia,
and Lysander yield thy crazed title to my certain right.
[Lysander] But you have her father's love, Demetrius.
Let me have Hermia's, do you marry him.
Scornful Lysander! True, he hath my love.
And what is mine my love shall render him.
And she is mine, and all my right of her
I do estate unto Demetrius.
I am, my lord, as well derived as he,
as well possessed. My love is more than his.
My fortunes every way as fairly ranked
if not with vantage as Demetrius.
And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.
Why should not I then prosecute my right?
And Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena, and...
- Oh she... -...won her soul.
And she, sweet lady, dotes, devoutly dotes,
dotes in idolatry, upon this spotted and inconstant man.
I must confess that I have heard as much.
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof but
being over-full of self-affairs my mind did lose it.
But, Demetrius, come. And come Egeus.
You shall go with me.
I have some private schooling for you both.
For you, fair Hermia,
look you arm yourself to fit your fancies
to your father's will or else the law of Athens yields you up,
which by no means we may extenuate.
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come my Hippolyta.
Oh what cheer, my love?
Demetrius and Egeus, go along.
I must employ you in some business against our nuptial
and confer with you of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
[Egeus] With duty and desire, we follow you.
[instrumental music]
Augh how now, my love?
Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
[Hermia] Oh, belike for want of rain,
which I could well beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
[Lysander] Ay me!
For aught that I could ever read,
could ever hear by tale or history,
the course of true love never did run smooth.
But either it was different in blood...
Oh cross! Too high to be enthralled to low.
Or else misgraffed in respect of years.
Oh spite! Too old to be engaged to young.
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends.
Hermia: Oh Hell to choose love by another's eyes.
Or if there were a sympathy in choice.
War, death or sickness did lay siege to it making it momentary
as a sound,
and swift as a shadow,
and short as any dream.
Brief as the lightning in the collied night that,
in a spleen, unfolds both Heaven and Earth.
And ere a man hath power to say,
"Behold the jaws of darkness do devour it up."
So quick bright things come to confusion.
Yes, if then true lovers have been ever crossed,
it stands as an edict in destiny.
Then... then let us teach our trial patience because it is
a customary cross, as due to love as thoughts and dreams
and sighs, wishes and tears,
poor fancy's followers.
Ahh, a good persuasion.
[audience chuckles]
Therefore, hear me Hermia.
I have a widowed aunt, a dowager of great revenue
and she hath no child.
And from Athens is her house remote seven leagues.
And she respects me as her only son.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee
and to that place the sharp Athenian law cannot pursue us.
If thou lovest me,
then steal forth thy father's house tomorrow night
and in the wood a league without the town,
there will I stay for thee.
My good Lysander, I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
by his best arrow with the golden head,
by the simplicity of Venus' doves,
by that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
and by that fire which burnt the Carthage queen
when the false Troyan under sail was seen,
by all the vows that ever men have broke,
in number more than ever women spoke,
in that same place thou hast appointed me.
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
- Augh! [Lysander] Keep promise, love.
- Oh, look here comes Helena. - Oh God speed, fair Helena!
- Wait, wither away? - Helena: Call you me fair?
That fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair.
Oh, happy fair.
Your eyes are lode-stars
and your tongue's sweet air more tunable
than lark to shepherd's ear when wheat is green,
when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching.
O were favor so, yours would I catch fair Hermia, ere I go.
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
my tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mind, Demetrius being bated,
the... the rest I'd give to be to you translated.
Oh teach me how you look, and with what art
you sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.
I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
Oh that your frowns could teach my smiles such skill.
I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
Oh that my prayers could such affection move!
The more I hate, the more he follows me.
Oh the more I love, the more he hateth me.
His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
None, but your beauty.
- Would that fault were mine! -[Hermia] Take comfort.
He no more shall see my face,
Lysander and myself will fly this place!
[laughs]
[audience chuckles]
Uh, Helen, uh, to you our minds we will unfold.
Tomorrow night, uh, a time that lovers' flights doth still
conceal, and through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.
And in the woods where often you and I upon faint primrose beds
were wont to lie, emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet.
There my Lysander and myself will meet.
And hence from Athens turn away our eyes to seek new friends
and stranger companies.
Oh farewell, sweet playfellow.
Pray thou for us.
And good luck grant thee, thy Demetrius.
Keep word, Lysander.
We must starve our sight from lovers' food
till morrow deep midnight.
[Lysander] Ahh, I will, my Hermia!
Helena, adieu.
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you.
[audience laughs]
How happy some or 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 and,
oh 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... as waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
so the boy Love is perjured; everywhere.
For... 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 showers of oaths did melt.
Oh I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight.
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night pursue her
and for this intelligence oh if I have thanks
it is a dear expense! Laughs]
Oh, oh, oh, but herein mean I to enrich my pain,
to have his sight thither, and back again.
[upbeat music]
[Quince] From the diagram.
Is everybody, is all our company here?
[Bottom] You were best to call them generally,
man by man, according to the script.
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.
- First good Peter Quince... - Yeah.
...say what the play treats on.
Then read the names of the actors,
and so grow to a point.
Marry, our play is the most lamentable comedy
and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.
A very good piece of work, mwah, I assure you.
And a merry.
Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.
Masters, spread yourselves.
Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
What is Pyramus? A lover or a tyrant?
A lover that kills himself most gallant for love.
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.
[Quince] Alright, now...
[Bottom] Yet my chief humor is for a tyrant.
I could play Hercules rarely,
or a part to tear a cat in,
mm, to make all split!
The raging rocks,
the shivering shocks [Flute makes beat with mouth]
Shall break the locks of prison gates!
And Phibbus' car shall shine from far
and make and mar the foolish fates!
[Snout] Hell yeah!
This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players.
[Quince] Okay.
This is Hercules' vein, a tyrant's vein,
-a lover is more condoling. -[Quince] Yeah.
Francisco Flute, the bellows-mender.
Here, Peter Quince.
Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
What is Thisbe, a wandering knight?
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
Nay, faith, let me not play a woman.
I have a beard coming.
That's all once. [chuckles]
You shall play it in a mask.
And you may speak as small as you will.
And I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too.
I'll speak in a monstrous little voice, watch,
"Thisbe, ooh Thisbe."
"Ahh, Pyramus!
Lover dear. Thy Thisbe dear, and lady dear!"
- Huh? - No. No.
You must play Pyramus and Flute, you Thisbe.
- Well, proceed. - Robin Starveling, the tailor.
Here, Peter Quince.
Starveling, you must play Thisbe's mother.
Ohhhhh.
- Tom Snout, the tinker. - Here, Peter Quince.
You, Pyramus' father.
Okay, I'll make sure that's all I think about.
Okay. Uh, myself, Thisbe's father.
Snug the joiner, you the lion's part.
And I hope here is a play fitted.
Have you the lion's part written?
Hmm?
I pray you if it be, give it me for I am slow of study.
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
- Let me play the lion too. - Huh?
I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me.
- Ahh, no! - I will roar,
that I will make the duke say,
"Let him roar again,
let him roar again!"
And 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's right, it's not one man's job to do this play.
I grant you friends, I grant you,
if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits,
they would have no more discretion but to hang us.
[Male] That's right.
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.
Hmm?
[makes a meow sound]
[audience laughing]
[makes a meow sound]
[short cat meow]
[continues making cat meow sounds]
[meows without making sound]
You can play no part but Pyramus!
0K3'!-
Oh 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.
[audience laughing]
Well, I will undertake it.
[celebratory noise]
It's okay, good boy!
But masters, here are your parts and I am to request...
request you and treat you and desire you
-to con them by tomorrow night. - What?
And meet me in the palace wood a mile
without the town by moonlight.
- Why? - There we will rehearse for
if we meet in the city we shall be dogged with company.
- And our devices known. - Okay.
In the meantime, I will prepare a bill of properties
such as our play wants.
I pray you, fail me not.
We will meet and there we may rehearse
most obscenely and courageously.
Take pains, be perfect. Adieu.
- At the duke's oak we meet! - Enough!
Hold or cut bow-strings.
[instrumental music]
[ambient music]
[Puck] How now, spirit?
Whither wander you?
[fairies sing] ♪ Over hill, ♪
♪ Over dale, thorough brush, ♪
♪ Thorough brier, Over park, over pale, ♪
♪ Thorough flood, Thorough fire ♪
♪ I do wander everywhere; I do wander everywhere! ♪
♪ Swifter than, swifter ♪
♪ And I serve The fairy queen, ♪
♪ The cowslips tail Her pensioners be ♪
♪ In their gold spots you see ♪
♪ Those be rubies, Fairy favors ♪
♪ In those freckles Live their savors ♪
♪ I must go seek Some dewdrops here ♪
♪ Farewell Thou lob of spirits ♪
♪ I'll be gone ♪
♪ Our queen, ♪
♪ Our queen And all our elves ♪
♪ Come here anon ♪
The king doth keep his revels here tonight.
Take heed the queen come not within his sight.
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath because that she as her
attendant hath a lovely boy,
stolen from an Indian king.
She never had so sweet a changeling.
And jealous Oberon would have the child knight of his train,
to trace the forests wild
but she perforce withholds the loved boy,
crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy.
And now they never meet in grove or green,
by fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen.
But they do square that all their elves for fear
creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.
Fairies: Either I mistake orshape
and making quite or else you are
that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow.
Are not you he that frights the maidens of the villagery,
skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern
as bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
and sometimes make the drink to bear no barm,
mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
you do their work, and they shall have good luck.
Are not you he?
[Puck] Alright, alright.
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
when I fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
neighing in likeness of a filly foal
and sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
in very likeness of a roasted crab.
[laughing]
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,
falls into a cough, and then the whole quire hold their hips
and laugh, and waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear.
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
Yeah!
[all screaming]
[Puck] But, room fairies!
[thunder]
Here comes Oberon.
[Fairy] And here my mistress.
What that he were gone! [thunder]
[ominous music]
[Oberon] Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
What jealous Oberon.
Fairies, skip hence I have forsworn his bed and company.
[Oberon] Tarry, rash wanton.
Am not I thy lord?
[Titania] Then I must be thy lady.
But I know when thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
and in the shape of Corin sat all day playing on pipes of corn
and versing love to amorous Phillida.
Why are thou here?
[Titania] Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
But that forsooth the bouncing Amazon,
your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love to Theseus must be
wedded, and you come to give their bed joy and prosperity.
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania.
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta
knowing I know thy love for Theseus?
[Titania chuckles]
[Oberon] Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
from Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Aegle break his faith,
with Ariadne and Antiopa?
These are the forgeries of jealousy.
And never since the middle summer's spring met we on hill,
in dale, forest or mead, by paved fountain
or by rushy brook, or in the beached margent of the sea,
to dance our ringlets to the whistling wind.
But with the brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
Therefore, the winds,
piping to us in vain, as in revenge,
have sucked up from the sea contagious fogs,
which falling in the land have every pelting river
made so proud that they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain,
the ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn hath rotted
ere his youth attained a beard.
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
and crows are fatted with the murrion flock.
The human mortals lack their winter here.
No night is now with hymn or carol blest.
Therefore, the moon, the governess of floods,
pale in her anger, washes all the air
that rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see the seasons alter,
hoary-headed frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
and on old Winter's thin and icy crown
an odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds is,
as in mockery, set.
The spring, the summer, the childing autumn,
angry winter, change their wonted liveries,
and the mazed world by their increase
now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes from our debate,
from our dissension.
We are their parents and original.
[Oberon exclaims]
Do you amend it then?
It lies in you.
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
to be my henchman.
[Titania] Set your heart at rest.
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votaress of my order.
And in the spiced Indian air by night,
full often has she gossiped by my side,
and sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
her womb then rich with my young squire.
But she being mortal of that boy did die.
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
and for her sake I will not part with him.
[Oberon] How long within this wood intend you stay?
Perchance till after Theseus' wedding day.
If you will patiently dance in our round
and see our moonlight revels, go with us.
If not, shun me and I will spare your haunts.
[Oberon] Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
[Titania] Not for thy fairy kingdom.
Fairies, away!
We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
[Oberon] Well, go thy way!
My gentle Puck, come hither.
[Oberon laughing]
Thou rememberest since once I sat upon a promontory,
and heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
that the rude sea grew civil at her song,
and certain stars shot madly from their spheres
to hear the sea maid's music.
[Puck] I remember.
[Oberon] That very time I saw but thou couldst not
flying between the cold moon and the earth,
cupid all armed,
a certain aim he took at a fair vestal throned by the west,
and loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow
as it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
Yet I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft quenched
in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
and the imperial votaress passed on
in the 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
[Puck laughing]
[laughing continues]
Fetch me the flower and be thou here again
ere the leviathan can swim a league.
I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.
[Oberon] Hmm.
[Puck] Oh no, this way. Yeah.
[ominous music]
Having once this juice,
I'll watch Titania when she's asleep
and drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
be it on lion or bear, wolf or bull,
meddling monkey or on busy ape,
she shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from off her sight
as I can take it with another herb,
I'll make her render up her page to me.
[Male in distance] Hermia!
[Oberon] Who comes here?
I am invisible. And I will overhear their conference.
[audience laughter]
[Demetrius breathing heavily]
I love thee not, therefore, pursue me not.
Augh.
Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood.
And here am I, and wode within this wood,
because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone and follow me no more.
[Helena] You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant.
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart is true as steel.
[Helena] Leave you your power to draw
and I shall have no power to follow you.
[Demetrius] 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?
And even for that do I love you the more.
Augh!
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 used as you use your dog?
[Helena barks]
[audience laughs]
[Helena barks]
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit
for I am sick when I do look on thee.
And I am sick when I look not on you.
You do impeach your modesty too much.
Huh?
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.
Your virtue is my privilege.
For that it is not night when I do see your face,
therefore, I think I'm not in the night.
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
for you, in my respect, are all the world.
And how can it be said I am alone,
when all the world is here to look on me?
I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
and leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed.
Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase.
The dove pursues the griffin.
The mild hind makes speed to catch the tiger,
bootless speed, when cowardice pursues and valor flies!
[Demetrius] I will not stay thy questions.
Let me go!
Or, if thou follow me,
augh, do not believe
but I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
Ay, in the temple, the town, the field,
you do me mischief. Oh fie, Demetrius!
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
We cannot fight for love as men may do.
We should be woo'd and we're not made to woo.
[Helena] I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
I'll to die upon the hand I love so well.
[Oberon] Fair thee well, nymph.
Ere thou do leave this grove thou shalt fly him.
And he shall seek thy love.
Welcome, wanderer.
- Hast thou a flower there? -[Puck] Flower?
The flower?
Flower. Oh "the flower," yes, yes, yes.
Here it is.
Augh, ugh, here it is...
[Oberon] I pray thee, give it me.
[ambient music]
I pray thee, take thou some of it.
And seek through this grove
a sweet Athenian lady is in love with a disdainful youth.
Anoint his eyes,
but do it when the next thing he espies may be the lady.
Thou shalt know the man by the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care.
[audience laughing]
That he may prove more fond on her than she upon her love,
and look thou meet me here ere the first cock crow.
Fear not my lord, your servant shall do so.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
where the oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
quite over canopied with luscious woodbine,
with sweet musk roses and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime in the night,
lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
And there the snake throws her enameled skin,
weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
and make her full of hateful fantasy.
[ambient music]
Come now a roundel and a fairy song.
Sing me now to sleep.
Then to your offices and let me rest.
♪ You spotted snakes With double tongue, ♪
♪ Thorny hedgehogs Be not seen, ♪
♪ Newts and blind worms, ♪ Do no wrong,
♪ Come not near Our fairy queen ♪
♪ Philomel, with melody ♪
♪ Sing in our sweet lullaby, ♪
♪ Never harm, Nor spell nor charm, ♪
♪ Come our lovely lady nigh ♪
♪ Philomel, Philomel, Philomel, ♪
♪ With melody, sing in our sweet lullaby ♪
♪ Lullaby ♪
[instrumental music]
[Oberon] What thou seest when thou dost wake,
do it for thy true love take.
Love and languish for his sake.
Be it a lynx, a cat or a bear,
leopard or boar with bristled hair,
in thine eye that shall appear
when thou wakes': it is thy dear.
Wake when some vile thing is near.
[ambient noise]
Ah.
Ahh.
Oh fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood.
And to speak troth I have forgot our way.
Forgot our way? [whines]
We'll rest us, Hermia.
If you think it good and tarry for the comfort of the day.
Be it so, Lysander.
Find you out a bed for I upon this bank will rest my head.
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both.
One heart, one bed.
Two bosoms, and one troth.
No nay, good Lysander.
For my sake, my dear,
lie further off yet do not lie so near.
Oh, oh, oh take the sense sweet of my innocence.
Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
Uh, I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit so that
but one heart we can make of it.
Uh huh. [audience laughs]
Two bosoms interchained with an oath so then
two bosoms and a single troth
then by your side no bedroom me deny, hmm?
For lying so Hermia, I do not lie.
Lysander riddles very prettily.
And 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... and a maid
so far be distant, and goodnight, sweet friend.
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end.
Amen.
Amen to that fair prayer, say I.
Huh.
And then end life when I end loyalty.
[Hermia] Oh!
[audience laughing]
[Hermia exclaims]
[audience laughing]
Here is my bed.
Sleep give thee all his rest.
With half that wish the wisher's eyes be pressed.
[ambient music]
Through the forest have I gone but Athenian found I none
on whose eyes I might approve this flower's force
in stirring love.
Night, and silence.
Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear, this is he, my master said,
despised the Athenian maid.
And here the maiden, sleeping sound
on the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul!
She durst not lie near this lack love,
this kill courtesy.
Churl, upon thine eyes I throw
all the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest let love forbid sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
So awake when I am gone,
for I must now to Oberon.
[Helena] Stay! Though thou kill me sweet Demetrius.
[Demetrius] I charge thee hence and do not haunt me thus!
[Helena] Oh wilt thou darkling leave me?
Do not so.
[Demetrius] Stay on thy peril.
I alone will go.
I am out of breath in this fond chase!
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
[Helena screaming] What?
Whoa! Whoa!
Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies
for she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright?
Not with salt tears.
If so, my eyes are oftener washed than hers.
No...
No, I am as ugly as a bear.
[audience laughs]
For beasts that meet me run away for fear.
Therefore, no marvel though Demetrius do
as a monster fly my presence thus.
Oh, what wicked and dissembling glass of mine
made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
Oh!
But who is here?
Lysander? On the ground?
Oh, oh, dead or asleep?
I see no blood.
No wound.
Lysander, if you live good sir, awake.
And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
[audience laughs]
Transparent Helena.
Through nature shows art
that through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
[Helena] Oh no, no, no, no!
But where's Demetrius?
Oh, how fit a word is that vile name to perish on my sword!
Oh do not say so, Lysander, say not so.
What, though he love your Hermia?
Lord, what though?
Yet Hermia still loves you, then be content.
Content with Hermia! [chuckles]
No, no I do repent the tedious minutes I with her have spent.
So, not Hermia but Helena I love.
I mean, who will not change a raven for a dove?
And the will of man is by his reason swayed
and reason says you are the worthier maid.
[Helena] Oh, oh, augh.
Augh, things growing are not ripe until their season.
Sol, being young, till now ripe not to reason
and touching now this point of human skill
in reason becomes the marshal to my will
and leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook love's stories
written in love's richest book.
[Helena] Oh, augh, augh, hmm.
Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
[audience chuckles]
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is't not enough, is't not enough,
young man, that I did never, no, nor never can deserve
a sweet look from Demetrius' eye.
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth you do me wrong, oh, oh, oh!
Good sooth you do.
In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare ye well.
Perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
- Ahh. - But oh lady of one man refused
should of another therefore, be abused.
Oh she sees not Hermia.
Hermia, sleep thou there
and never mayst thou come Lysander near.
For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
the deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
and all my powers address your love and might
to honor Helen and to be her knight!
[snake slithering]
[Hermia wincing in sleep]
[screaming]
Help me Lysander, help me!
Do thy best to pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
AY--- Ay me for pity!
What... what a dream was here!
I, Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
Methought a serpent ate my heart away
and you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
Lysander!
What, removed?
Lysander!
Lord!
What, out of hearing?
Gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? [pounding]
Speak! And... and if you hear speak of all loves!
I swoon almost with fear.
No? Then I well perceive you all not nigh.
Either death or you I'll find immediately!
Lysander! [pounding fast]
[EChO] Lysander!
Lysander!
[EChO] Lysander!
Lord! No!
No, no, no.
Alack, where are you? Lysander!
[Lysander echoes]
[circus music]
[Bottom] Put it right there.
- Are we all met? -[Quince] Pat, pat.
Here's a marvelous 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.
[Bottom] Peter Quince...
What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
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?
By our lady kin, a parlous fear.
I believe we must leave the killing out,
when all is done.
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.
Well, we will have such a prologue
and it shall be written in eight and six.
No make it two more, let it be written in eight and eight.
Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
I fear it, I promise you.
Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves 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 it.
Therefore, another prologue must tell
that he is not a lion.
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 intrigue you," huh? - Ahh uh huh.
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.
Go ahead.
I am a man!
Mm hmm.
As other men are!
Yeah!
And there indeed, let him name his name
and tell them plainly he's Snug the joiner.
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.
Doth the moon shine the night we play our play?
A calendar, a calendar!
Look in the almanac, find out moonshine,
find out moonshine.
Yes, it doth shine that night!
May you leave the casement of the great chamber window
where we play open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.
Ay or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern,
and say he comes to disfigure or present the person of Moonshine.
Then there's another thing.
We must have a wall in the great chamber
for Pyramus and Thisbe says the story did talk
[both] through the chink of a wall.
You can't bring in no wall.
What say you, Bottom? Gonna bring in a wall.
[audience laughing]
What?
Some man or other must present Wall.
Huh.
And let him have some plaster or some loam
or some rough cast about him to signify...
"Wall."
And let him hold his fingers thus, huh?
- And through that cranny... - Oh yeah.
...shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper.
Well, if that may be so then all is well!
-[Bottom] Ha ha! -[Quince] No come, sit down,
every mother's son and rehearse your part.
-[Bottom] I think of everything. -[Quince] Pyramus, you begin.
When you have spoken your speech enter into that brake.
-[Bottom] Great. -[Quince] And so everyone
according to his cue.
[upbeat music]
[Puck] What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?
So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
Oh, thanks mate!
Down leave.
What, a play toward?
I'll be an auditor.
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause...
Speak Pyramus. Thisbe, stand forth!
0K3)!-
Thisbe, the flowers of odious savors sweet.
- Odors. - What?
- Odors. - Odors, come on man, odors.
- Flowers of odors. - Flowers of odors savors sweet.
So hath thy breath. [Thisbe breathes]
Oh.
No.
My dearest Thisbe dear.
Thisbe!
But hark, a voice!
Stay thou but here awhile and by and by I will to thee appear.
A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here!
Must I speak now?
Ay, marry, must you for you must understand he goes but to see
a noise that he has heard, and is to come again.
[clears throat]
[in Hispanic accent] Most radiant Pyramus.
Most lily white of hue.
Of color like the red rose on triumphant brier,
most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
as true as truest horse that yet would never tire.
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
Uh, Ninus' tomb, man.
Why you must not speak that yet.
That you must answer to Pyramus.
You speak all your part at once, cues and all.
Alright, Pyramus enter!
Your cue is past; it is "never tire."
[whispers] Never tire.
[in Spanish] Oh, yo te ve hombre, ahh si aqui. Aqui.
Oh.
As true as truest horse
that yet would never tire.
If I were fair, Thisbe, I were only thine!
[loud music]
[Quince] Oh monstrous, oh strange, we are haunted.
Pray masters, fly masters, help!
[screaming]
[screaming continues
Oh my god!
[music continues]
I'll follow you.
I'll lead you about a round through bog,
through bush, through brake, through brier.
Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
a hog, a headless bear,
sometime a fire,
and neigh and bark and grunt and roar and a burn,
like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire,
at every turn!
Why do they run away?
This is a knavery of them to make me afeard.
Oh Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on thee?
What do you see? I see an ass!
Bless thee, Bottom! Bless thee, thou art translated!
Hey wait, Peter Quince.
But...
Oh I see their knavery.
[laughs]
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!
[musiCI
♪ The ousel cock So black of hue, ♪
♪ With orange tawny bill, ♪
♪ The throstle With his note so true, ♪
♪ The wren with little quill ♪
[Titania] What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
♪ The finch, The sparrow and the lark ♪
♪ The plain song cuckoo gray, ♪
♪ Whose note Full many a man doth mark, ♪
♪ And dares not answer nay ♪
[donkey bray]
[Titania] I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamored of thy note.
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape,
and thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me
on the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
Ugh.
Methinks, mistress, ye should have little reason for that.
And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little
company together now-a-days.
The more the pity that some honest neighbors
will not make them friends.
[laughs]
Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
Oh not so neither.
But if I had wit enough to get out of this wood,
I have enough to serve mine own turn.
Out of this wood do not desire to go.
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate.
The summer still doth tend upon my state
and I...
...do...
...love...
...thee.
[moaning]
- Therefore, go with me. - Uh huh.
I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee.
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep.
And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep.
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so that thou shalt
like an airy spirit go Peaseblossom!
Cobweb!
Moth! And Mustardseed!
-[Peaseblossom] Ready! -[Cobweb] And I!
-[Moth] And I! -[Mustardseed] And I.
[all] Where shall we go?
[Titania] Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes.
Feed him with purple grapes, green figs and mulberries,
the honey bags steal from the humble bees,
and for night tapers crop their waxen thighs
and light them at the fiery glow worm's eyes.
To have my love to bed and to arise,
and pluck the wings from painted butterflies
to fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
- Hail, mortal! - Hail!
- Hail!
[Bottom] I cry your worship's mercy heartily.
I beseech your worship's name.
Cobweb!
I shall desire you of more acquaintance,
good Master Cobweb.
If I cut my finger I shall make bold with you.
Your name, honest gentleman?
Peaseblossom.
Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more
acquaintance too.
Your name, I beseech you, sir.
- Moth! - And yours?
Mustardseed.
Good Master Mustardseed!
I know your patience well.
That same cowardly giant-like ox-beef
hath devoured many a gentleman of your house.
[Titania] Come, wait upon him.
Lead him to my bower.
[Bottom] Oh, ugh, oh.
[Titania] The moon methinks looks with a watery eye
and when she weeps, weeps every little flower
lamenting some enforced chastity.
[Bottom] Fairies, fairies.
[Titania] Tie up my lover's tongue.
Bring him silently.
[Bottom] Ugh,ugh,oh,oh.
[Titania laughing]
[ambient music]
[audience applause]
[ambient music]
[Oberon] I wonder if Titania be awaked.
Then what it was that next came in her eye,
which she must dote on in extremity.
[audience chuckles]
How now, mad spirit!
What night rule now about this haunted grove?
My mistress with a monster is in love.
[Puck crying]
[Oberon laughing]
[Puck] Near to her close and consecrated bower,
while she was in her dull and sleeping hour
a crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
that work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
were met together to rehearse a play
intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.
The shallowest thick skin of that barren sort,
who Pyramus presented in their sport
forsook his scene and entered in a brake.
[mimicking urinating]
When I did him at this advantage take
an ass's nole I fixed on his head.
Anon his Thisbe must be answered and forth my mimic comes.
Thisbe, Thisbe where are you Thisbe?
I loves you, Thisbe.
[audience laughs]
I want to kiss you through the hole in the wall.
Now at his side away his fellows fly
and at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls.
He murder cries, help from Athens calls.
I led them on in this distracted fear
and left sweet Pyramus translated there.
When in that moment, so it came to pass,
Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.
[mimicking holding member and naying]
Oh, this turns out better than I could devise!
But tell me, tell me, hast thou yet latched the Athenian's eyes
with the love juice as I did bid thee do?
I took him sleeping, that is finished too.
And the Athenian woman by his side that,
when he waked, of force she must be eyed.
Ahh, stand close. This is the same Athenian?
[Puck] This is the woman, not this the man.
[Demetrius] Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse for thou,
I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep
being o'er shoes in blood,
plunge in the deep and kill me too.
The... the sun was not so true unto the day as he to me,
would he have stolen away from sleeping Hermia?
It cannot be but thou hast murdered him.
So should a murderer look so dead, so grim.
So should the murdered look.
And so should I pierced through the heart
with your stern cruelty.
Yet you, the murderer, look as bright,
as clear as yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
What's this to my Lysander?
Where is he?
Ay, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
Ahh, I'd rather give his carcass to my hounds.
[Hermia] Out, dog! Out, cur!
Thou drivest me past the bounds of maiden's patience.
Hast thou slain him then? [Demetrius groans]
Henceforth never be numbered amongst men!
Oh, oh once tell true,
tell true, even for my sake!
Durst thou have looked upon him being awake
and hast thou killed him sleeping?
O brave touch.
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
An adder did it, for with doubler tongue than thine,
thou serpent, never adder stung.
[mimicking a serpent]
[Demetrius laughing]
You spend your passion on a misprised mood.
I am not guilty of Lysander's blood,
nor is he dead for aught that I can tell.
I pray you, tell me then that he is well.
And if I could, what should I get therefore?
A privilege never to see me more
and from thy hated presence part I so.
See me no more, whether he be dead or no.
Wait.
[groans]
There is no following her in this fierce vein.
Huh.
Here therefore for a while I will remain.
Hah. So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow
for debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe.
Which now in some slight measure it will pay
for his tender here I make some stay.
[audience laughing]
[Oberon] What hast thou done?
[instrumental music]
Thou hast mistaken quite
and laid the love juice on some true love's sight.
[Puck startled] Ugh.
Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
some true love turned and not a false turned true.
Then fate o'er rules that one man holding troth,
a million fail confounding oath on oath.
[audience laughing]
[Oberon grunting]
About the wood, go swifter than the wind
and Helena of Athens look thou find.
Helena of Athens?
All fancy sick she is and pale of cheer,
with sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear.
By some illusion bring her here.
And I'll charm his eye against she do appear.
[Puck] I go, I go, look how I go.
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.
Whah...
[Oberon] Flower of this purple dye, hit with Cupid's archery,
sink in apple of his eye.
When his love he doth espy,
let her shine as gloriously as the Venus of the sky.
When thou wakest, if she be by, beg of her for remedy.
Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand.
And the youth, mistook by me, pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
[Oberon] Stand aside.
The noise they make will cause Demetrius to wake.
Then will two at once woo one, that must needs be sport alone.
And those things do best please me that befall preposterously.
[Lysander] Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
In scorn and derision never come in tears.
Look, when I vow I weep
and vows so born in their nativity all truth appears.
You do advance your cunning more and more.
When truth kills truth, oh devilish holy fray!
These vows are Hermia's.
Will you give her o'er?
Weigh oath with oath and you will nothing weigh.
Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,
will even weigh and both as light as tales.
I had no judgment when to her I swore.
Nor none in my mind, now you give her o'er.
Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
[Demetrius] Oh Helena,
goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy.
Oh how ripe in show thy lips,
those kissing cherries, tempting grow.
Oh, Spite'.!
Oh hell.
I see you all are bent to set against me for your merriment.
If you were civil and knew courtesy
you would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
but you must join in souls to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show,
you would not use a gentle lady so.
To vow and swear and super praise my parts,
when I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals and love Hermia.
And now both rivals to mock Helena?
I'm...
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
to conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes with your derision!
None of noble sort would so offend a virgin,
and extort a poor soul's patience,
all to make you sport.
Oh, you are unkind; Demetrius be not so.
For you love Hermia.
This you know I know.
And here with all good will, with all my heart,
in Hermia's love I yield you up my part.
And yours of Helena to me bequeath whom I do love
and will do till my death.
Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
Lysander, keep thy Hermia. I will none.
If e'er I loved her all that love is gone.
My heart to her but as guest wise sojourned.
And now to Helen is it home returned, there to remain.
Helen, it is not so.
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know
lest to thy peril thou aby it dear.
Look where thy love comes, yonder is thy dear.
[Lysander groans] Lysander!
Oh thou art not by mine eye, Lysander found.
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
But... but why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
[Hermia] What love could press Lysander from my side?
Lysander's love, that would not let him bide fair Helena,
who more engilds the night
than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
Why seek'st thou me?
Could not this make thee know
the hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?
You speak not as you think, it cannot be.
Lo she is one of this confederacy!
- No. - 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?
[Helena] ls all of 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 it all forgot?
All school days' 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, so we grew together
like to a double cherry,
two lovely berries molded on one stem
so with two seeming bodies but one heart.
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.
I'm amazed at your passionate words, I... I scorn you not.
It seems that you scorn me.
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
to follow me and praise my eyes and face,
and made your other love Demetrius to call me goddess,
nymph, divine and rare, precious, celestial?
[makes cat meow sound]
Wherefore speaks he this to her he hates?
And wherefore doth Lysander deny your love so rich
within his soul and tender me forsooth affection
but by your setting on, by your consent?
I understand not what you mean by this.
Ay do persever, counterfeit sad looks,
make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
wink each at other hold the sweet jest up.
This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
If you have any pity, grace or manners
you would not make me such an argument.
But fare ye well, 'tis partly my own fault
which death or absence soon shall remedy.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hear my excuse,
my love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!
[Hermia] Do not scorn her so!
If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
Thou canst compel no more than she entreat.
Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.
Oh, wha-hah!
And Helen, I love thee.
By my life, I do. I swear.
By that which I will lose for thee,
to prove him false that says I love thee not.
I say I love thee more than he can do.
No if thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
Lysanden whereto tends all this?
[Lysander] Away, hang off thou cat, thou burr!
No. No, he'll seem to break loose,
take on as you will follow,
but yet not come, you are a tame man.
Go! No!
Vile thing, let loose or I will shake thee from me
like a serpent!
Why are you grown so rude? What change is this, sweet love?
Thy love? No, out loathed medicine, oh hated potion hence!
- Do you not jest? - Yes, sooth and so do you.
Demetrius I will keep my word with thee.
I would I had your bond for I perceive a weak bond holds you.
- I'll not trust your word. - What, should I hurt her?
Strike her? Kill her dead?
Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.
What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me?
Oh me what news, my love!
Am not I Hermia?
Are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
Since night you loved me, yet since night you left me.
Why then you left me,
oh the gods forbid in earnest, shall I say?
Ay, by my life and never did desire to see thee more.
Therefore, be out of hope, of question, of doubt.
Be certain, nothing truer,
'tis no jest that I do hate thee and love Helena.
No! Oh me!
You juggler, you canker blossom, you thief of love!
What, have you come by night and stolen my love's heart from him?
Fine, I'faith have you no modesty,
no maiden shame, no touch of bashfulness?
What, will you tear impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Fie, fie you counterfeit, you puppet, you!
Puppet? Why... why so?
Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she has made compare between our statures.
She hath urged her height, and with her personage,
her tall personage,
her height forsooth she hath prevailed with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem
because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole?
Speak!
How low am I?
I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes!
[yelling]
[Helena] I pray you, though you mock me gentlemen
let her not hurt me. I was never curst.
I have no gift at all in shrewishness.
I am a right maid for my cowardice.
Let her not strike me.
You perhaps may think because she is something lower than
-myself that I can match her. - Lower, hark again!
[yelling]
Good Hermia,
do not be so bitter with me!
I evermore did love you, Hermia.
Did ever keep your counsels, never wronged you.
Save that, in love unto Demetrius I told him of your
stealth unto this wood.
He followed you for love, I followed him
but he hath chid me hence and threatened me, to spurn me,
strike me and to kill me too. And now.
So you will let me quiet go to Athens will I bear my folly back
and follow you no further.
Let me go!! [screaming]
You see how simple and how fond I am.
Why, get you gone. Who is't that hinders you?
A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.
What, with Lysander?
[Helena] No, with Demetrius.
Oh be thy not afraid, she shall not harm thee, Helena.
No sir, she shall not though you take her part.
[Helena] Oh when she is angry she's keen and shrewd.
She was a vixen when she went to school
and though she be but little, she is fierce.
[crying] Oh, "little" again!
Nothing but "low" and "little!"
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
Let me come to her!
[Lysander] Get you gone, you dwarf.
Oh you minimus of hindering knot grass made.
You...
[audience applause]
...are too officious in her behalf
that scorns your services.
Let her alone.
Speak not of Helena.
Take not her part.
For if thou dost intend,
never so little show of love to her, thou shalt aby it.
Oh now she holds me not.
Now follow, if thou darest to try whose right,
of thine or mine, is most in Helena!
[blows kiss]
[Demetrius] No!
Hah!
Follow!
Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.
You mistress, all this coil is long of you.
Nay, go not back.
I will not trust you, I,
nor longer stay in your curst company! [grunts]
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,
my legs are longer though to run away!
[audience groans]
[crying] I am amazed, and know not what to say.
[mimicking Hermia] I am amazed and know not what to say.
[fairies screaming]
[instrumental music]
[Oberon] This is thy negligence.
Still thou mistakest,
or else commit thy knaveries willfully.
[Oberon growls]
[Puck] Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
Did not you tell me I should know the man
by the Athenian garments he had on?
And so far blameless proves my enterprise that I have anointed
an Athenian's eyes and so far am I glad it did so sort
as this their jangling I esteem a sport.
Thou see'st these lovers... lovers,
-seek a place to fight. - Yeah, augh, whoa.
[audience laughing]
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night.
The starry welkin cover thou anon in drooping fog
as black as Acheron, and lead these testy rivals
so astray as one come not within another's way.
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong,
and sometimes rail thou like Demetrius.
And from each other look thou lead them thus,
till o'er their brow death counterfeiting sleep
with leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye.
- Lysander. - At. Lysander.
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
to take from thence all error with his might
and make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When next they wake all this derision
shall seem a dream and fruitless vision.
Whilest I in this affair do thee employ
I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy.
And then I will her charmed eye release from monster's view,
and all things shall be peace.
My fairy lord this must be done with haste
for night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
and yonder shines Aurora's harbinger
at whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there,
troop home to churchyards,
damned spirits all that in crossways
and floods have burial already to their wormy beds are gone.
For fear lest day should look their shames upon.
Oh but we are spirits of another sort.
I with the morning's love have oft made sport
and like a forester the groves may tread
even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red.
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams
turns into yellow gold her salt green streams.
But notwithstanding haste;
make no delay we may effect this business yet ere day.
[ambient noise]
[Puck] Up and down, up and down,
I will lead them up and down.
I am feared in field and town, Goblin,
lead them up and down.
Here comes one.
[Lysander] Where art thou, proud Demetrius?
- Speak thou now. - Here, villain, drawn and ready.
- Where art thou? - I will be with thee straight.
Follow me then to plainer ground.
[Lysander grunts]
[Demetrius] Lysander!
Speak again thou runaway,
thou coward, art thou fled?
Speak!
In some bush?
Where dost thou hide thy head?
[Puck] Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars
telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
and wilt not come?
Come recreant, come thou child,
I'll whip thee with a rod.
Follow my voice. We'll try no manhood here.
[Lysander grunts]
Oh he goes before me and still dares me on!
When I come where he calls, then he's gone.
That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
and here will rest me.
Come, though gentle day.
For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.
[Puck] Ho, ho, ho, coward!
Why comest thou not?
[Demetrius] Abide me if thou darest,
for well I wot thou runn'st before me shifting every place.
Where art thou now?
[Puck] Come hither.
Nay then thou mock'st me.
Oh thou shalt buy this dear if ever I thy face by daylight see.
[groaning]
Now go thy Way-
Faintness constraineth me to measure out my length
on this cold bed.
[Helena] Oh weary night.
O long and tedious night, abate thy hour!
That I may back to Athens by daylight from these
that my poor company detest:
And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye.
Steal me awhile from mine own company.
[audience chuckles]
Yet but three?
Come one more.
Two of both kinds makes up four.
[Hermia crying]
Here she comes, curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad.
Thus to make poor females mad.
Never so weary, never so in woe,
I can no further crawl,
no further go.
Here will I rest me
till the break of day.
Heavens shield Lysander if they mean a fray!
On the ground, sleep sound.
I'll apply to thine eye,
to thine eye,
gentle lover, remedy.
When thou wakest thou takest
true delight in the sight
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, nought shall go ill,
the man shall have his mare again,
and all will be well.
[instrumental music]
[moaning]
[Bottom] Whoo!
[laughing]
- Oh you, you. - Oh, come.
Sit thee down upon this flowery bed...
[Bottom] Oh, yes.
...while I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
and stick musk roses in thy sleek smooth head,
and kiss thy fair large ears,
my gentle joy.
[Bottom] Yes, kiss them.
Where's Peaseblossom?
[Peaseblossom] Ready!
[Bottom] Ugh, scratch my head, Peaseblossom.
Where's Monsieur Cobweb?
[Cobweb] Read!!!
[Bottom] Oh, Monsieur Cobweb, good monsieur,
get you your weapons in your hand,
and kill me a red-hipped humblebee
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.
Where's Monsieur Mustardseed?
What's your will?
Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Peaseblossom to scratch.
I must to the barber's, monsieur,
for methinks I am marvelous hairy about the face.
And I am such a tender ass,
if my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.
Oh say sweet love, what thou desirest to eat?
Mm, truly, a peck of provender.
I could munch your good dry oats.
[laughing]
[Bottom] Methinks I have a great desire for a bottle of hay,
good hay, sweet hay, mm, hath no fellow.
I have a venturous fairy that shall seek the squirrel's hoard,
fetch thee new nuts.
[Bottom] Ah, I'd 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.
[clears throat]
Sleep thou and I will wind thee in my arms.
Oh fairies be gone, be all ways away.
So doth the woodbine, the sweet honeysuckle gently entwine,
the female ivy so enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
Oh how I love thee!
- How I dote on thee! -[Bottom] Mm hmm.
[Oberon] Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.
Welcome, good Robin.
See'st thou this sweet sight?
Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
For meeting her of late behind a wood,
seeking sweet favors for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her.
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
with a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers.
And that same dew,
which sometimes on the bud was wont to swell
like round and orient pearls,
stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes like
tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
When I at my pleasure had taunted her
and she in mild terms begged my patience,
I then did ask of her her changeling child,
which straight way she gave me.
And the fairy sent to bear him to my bower in fairyland.
[exhales]
And now that I have the boy,
I will undo this hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
from off the head of this Athenian swain,
that he awaking when the others do may all to Athens back again
repair and think no more of this night's accidents.
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
But first,
first,
I will release the fairy queen.
Be as thou wast wont to be.
See as thou wast wont to see.
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower hath such force
and blessed power.
Now, my Titania, wake you my sweet queen.
Ahh, my Oberon!
What visions have I seen.
Methought I was enamored of an ass.
[Bottom nays]
There lies your love.
[Bottom snorting]
How came these things to pass?
Oh how mine eyes do loathe his visage now.
Silence awhile.
Robin, take off his head.
[Bottom yawns]
[Oberon] Titania, music call.
And strike more dead than common sleep
of all these five the sense.
[Bottom yawns]
Now when thou wakest, with thine own fool's eyes peep.
Music, ho!
Music such as charmeth sleep.
[instrumental music]
[Oberon] Come, my queen, take hands with me,
and rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
[both laughing]
Now you and I are new in amity, and will tomorrow midnight
solemnly dance in Duke Theseus's house triumphantly,
and bless it to all fair prosperity.
There shall the pair of faithful lovers be wedded with Theseus,
all in jollity.
[Puck] Fairy lord, attend and mark,
I do hear the morning lark.
Then my queen in silence sad,
trip we after the night's shade.
[[chuckling]]
We the globe can compass soon,
swifter than the wandering moon.
[Titania] Come my lord and in our flight
tell me how it came this night
that I sleeping here was found
with these mortals on the ground.
[Theseus] My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley.
Let them go.
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top
and mark the musical confusion of hounds
and echo in conjunction.
[barking]
[Theseus] Soft!
What nymphs are these?
[Egeus] My lord, this is my daughter here asleep.
And this Lysander.
This Demetrius is, this Helena, old Nedar's Helena.
I wonder of their being here together.
Well no doubt they rose up early to observe the rite of May,
and hearing our intent came here in grace of our solemnity.
But speak Egeus, is not this the day that Hermia
should give answer of her choice?
- It is, my lord. - Huntsmen.
Wake them with thy horn.
[sound of horns]
[Theseus] Good morrow, friends!
Saint Valentine is past.
Begin these woods birds but to couple now?
[Lysander] Pardon, my lord.
I pray you all, stand up.
I know you two are rival enemies.
How comes this gentle concord in the world
that hatred is so far from jealousy
to sleep by hate and fear no enmity?
My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
half sleep, half waking
but as yet I swear I cannot truly say how I came here.
Oh, but as I think, for truly would I speak,
and now I do bethink me so it is,
I came with Hermia hither.
Our intent was to be gone from Athens where we might
without the peril of the Athenian law.
Enough! Enough, my lord! You have enough.
I beg the law, the law upon his head.
They would have stolen away.
They would, Demetrius, thereby to have defeated you and me.
You of your wife, me of my consent,
of my consent that she should be your wife.
My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth.
Of... 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... I wot not by what power, but by some power it is,
my love to Hermia, melted as the snow,
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 in 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 for evermore be true to it.
[Theseus] 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.
Away with us to Athens! Three and three.
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity!
Come, Hippolyta.
Are you sure that we are awake?
It seems to me that yet we sleep,
we dream.
Do not you think the duke was here,
-and bid us follow him? - Yea, and my father.
[Helena] And Hippolyta.
Aye and he did bid us follow to the temple.
Why then we are awake.
[laughing]
Let's follow him and by the way let us recount our dreams.
[Bottom] 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.
[audience laughing]
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,
but there is no man can tell what.
Methought I was, and methought I had.
[audience laughing]
But man is but a patched fool
if he will offer to say what methought I had.
[laughs and nays]
Oh!
The eye of man hath not heard,
the ear of man hath not seen,
man's hand is not able to taste.
His tongue 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 shall sing it in the latter end of a play,
before the duke!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Huh?
What?
Yes!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
[instrumental music]
Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?
He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.
If he comes not then... then the play is marred.
It goes not forward, doth it?
It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens
able to discharge Pyramus but he.
[Snout] No.
He has simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.
Yea and the best person too.
And he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.
You must say "paragon," a paramour God bless us,
is a thing of naught.
The ousel cock.
[singing] ♪ The ousel cock, ♪
♪ So black of hue ♪
♪ So black of hue! ♪
♪ With all its tawny build ♪
♪ With all Its tawny build now! ♪
♪ And also with His notes he sings ♪
♪ He sings his notes! ♪
♪ The wren with little quill ♪
♪ He had a ltty little bitty quill ♪
[Snug] Masters!
The duke is coming from the temple
and there is two or three large ladies more married.
If our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.
[Flute] Oh sweet bully Bottom.
Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life.
He could not have escaped sixpence a day.
And the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing
Pyramus I'll be hanged he would have deserved it.
Sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.
[Bottom] Where are these lads?
Where are these hearts?
[Quince] Bottom!
Oh most courageous day!
Oh most happy hour!
[Bottom] Masters, I am to discourse wonders!
But ask me not what for if I tell you,
- I am no true Athenian. -[all] Oh come on.
I will tell you everything right as it fell out.
[Quince] Let us hear, sweet Bottom!
Not a word of me.
All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined.
Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards,
new ribbons to your pumps.
Meet presently at the palace every man look over his part.
For the short and the long is, our play is preferred.
Yes!
In any case, in any case,
let Thisbe have clean linen
and let not him that plays the lion pair his nails
for they shall hang out for the lion's claws.
And, most dear actors,
eat no onions nor garlic for we are to utter sweet breath.
And I do not doubt but to hear them say,
it is a sweet comedy.
No more words! Go, away! Go, away!
[bells chiming]
[all screaming with joy]
[instrumental music]
[all gasping]
[Theseus chuckles]
'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.
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 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.
But all the story of the night told over,
and all their minds transfigured so together,
more witnesseth than fancy's images
and grows to something of great constancy.
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
Here come the lovers.
Joy, gentle friends!
Joy and fresh days of love accompany your hearts!
[Lysander] More than to us wait in your royal walk,
your board, and your bed.
Here, here! [applause]
Mm, come now.
What masques, what dances shall we have
to wear away this long age of three hours
between our after supper and bedtime?
What revels are at hand?
Is there no play, to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
- Call Philostrate. - Here, mighty Theseus.
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
Here, mighty Theseus.
So, what abridgement have we for this evening?
What masque, what music?
A play that is, my lord, some ten words long,
which is as brief as I've 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.
What are they that do play it?
Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
that never labored in their minds till now.
And we will hear it.
No, my noble lord, it is not for you.
I... I have heard it over.
And it is nothing, nothing in the world.
Unless... unless you can find sport in their intent,
extremely stretched and conned with cruel pain.
I will hear that play.
Yes!
For never anything can be amiss,
when simpleness and duty tender it.
Go, bring them in.
And take your places, ladies!
[upbeat instrumental music]
Master, Princess, Lord, the Prologue is addressed.
Let him approach!
Oh shit!
[audience laughing]
If we, if...
If we offend it is with our good will that you should think we
come not to offend but with good will.
To show our simple skill that is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then we come but in despite.
We do not come as minding to content you,
our true intent is.
All for your delight we are not here.
That you should hear repent you the actors are at hand
and by their show you shall know all that you are like to know.
This fellow doth not stand upon points!
Ahh he hath rid his prologue like a rough colt.
He knows not the stop.
Indeed, he hath played on his prologue
like a child on a recorder.
In this same interlude it doth befall
that I one Snout, by name present wall.
And such a wall as I would have you think,
had in it a crannied hole or chink through which the lovers,
Pyramus and Thisbe, do whisper often very secretly.
This loam, this rough cast, ha,
this stone doth show
that I am that same wall.
The truth is so.
And this the cranny is right and sinister,
through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
It is the wittiest partition
that ever I heard discourse, my lord.
[Theseus] Pyramus draws near the wall. Silence!
Shift yourself.
Ack!!
Oh grim looked night!
Oh night with hue so black!
Oh night which ever art when day is not!
Oh night, oh night!
Alack, alack, alack!
I fear my Thisbe's promise is forgot!
And thou, oh wall, oh sweet and lovely wall.
That stands between her father's ground and mine's,
show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
[audience laughing]
Thanks, courteous wall.
Jove shield thee well for this.
Easy.
[audience laughing]
But what see I?
No Thisbe do I see.
Oh wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
[Snout screaming] Son of a bitch!
[laughing]
The wall, methinks, being sensible should curse again!
No, no, 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.
Yonder she come.
Oh wall, full often hast thou heard my moans
for parting my... fair Pyramus and me!
My 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 an I can hear my Thisbe's face.
[Bottom] Thisbe!
My love, thou art my love I think.
[Bottom] Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace.
Oh kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
[kissing]
I kissed the Wall's hole, not your lips at all.
Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay!
[instrumental music]
And thus I, Wall, my part discharged so.
And being done, thus Wall away doth go.
[applause]
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
Ahh, the best in this kind are but shadows,
the worst are no worse if imagination amend them.
It must be your imagination then,
and not theirs.
Here come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
[audience laughing]
You ladies, 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.
[roaring]
[Bottom] They're gonna hang us.
They're gonna hang us!
I am a man.
Oh as all the men are.
And know that I once 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.
A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.
[Lysander] Well the very best at a beast, my lord,
that e'er I saw.
[bell ding] This lantern doth the horned moon present.
[Demetrius laughing] He should have worn the horns on his head.
Ay he is no crescent, and the horns are invisible
within the circumference. [laughing]
[bell ding] This lantern doth the horned moon present.
[makes silly noise]
Myself the man in the moon do seem to be.
This is the greatest error of all the rest.
The man should be put into the lantern.
How is it else the man in the moon?
Oh he dares not come in there for the candle
for you see it is already in snuff.
I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!
It appears by his small light of discretion
that he is in the wane.
But yet in courtesy in all reason
we must stay the time.
[Theseus clears throat] Proceed, Moon.
All that I have to say
is to tell you that the lantern is the moon,
I the man in the moon.
This thorn bush, my thorn bush, and this dog my dog.
[applause]
[Demetrius] Oh but silence, here comes Thisbe.
This is old Ninny's tomb.
Where is my love?
[Snug roaring]
[Theseus] Run, Thisbe!
[Fairy] Oh my god, shit, oh you, dah!
[Snug screams]
[Theseus] Well moused, Lion!
And then came Pyramus.
I thank thee moon for shining now so bright.
[bell ding]
For by thy golden gracious glittering gleams,
I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.
[Organ music]
Woof.
Oh. But stay.
Oh Spite!
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
Thy mantle good,
what, stained with blood?
Approach ye Furies fell!
Fates, come come, cut thread and thrum.
Quail, crush, conclude and quell!
Beshrew my heart but I pity the man.
Oh 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, here that left pap where heart doth hop!
Thus die I,
[groaning] [audience laughing]
Thus, thus, thus.
[groaning]
[groaning continues]
[groaning]
[groaning continues]
Now am I dead.
Egh.
Now am I fled.
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light.
Moon take thy flight.
Now die.
Die.
[audience applause]
How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back
and finds her lover?
She will find him by starlight.
[Theseus] Ahh, here she comes and her passion ends the play.
Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus.
I hope she will be brief.
Asleep, my love?
What, dead my dove?
Oh Pyramus, arise.
Speak.
Quite dumb?
Dead,dead?
A tomb must cover thy sweet eyes.
These little lips, this cherry nose,
these yellow cowslip cheeks, are gone,
are gone.
Lovers make moan,
his eyes were green as leeks.
Oh 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 trust sword.
Come, blade, my breast imbue.
And, farewell, friends.
Thus Thisbe ends.
Adieu, adieu, adieu.
Bravo.
Here here, hahaha!
Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
Ay, and, uh, Wall too.
No, no, I assure you the wall is down that parted their fathers.
Would it please you to see the epilogue
or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?
No epilogue, I pray YO"-
For your play it needs no excuse.
Never excuse.
For when the players are all dead
there needs none to be blamed.
But come, your Bergomask.
Let your epilogue alone.
[instrumental music]
[music gets faster]
[Theseus] The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
Lovers, to bed.
'Tis almost fairy time. [bells chiming]
A fortnight hold we this solemnity.
In nightly revels and new jollity!
[all] Whoo!
[Puck] Now the hungry lion roars,
and the wolf behowls the moon.
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores
all with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
puts the wrench that lies in woe in remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
that the graves all gaping wide,
every one lets forth his sprite
in the churchway paths to glide.
And we fairies that do run, by the triple Hecate's team,
from the presence of the sun, following darkness like a dream.
Now are frolic.
Not a mouse shall disturb this hallowed house.
I am sent with broom before
to sweep the dust behind the door.
[Oberon] Through the house give glimmering light
by the dead and drowsy fire.
Each and every fairy sprite hop as light as bird from brier.
And this ditty after me, sing and dance it trippingly.
Hand in hand with fairy grace,
will we sing and bless this place.
♪ Now until the break of day, ♪
♪ Through this house Each fairy stray ♪
♪ To the best bride Bed will we, ♪
♪ Which by us Shall blessed be ♪
♪ And the issue there create ♪
♪ Ever shall be fortunate ♪
♪ So shall all The couples three, ♪
♪ Ever true in loving 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 ♪
[fairies singing] ♪ Meet me all by break of day ♪
[Puck] If we shadows have offended,
think but this, and all is mended.
That you have but slumbered here
whilst 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 unearned 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.
[audience applause]
[upbeat instrumental music]