A MIDSUMMERNIGT’S DREAM

SCENE1
PALACE IN ATHENS

SCENE2
Enter QUINCE , SNUG，BOTTOM, FLUTE;
QUINCE
Is all our company here?
BOTTOM
You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.
QUINCE
Here is the scroll of every mans name which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our
interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his wedding day at night.
BOTTOM
First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so
grow to a point.
QUINCE
Marry, our play is The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.
BOTTOM
A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your
actors by the scroll.Masters, spread yourselves.
QUINCE
Answer as I call you.Nick Bottom?
BOTTOM
Ready. Name what part I am for and proceed.
QUINCE
You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM
What is Pyramus? A lover or a tyrant?
QUINCE
A lover that kills himself, most gallant, for love.
BOTTOM
That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their
eyes. I will move storms. I will condole in some measure.To the rest.Yet my chief 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 Phoebus 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 tyrants vein. A lover is
more condoling.
QUINCE
Francis Flute?
FLUTE
Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE
Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
FLUTE
What is Thisbe? A wandering knight?
QUINCE
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE
Nay, faith, let me not play a woman. I have a beard coming.
QUINCE
Thats all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.
BOTTOM
An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too! Ill speak in a monstrous little voice: Thisne,
Thisne!Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear, thy Thisbe dear and lady dear!
QUINCE
No, no. You must play Pyramus.And Flute, you Thisbe.
BOTTOM
Well, proceed.
QUINCE
Myself, Thisbes father.Snug ， you, the lions part.And I hope here is a play fitted.
SNUG
 Have you the lions part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM
Let me play the lion too. I will roar, that I will do any mans heart good to hear me. I will roar,
that I will make the duke say, Let him roar again. Let him roar again.
QUINCE
An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would
shriek. And that were enough to hang us all.
ALL
That would hang us, every mothers son.
BOTTOM
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.（meow）
QUINCE
You can play no part but Pyramus. For Pyramus is a sweet-faced man, a proper man as one
shall see in a summers day, a most lovely, gentlemanlike man. Therefore you must needs play
Pyramus.
BOTTOM
Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?
QUINCE
masters, here are your 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. I pray you, fail me not.
BOTTOM
We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains. Be
perfect. Adieu.
QUINCE
At the dukes oak we meet.
BOTTOM
Enough ,hold ,or cut bowstrings.
 SCENE 3
Puck
How now, spirit: whither wander you?
Fairy
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone.
Our queen and all her elves come here anon.

Fairy
Either I mistake your shape 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,
35 Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime 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?

(thunder)

Puck
here comes Oberon.
Fairy
And here my mistress.Would that he were gone!
 Oberon
Ill met by moonlight,proud Titania.
Titania
What ,jealous Oberon!Fairies, skip hence;
Oberon
Tarry,rash wanton!Am not I thy lord?
Titania
Since the middle summer’s spring,met we on hill,in dale ,forest, or mead,
By paved fountain,or by rushy brook,to dance our ringles to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
Therefore the winds ,piping to us in vain,
As in revenge,have sucked up from the sea
The seasons alter: 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 115 From our debate, from our dissension:
We are their parents and original

Oberon

Do you amend it, then: it lies in you.

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy 120 To be my henchman.

Titania

Set your heart at rest;

The fairy-land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot’ress of my order.

But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; 135 And for her sake do I rear up her boy;
And for her sake I will not part with him.

Oberon

Give me that boy and I will go with thee.

Titania

Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away:

 Oberon

Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither: thou rememb’rest the herb I showed thee once;
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid 170 Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

Puck

I’ll put a girdle round about the earth 175 In forty minutes!
[Exit]
 SCENE 4
Enter BOTTOM , QUINCE , FLUTE , SNUG
BOTTOM
Are we all here?
QUINCE
Right on time, this is the perfect place to rehearse. Let’s put on our play exactly as
we’ll perform it for the duke.
There are two things we still have to figure out.How are we going to bring moonlight
into a room?Because ,you know ,pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.
SNUG
Will the moon be shining on the night we are performing our play?
BOTTOM
A calendar, a calendar! Find out moonshine, find out moonshine!
QUINCE
(takes out a book) Yes, it does shine that night.
BOTTOM
you can leave one of the windows open in the big hall where we’ll be performing,and the
moon can shine in through the window.
QUINCE
Yes, or else someone will have to come in carrying a bundle of sticks and a lantern and say
he’s come to disfigure,or represent ,the character of moonshine,because the man in the moon
is supposed to carry sticks and a lantern.but there is another problem,we need to have a wall
in the big hall ,because according to the story,pyramus and thisbe talked through a little a hole
in a wall.
SNUG
You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom? Gonna bring in a wall.
BOTTOM
Some man or other must present Wall. He can have some plaster or clay or limestone or
something on him to show the audience he is a wall. He can hold his fingers in a V-shape like
this,and Pyramsu and Thisbe can whisper to each other through that little crack.
QUINCE
If we can do that,everything will be right .Now sit down, everybody ,and rehearse your
parts,you start. When you have said your lines, go hide in that bush.

ROBIN ENTERS,UNSEEN BY THE CHARATERS

(aside) Who are these country bumkins swaggering around so close to where the fairy
queen is sleeping? What?Are they about to put on a play? I’ll watch , and ill act in
it ,too, if I feel like it .
 QUINCE
Speak, Pyramus.Thisbe, come forward.
BOTTOM
(as PYRAMUS) Thisbe, the flowers with sweet odious smells
QUINCE
Odors, odors.
BOTTOM
(as PYRAMUS)
Odors and smells are like your breath , my dearest thisbe dear.But what’s that,a voice!
Wait here a while ,I’ll be right back.
Exit BOTTOM
ROBIN
(aside) That’s the strangest pyramus ive ever seen.
Exit ROBIN
FLUTE
Must I speak now?
QUINCE
Yes,you are.
FLUTE
(as THISBE ) Most radiant pyramus, you are as white as a lily, and the color of a red
rose on a splendid redbush ,a very lively young man and also a lovely jew. I’ll meet
you ,pyramus,at ninny’s grave.
QUINCE
Ninus grave, man. And don’t say all of that yet. That you are supposed to answer to
Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues and all.Pyramus, enter. Your missed
your cue. It is never tired.
FLUTE
Oh. (as THISBE) As reliable as a horse that never gets tired.
Enter BOTTOM , with an asss head, and ROBIN
BOTTOM
(as PYRAMUS) if I were fair ,thisbe, I were only thine.
QUINCE
Oh, monstrous! Oh, strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! Fly, masters! Help!
Exeunt QUINCE , FLUTE , SNUG , SNOUT , and STARVELING
ROBIN
Ill follow you. Ill lead you about a round
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier.
 Sometime a horse Ill be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire.
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
Exit ROBIN
BOTTOM
Why do they run away? This is some joke of theirs to scare me.
FlUTE
O Bottom, you’ve changed! What have you got on your head?
BOTTOM
What do you see? You see an ass head of your own, do you?
Enter QUINCE
QUINCE
God bless you, Bottom, god bless you,you’ve been changed.Robin.
Exit QUINCE
BOTTOM
I see what they’re up to .They want to make an ass of me,to scare me if they can. But I
won’t leave this spot ,no matter what they do .I’ll walk up and down and sing a song,so
they’ll know I’m not afraid.
(music)