Enter BOTTOM with an ass’s head, PUCK following.
BOTTOM If I were, fair Thisbe, I were only thine.
QUINCE O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters; fly, masters. Help! [Exeunt all except PUCK and BOTTOM.]
PUCK 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 burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. (Exit.) (3.1.99-107)
Enter BOTTOM with an ass’s head! Yessssss. Quick change done, and this is one of the reasons why there has been so much careful playing with the boundaries between the real and the theatrical, the believable and the transparent: ideally Bottom’s transformation should be of a different order to all the pieces of make-believe (the lion, the moon) that Quince and his team have been agonising over. Bottom hasn’t noticed: if I were, fair Thisbe—that is, if I were a horse; well, not quite, but close enough—I were only thine. I wish I were your horse, oh yes! (Perhaps a racier line than Quince had anticipated, or Bottom realises?) But Quince is looking on aghast, to think he’d been worrying about Flute’s pronunciation and inability to understand his part: O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted! No amount of work-shopping or risk-assessing could have prepared him for this, an actual monster in the middle of the rehearsal space! Pray, masters—are they looking on aghast, or some looking to him for direction? is this part of the show?—fly, masters. RUN! Help! And they do.
Puck is extremely pleased by this turn of events, it’s going very well so far, and he’s going to double down: I’ll follow you; I’ll lead you about a round, oh, I’ll chase you and lead you a merry dance, through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier. All over the forest, scratching and squelching in the dark. And I can transform myself too, sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound—you’ll think you’re being hunted—a hog, a headless bear—proper monsters now—sometime a fire, uncanny and terrifying—and neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. Everyone can be screaming and shouting as they run away, gathering up the things they’ve brought to the rehearsal (Quince’s director’s chair, the thermos flasks, torches) and so Puck can scream and shout too, as he invokes all the animals, creates chaos and cacophony in the forest. Although some contradictory exit directions suggest that Bottom might exit too, it’s perhaps funnier if he stands in the middle, initially immersed in the scene, and then beginning to be very confused as it all erupts around him.
