FLUTE Asleep, my love?

What, dead, my dove?

     O Pyramus, arise.

Speak, speak. Quite dumb?

Dead, dead? A tomb

     Must cover thy sweet eyes.

These lily lips,

This cherry nose,

        These yellow cowslip cheeks

Are gone, are gone:

Lovers make moan.

     His eyes were green as leeks.        (5.1.317-328)

I love this speech, which must be played with absolutely unaffected sincerity, laboured rhymes and thumping metre and all. Everything about it is just slightly off, but it still pushes all the buttons, ticks all the boxes for this kind of thing. Asleep, my love? the classic question. What, dead, my dove? Dove is so stonkingly inappropriate for both Pyramus and Bottom, but that almost makes it worse? (And again, alliteration, internal rhyme; Quince would be lost without it.) O Pyramus, arise! The simplest of human questions—get UP—which is also at the heart of theatrical illusion, ‘playing’ dead. He could, but he won’t. Speak, speak. SAY something! Quite dumb? (And he’d usually NEVER shut up.) Dead, dead? DEAD? Then a realisation: a tomb must cover thy sweet eyes. I’m not going to see you again, you’re not going to look at me again. And yes, the blazon is all wrong, as Thisbe mourns these lily lips (rather than rosy), this cherry nose(and noses almost never make it into blazons, let alone red ones), these yellow cowslip cheeks (should be rosy again, not yellow) are gone, are gone. All gone, dead and gone. Lovers, make moan—lament, weep with me! His eyes were green as leeks, not like stars, and yes, it’s just there for the rhyme, but it’s striking, homely, desperate. Eyes like leeks! (No one has interrupted Thisbe yet.)