Enter SNUG.

SNUG  Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

FLUTE O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life: he could not have scaped 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.

Enter BOTTOM.

BOTTOM        Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?

QUINCE          Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!      (4.2.15-27)

Snug’s been on a reccy, but he can’t cheer them with news of Bottom; the opposite in fact, in that the window for their bid for theatrical stardom seems to be closing. Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married. The ceremony’s done! The reception’s about to start! And it’s a double—triple—wedding into the bargain. Oh, if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men. We’d have been set for life, if we’d been able to do our show.

Flute is inconsolable, and above all for what Bottom himself has lost, it seems: O sweet bully Bottom! Our lovely friend! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life: he could not have scaped sixpence a day. And the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged. He’d have never had to work again, on that kind of pension (roughly what an ordinary working man could expect to earn in a day in London; clearly untold riches for Flute, who presumably earns much less.) He would have deserved it! Sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing. That performance would have been the making of him!

But here’s Bottom, full of ebullience and bonhomie: where are these lads? Where are these hearts? What’s up, fellas? Did you miss me? And Quince is quite overcome: Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour! HOORAY!