THESEUS        What are they that do play it? PHILOSTRATE           Hard-handed men that work in Athens here, Which never laboured in their minds till now, And now have toiled their unbreathed memories With this same play, against your nuptial. THESEUS        And we will hear it. PHILOSTRATE           No, my noble lord, It is not for you. I have heard it over, And it is […]

PHILOSTRATE           A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, Which is as brief as I have 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. And tragical, my noble lord, it is, […]

THESEUS        ‘The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of learning, late deceased in beggary’? That is some satire keen and critical, Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony. ‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth’? Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief? That is hot ice and wondrous swarthy snow. How shall we […]

PHILOSTRATE           [Gives him a paper.] There is a brief how many sports are ripe. Make choice of which your highness will see first. THESEUS        [Reads.] ‘The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung By an Athenian eunuch to the harp’? We’ll none of that. That have I told my love In glory of my kinsman Hercules. ‘The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals Tearing the Thracian […]

THESEUS        Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bed-time? Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? Call Philostrate. PHILOSTRATE                       Here, mighty Theseus. THESEUS        Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What […]

Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA and HELENA. THESEUS        Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts. LYSANDER                 More than to us Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed.    (5.1.28-31) Here are the lovers back again, now married—and definitely spruced up—and the general mood is one of rejoicing: here […]

THESEUS        Such tricks hath strong imagination That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear! HIPPOLYTA   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.      (5.1.18-27) Fantasies can take […]

THESEUS        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 a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the […]

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE and Lords. HIPPOLYTA    ’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. THESEUS        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. (5.1.1-6) It would be appropriate for Hippolyta and Theseus to enter arm in arm—even hand in hand—because one little […]

BOTTOM        Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what. For if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you everything right as it fell out. QUINCE          Let us hear, sweet Bottom. BOTTOM        Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is that the duke hath […]