Faculty of English

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 […]

DEMETRIUS   No die but an ace for him; for he is but one. LYSANDER     Less than an ace, man; for he is dead, he is nothing. THESEUS        With the help of a surgeon, he might yet recover, and yet prove an ass. HIPPOLYTA   How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her […]

THESEUS        This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad. HIPPOLYTA   Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man. BOTTOM        O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame? Since Lion vile hath here deflowered my dear. Which is – no, no, which was – the fairest dame That lived, that loved, that […]

Enter Pyramus. DEMETRIUS   And then came Pyramus. [Exit Lion.] LYSANDER     And so the Lion vanished. BOTTOM        Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams. I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright. For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams, I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight. But stay: O spite! But mark, poor knight,      What dreadful dole is here? Eyes, […]

LYSANDER     Proceed, moon. STARVELING All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon, I the man i’th’ moon, this thorn-bush my thorn-bush, and this dog my dog. DEMETRIUS   Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all these are in the moon. But silence: here comes Thisbe. […]

[Enter Moonshine.] STARVELING This lanthorn doth the horned moon present. DEMETRIUS   He should have worn the horns on his head. THESEUS        He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible, within the circumference. STARVELING This lanthorn doth the horned moon present. Myself, the man i’th’ moon do seem to be. THESEUS        This is the greatest error of all the […]

Enter Lion. SNUG  You ladies, you whose gentle hearts do fear The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor, May now perchance both quake and tremble here, When Lion rough in wildest rage doth roar. Then know that I, as Snug the joiner, am No lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam. For if I should, as Lion, come in strife Into […]

BOTTOM        Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway? FLUTE Tide life, tide death, I come without delay. SNOUT            Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so; And being done, thus Wall away doth go. [Exeunt Wall, Pyramus and Thisbe.] THESEUS        Now is the more use between the two neighbours. DEMETRIUS   No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful, to […]

BOTTOM        I see a voice. Now will I to the chink, To spy and I can hear my Thisbe’s face. Thisbe? FLUTE            My love thou art, my love I think. BOTTOM        Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace; And like Limander, am I trusty still. FLUTE And I, like Helen, till the Fates me kill. BOTTOM        Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true. […]

THESEUS        The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again. BOTTOM        No, in truth, sir, he should not. ‘Deceiving me’ is Thisbe’s cue. She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see it will fall. (Enter Thisbe.) Pat as I told you: yonder she comes. FLUTE O Wall, full […]