THESEUS

N Owe fair Hippolita, our nuptial hour Draws on apase: four happy days bring in And other Moon: but o, me thinks, how slow This old Moon waves! She lingers my desires, Like to a Stepdame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young men reuenewe. Go Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments, Awake the peart and nimble spirit of mirth, Turn melancholy forth to funerals: The pale companion is not for our pomp. Hyppolita, I wooed thee with my sword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries: But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling. Thanks good Egeus. Whats the news with thee? Rather your eyes must, with his judgement, look, Either to die the death, or to abjure, For ever, the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whither (if you yield not to your father's choice) You can endure the livery of a Nun, For aye to be in shady cloister, mewed To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns, to the cold fruitless Moon. Thrice blessed they, that master so there blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage: But earthlyer happy is the rose distilled, Then that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and die, in single blessedness. Take time to pause, and by the next new moon, The sealing day, betwixt my love and me, For everlasting bound of fellowship, Upon that day either prepare to die, For disobedience to your father's will, Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would, Or on Diana's altar to protest, For aye, austerity and single life. I must confess, that I have herd so much; And, with Demetrius, thought to have spoke thereof: But, being overfull of self affairs, My mind did lose it, But Demetrius come, And come Egeus, you shall go with me: I have some private schooling for you both. For you, fair Hermia, look you arm your self, To fit your fancies, to your father's will; Or else, the Law of Athens yields you up (Which by no means we may extenuate) To death, or to a vow of single life. Come my Hyppolita : what cheer my love? Demetrius and Egeus go along: I must employ you in some business, Against our nuptial, and confer with you Of some thing, nearly that concerns your selves. Go one of you, find out the forester: For now our observation is performed. And since we have the vanward of the day, My love shall hear the music of my hounds. Uncouple, in the western valley, let them go: Dispatch I say, and find the forester. We will, fair Queen, up to the mountainestoppe, And mark the musical confusion Of hounds and Echo in conjunction. No doubt, they rose up early, to observe The right of May: and hearing our intent, Came here, in grace of our solemnity. But speak, Egeus, is not this the day, That Hermia should give answer of her choice? Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is passed. Begin these wood birds but to couple, now? I pray you all, stand up. I know, you two are Rival enemies. How comes this gentle concord in the world, That hatred is so far from jealousy, To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity, Fair lovers, you are fortunately met, Of this discourse, we more will here anon More strange then true. I never may believe These antique fables, nor these Fairy toys. Lovers, and mad men have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more, Then cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, The lover, and the Poet are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils, then vast hell can hold: That is the mad man. The lover, all as frantic, Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egypt. The Poets eye, in a fine frenzy, rolling, does glance From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. And as Imagination bodies forth the forms of things Unknown: the Poets pen turns them to shapes, And gives to ayery nothing, a local habitation, And a name. 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? Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days Of love accompany your hearts. Come now: what masks, what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours, between Or after supper, & bedtime? 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. Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What mask, what music? How shall we be guile The lazy time, if not with some delight? The battle with the Centaur's to be sung, By and Athenian Eunuch, to the Harp? Weel none of that, That have I told my love, in glory of my kinsman Hercules The riot of the tipsy Bachanals, Tearing the Thracian singer, in their rage? That is and old devise: and it was played, When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. 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 hight I'm, And woe ̄ drous strange snow. How shall we find the continued ̄ cord Of this discord? And we will hear it. I will hear that play. For never any thing Can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it. Go bring them in, and take your places, Ladies. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing. The kinder we, to give them thanks, for nothing. Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake. And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect Takes it in might, not merit. Where I have come, great Clerks have purposed To greet me, with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the amid of sentences, Throttle their practised accent in their fears, And in conclusion dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet, Out of this silence, yet, I picked a welcome: And in the modesty of fearful duty, I read as much, as from the rattling tongue Of saucy and audacious eloquence. Love, therefore, and tong-tide simplicity, In least, speak most, to my capacity. This fellow does not stand upon points. His speech was Like a tangled Chain; nothing im paired, but all disordered. Who is next? I wonder, if the Lion be to speak. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better? Pyramus draws near the wall: silence. The wall me thinks, being sensible, should curse again. What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid. To you, your father should be as a God: One that composed your beauty's: yea and one, To whom you are but as a form in wax, By him imprinted, and within his power, To leave the figure, or disfigure it: Demetrius is a worthy gentleman. In himself he is: But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, The other must be held the worthier. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind: So flewed, so sanded: and their heads are hung With ears, that sweep away the morning dew, Crook kneed, and deawlapt, Like Thessalian Bulls: Slow in pursuit; but matched in mouth Like bells, Each under each. A cry more tunable Was never hollowd to, nor cheered with horn, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. Judge when you hear. But soft. What nymphs are these? Go, bid the huntsinen wake them with their horns. What are they, that do play it? This is old Ninies tomb. Where is my love? Lion, O. Let him approach. Now is the Moon used between the two neighbours. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience. True: and a goose for his discretion. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour. For the goose carries not the fox. It is well: leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the Moon. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible, with in the circumference. Well mouz'd, Lion. She will find him, by starlight. Here she comes, and her passion ends the Play. The best, in this kind, are but shadows: and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them. If we imagine no worse of them, then they of the ̄ selves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts, in a man and a Lion. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into the lanthorn How is it else the manith Moon? It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane: but yet in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time. Well run, Thisbe. This passion, & the death of a deer friend would go near to make a man look sad. With the help of a Surgeon, he might yet reco ver, and yet prove and Ass. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead. No Epilogue, I pray you. For your Play needs no excuse. Never excuse: For when the Players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it, had played Pyramus, and hanged himself in Thisbies gar ter, it would have been a fine Tragedy: and so it is truly, and very notably discharged. But come your Burgomaske: let your Epilogue alone. The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers to bed, 'tis almost Fairy time. I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn, As much as we this night have overwatched. This palpable gross Play hath well beguiled The heavy gate of night. Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity, In nightly Revels, and new jollity. Exeunt.