A Midsummer Night's Dream

Please see the bottom of the page for commentary.

ACT III SCENE I	The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.
	Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.
BOTTOM	Are we all met?
QUINCE	Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place
	for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our
	stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we
	will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.
BOTTOM	Peter Quince,--
QUINCE	What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
BOTTOM	There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and
	Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must
	draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies
	cannot abide. How answer you that?	11
SNOUT	By'r lakin, a parlous fear.
STARVELING	I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.
BOTTOM	Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.
	Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to
	say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that
	Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more
	better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not
	Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them
	out of fear.
QUINCE	Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be
	written in eight and six.	22
BOTTOM	No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.
SNOUT	Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
STARVELING	I fear it, I promise you.
BOTTOM	Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to
	bring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a
	most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful
	wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to
	look to 't.	31
SNOUT	Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
BOTTOM	Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must
	be seen through the lion's neck: and he himself
	must speak through, saying thus, or to the same
	defect,--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish
	You,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would
	entreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life
	for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it
	were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a
	man as other men are;' and there indeed let him name
	his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.	43
QUINCE	Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things;
	that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for,
	you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.
SNOUT	Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
BOTTOM	A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find
	out moonshine, find out moonshine.	50
QUINCE	Yes, it doth shine that night.
BOTTOM	Why, then may you leave a casement of the great
	chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon
	may shine in at the casement.
QUINCE	Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns
	and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to
	present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is
	another thing: we must have a wall in the great
	chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did
	talk through the chink of a wall.	60
SNOUT	You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
BOTTOM	Some man or other must present Wall: and let him
	have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast
	about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his
	fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus
	and Thisby whisper.
QUINCE	If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down,
	every mother's son, and rehearse your parts.
	Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your
	speech, enter into that brake: and so every one
	according to his cue.	72
	Enter PUCK behind.
PUCK	What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,
	So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
	What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;
	An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.
QUINCE	Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
BOTTOM	Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,--
QUINCE	Odours, odours.
BOTTOM	-- odours savours sweet:	80
	So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
	But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,
	And by and by I will to thee appear.
	Exit
PUCK	[Aside.] A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.
	Exit.
FLUTE	Must I speak now?
QUINCE	Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes
	but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
FLUTE	Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
	Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,	90
	Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
	As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
	I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
QUINCE	'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that
	yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your
	part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue
	is past; it is, 'never tire.'
FLUTE	O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would
	never tire.
	Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head.
BOTTOM	If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine:
QUINCE	O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray,
	masters! fly, masters! Help!	101
	Exeunt QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.
PUCK	I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,
	Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:
	Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
	A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
	And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
	Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
	Exit
BOTTOM	Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to
	make me afeard.
	Re-enter SNOUT.
SNOUT	O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee?	111
BOTTOM	What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do
	you?
	Exit SNOUT.
	Re-enter QUINCE.
QUINCE	Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art
	translated.
	Exit
BOTTOM	I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me;
	to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir
	from this place, do what they can: I will walk up
	and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear
	I am not afraid.	120
	Sings.
	'The ousel cock so black of hue,
	With orange-tawny bill,
	The throstle with his note so true,
	The wren with little quill,--'
TITANIA	Awaking.
BOTTOM	Sings.
	'The finch, the sparrow and the lark,
	The plain-song cuckoo gray,
	Whose note full many a man doth mark,
	And dares not answer nay;--'	129
	for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish
	a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry
	'cuckoo' never so?
TITANIA	I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:
	Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note;
	So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
	And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me
	On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM	Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason
	for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and
	love keep little company together now-a-days; the
	more the pity that some honest neighbours will not
	make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.	142
TITANIA	Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM	Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out
	of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
TITANIA	Out of this wood do not desire to go:
	Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
	I am a spirit of no common rate;
	The summer still doth tend upon my state;	150
	And I do love thee: therefore, go with me;
	I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
	And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
	And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
	And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
	That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
	Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!
	Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED.
PEASEBLOSSOM	Ready.
COBWEB	And I.
MOTH	And I.	160
MUSTARDSEED	And I.
ALL	Where shall we go?
TITANIA	Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
	Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
	Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
	With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
	The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
	And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
	And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
	To have my love to bed and to arise;	170
	And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies
	To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes:
	Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
PEASEBLOSSOM	Hail, mortal!
COBWEB	Hail!
MOTH	Hail!
MUSTARDSEED	Hail!
BOTTOM	I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech your
	worship's name.
COBWEB	Cobweb.	180
BOTTOM	I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
	Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with
	you. Your name, honest gentleman?
PEASEBLOSSOM	Peaseblossom.
BOTTOM	I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your
	mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good
	Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more
	acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir?
MUSTARDSEED	Mustardseed.	190
BOTTOM	Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well:
	that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath
	devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise
	you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I
	desire your more acquaintance, good Master
	Mustardseed.
TITANIA	Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
	The moon methinks looks with a watery eye;
	And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
	Lamenting some enforced chastity.	200
	Tie up my love's tongue bring him silently.
	Exeunt

Next: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3, Scene 2

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Explanatory Notes for Act 3, Scene 1

From Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Ed. Katharine Lee Bates. Boston: Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn.

"Turn we now to the second group. . . . These are types of a class ever ready to our hand. Bottom sat at a Stratford loom, Starveling on a Stratford tailoring-board; between them they perhaps made the doublet which captivated the eyes of Richard Hathaway's daughter, or the hose that were torn in the park of the Lucys." — Edinburgh Review (April, 1848).

7. bully. "A term of familiarity addressed by his companions to a jolly blustering fellow." — Wright.
What modern survival ?

8-11. Bottom is now posing in the role of literary critic. Not even Quince can answer him; the courage of the other actors gives way at once, and then he brings forward his fine device of a prologue. Why does Bottom insist upon the prologue ?

12. By'r lakin = By our ladykin, referring with a touch of affectionate familiarity to the Virgin Mary. Ff. and Q2, spell Berlaken. Q1 spells Berlakin.

13. Starveling. "Starveling, the tailor, keeps the peace, and objects to the lion and the drawn sword. Starveling does not start the objections himself, but seconds them when made by others, as if he had not spirit to express his fears without encouragement." — Hazlitt.

23-24. What does Bottom know or care about metre? Does Quince act upon either of Bottom's suggestions as to the prologue?

26. I fear it. Where is the emphasis?

32-33. Snout, having followed Bottom's lead, and started a difficulty, attempts to meet it by Bottom's own device; but in both instances Bottom's ready volubility bears the slow-spoken tinker down.

44-45. Are the difficulties proposed by Quince any less absurd than the others?

61. Snug. Look up this character carefully to see if justification can be found for either of the following opinions:—
"Snug, the joiner, who can board and lodge only one idea at a time, and that tardily." — Cowden-Clarke.
"Snug, the joiner, is the moral man of the piece, who proceeds by measurement and discretion in all things." — Hazlitt.
From this single speech, what characteristics of Snug may be gathered?

65. And let him is emended from the or let him of the original texts. Why?

69. Is there any evidence of excitement on the part of Quince when he sees his play actually in rehearsal?

80-83. For the obvious deficiencies in sense and rhyme of this quatrain, various emendations have been proposed, but the wisest interpreter of Bottom is Puck, with his emendation of an ass's head. Bottom might well be likened to Dogberry, especially in this passage, were it not that "Comparisons are odorous." — Much Ado about Nothing, III. v. 18.

89-90. What are we to infer as to the complexion of Pyramus?

91. Juvenal. This word seems to have been an affectation of the day. Could the pun be worse?

99. Malone proposed the following punctuation:—

If I were, fair Thisbe, I were only thine.

107. "Note the pelting, rattling staccato, which sounds like the explosion of a pack of Chinese firecrackers at the heels of the flying clowns." — Furness.

112-113. "Bottom indulges in what appears to have heen a piece of familiar banter of the time, without knowing how much it affected himself. Compare Mrs. Quickly's speech in The Merry Wives of Windsor, I. iv. 134; 'You shall have an fool's head of your own.'" — Wright.

121. ousel-cock. Blackbird.

123. throstle. Thrush.

124. quill. Pipe or note.

125. "Perhaps a parody on a line in the Spanish Tragedy, often ridiculed by the poets of our author's time: 'What outcry calls me from my naked bed ?'" — Halliwell.

127. plain-song. Meaning what? Cf.:— "Meanetime Dan Cuckow, knowing that his voice
Had no variety, no change, no choice:
But through the wesand pipe of his harsh throate,
Cri'd only Cuckow, that prodigious note!"
Niccol's The Cuckow, 1607. 135. Scan the verse.

138. "Bottom, during the time that he attracts the attentions of Titania, never for a moment thinks there is anything extraordinary in the matter. He takes the love of the Queen of the Fairies as a thing of course, orders ahout her tiny attendants as if they were so many apprentices at his loom, and dwells in Fairy Land, unobservant of its wonders, as quietly as if he were still in his workshop. Great is the courage and self-possession of an ass-head." — Maginn.

142. Gleek. Jest.

147-167. Why is it that this passage falls with so dulcet an effect upon the ear? Which are the verses of peculiar heauty? Scan verse 154.

168. Peaseblossom.

"Whose woven wings the summer dyes
Of many colours."

178-196. "He sits down among the fairies as one of themselves without any astonishment; but so far from assuming, like Abou Hassan, the manners of the court where he has been so strangely intruded, he brings the language and bearing of the booth into the glittering circle of Queen Titania." — Maginn.
Which one of the elfin courtiers is very much afraid of Bottom and why? What is the force of Bottom's compliment to Cobweb? Of his "gleek upon occasion" of meeting Mustard-seed? Is Bottom, outside of fairyland, capable of such a pretty bit of irony?

198. "Alluding to the supposed origin of dew in the moon." — Walker.

200. But is Titania perhaps wrong as to the reason why the little flowers weep? Cf. IV. i.

How to cite the explanatory notes:

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. Katharine Lee Bates. Boston: Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn, 1895. Shakespeare Online. 20 Dec. 2009. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/mids_3_1.html >.

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