Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you, is, that the duke hath dined: Get your apparel together; good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for, the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him, that plays the lion, pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions, nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt, but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away. [Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. The same.

An apartment in the Palace of Theseus.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords, and Attendants.

Hip. Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

The. More strange than true. I never may be→ lieve

These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.

Lovers, and madmen, have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

1 So in the Tempest:

thy brains,

Now useless, boil'd within thy skull. And in The Winter's Tale: Would any but these boil'd brains of three and twenty hunt this weather? Drayton, in his Epistle to Reynolds on poets and poetry, seems to have had this in his mind, n, speaking of Marlowe, he says:

"That fine madness still he did retain,benesta
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact 2:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
See's 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 efore heaven;

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy 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 suppos'd a bear?

Hip. But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigur'd so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images,

And grows to something of great constancy3;
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.

Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA.

The. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth

Joy, gentle friends! joy, and fresh days of love, Accompany your hearts!

Lys.

More than to us

Wait on your royal walks, your board, your bed! The. Come what masks, 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.

Philost.

Here, mighty Theseus.hot The. Say, what abridgment 4 have you for this

evening?

What mask? what music? How shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with some delight?

Philost. There is a brief5, how many sports are

ripe;

Make choice of which your highness will see first. [Giving a paper.

The. [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 singer in their rage. That is an old device; and it was play'd When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of learning, late deceas'd 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 wonderous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
Philost. 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;

4 Steevens thought, that by abridgment was meant a dramatic performance which crowds the events of years into a few hours. Surely the context seems to require a different explanation; an abridgment appears to mean some pastime to shorten the tedious evening.

5 Short account.

This may be an allusion to Spenser's poem: "The Tears of the Muses on the Neglect and Contempt of Learning;' first printed iu 1591.

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;

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which, when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
The. What are they that do play it?

Philost. Hard-handed men, that work in Athens

here",

Which never labour'd in their minds till now;
And now have toil'd their unbreath'd memories
With this same play, against your nuptial.
The. And we will hear it.

Philost.

No, my noble lord, It is not for you: I have heard it over,

And it is nothing, nothing in the world:
Unless you can find sport in their intents 9,
Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain,
To do you service.

The.
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.
[Exit PHILOSTRATE.
Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd,
And duty in his service perishing.

The. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

Hip. He says they can do nothing in this kind. The. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.

Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake: And what poor duty cannot do,

It is thought that Shakspeare alludes here to 'certain good -hearted men of Coventry, who petitioned that they mought renew their old storial shew before the Queen at Kenilworth: where the poet himself may have been present, as he was then twelve years old.

8 i. e. unexercised, unpractised.

9 Intents may be put for the object of their attention. To intend and to attend were anciently synonymous.

Noble respect takes it in might, not merit 10.
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 midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis'd 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 pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty sa
I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of sawcy and audacious eloquence.

Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity,
In least speak most, to my capacity.

30

Enter PHILOSTRATE.

Philost. So please your grace, the prologue is addrest 11.

The. Let him approach. [Flourish of trumpets 12.

Enter Prologues Formuli

Prol. If we offend, it is with our good will. should think we come not to offend, But our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. Consider then, we come but in despite.

That youd-will. To shew

We do not come as minding to content you, Our true intent is. All for your delight,

We are not here. That you should here repent

you,

The actors are at hand; and, by their show,
You shall know all, that you are like to know.
The. This fellow doth not stand upon points,

10 The sense of this passage appears to be :-'What dutifulness tries to perform without ability, regardful generosity receives with complacency; estimating it, not by the actual merit, but according to the power or might of the humble but zealous performers.

11 Ready.

12 Anciently the prologue entered after the third sounding of the trumpets, or, as we should now say, after the third music.