| ACT IV SCENE II | Athens. QUINCE'S house. | |
| | Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING | |
| QUINCE | Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet? | |
| STARVELING | He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is | |
| | transported. | |
| FLUTE | If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes | 5 |
| | not forward, doth it? | |
| QUINCE | It is not possible: you have not a man in all | |
| | Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he. | |
| FLUTE | No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft | |
| | man in Athens. | 10 |
| QUINCE | Yea and the best person too; and he is a very | |
| | paramour for a sweet voice. | |
| FLUTE | You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us, | |
| | a thing of naught. | |
| | Enter SNUG | |
| SNUG | Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and | 15 |
| | there is two or three lords and ladies more married: | |
| | if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made | |
| | men. | |
| FLUTE | O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a | |
| | day during his life; he could not have 'scaped | 20 |
| | sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him | |
| | sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; | |
| | he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in | |
| | Pyramus, or nothing. | |
| | Enter BOTTOM | |
| BOTTOM | Where are these lads? where are these hearts? | 25 |
| QUINCE | Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour! | |
| BOTTOM | Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not | |
| | what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I | |
| | will tell you every thing, right as it fell out. | |
| QUINCE | Let us hear, sweet Bottom. | 30 |
| BOTTOM | 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 | 35 |
| | play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have | |
| | clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion | |
| | pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the | |
| | lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions | |
| | nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I | 40 |
| | do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet | |
| | comedy. No more words: away! go, away! | |
| | Exeunt | |
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