A Midsummer Night's Dream

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ACT V SCENE I	Athens. The palace of THESEUS.
[ Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants ]
HIPPOLYTA	'Tis strange my Theseus, that these
	lovers speak of.
THESEUS	More strange than true: I never may believe
	These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
	Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,	5
	Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
	More than cool reason ever comprehends.
	The lunatic, the lover and the poet
	Are of imagination all compact:
	One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,	10
	That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
	Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
	The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
	Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
	And as imagination bodies forth	15
	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,	20
	It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
	Or in the night, imagining some fear,
	How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
HIPPOLYTA	But all the story of the night told over,
	And all their minds transfigured so together,	25
	More witnesseth than fancy's images
	And grows to something of great constancy;
	But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
THESEUS	Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
[Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA]
	Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love	30
	Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER	More than to us
	Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THESEUS	Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
	To wear away this long age of three hours	35
	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.	40
PHILOSTRATE	Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS	Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
	What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
	The lazy time, if not with some delight?
PHILOSTRATE	There is a brief how many sports are ripe:	45
	Make choice of which your highness will see first.
[Giving a paper]
THESEUS	[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.	50
[Reads]
	'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.
[Reads]
	'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death	55
	Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.'
	That is some satire, keen and critical,
	Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
[Reads]
	'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
	And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'	60
	Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
	That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
	How shall we find the concord of this discord?
PHILOSTRATE	A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
	Which is as brief as I have known a play;	65
	But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
	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.	70
	Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
	Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
	The passion of loud laughter never shed.
THESEUS	What are they that do play it?
PHILOSTRATE	Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,	75
	Which never labour'd in their minds till now,
	And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories
	With this same play, against your nuptial.
THESEUS	And we will hear it.
PHILOSTRATE	No, my noble lord;	80
	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,
	Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
	To do you service.	85
THESEUS	I will hear that play;
	For never anything can be amiss,
	When simpleness and duty tender it.
	Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
[Exit PHILOSTRATE]
HIPPOLYTA	I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged	90
	And duty in his service perishing.
THESEUS	Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
HIPPOLYTA	He says they can do nothing in this kind.
THESEUS	The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
	Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:	95
	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,	100
	Make periods in the midst 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 pick'd a welcome;	105
	And in the modesty of fearful duty
	I read as much as from the rattling tongue
	Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
	Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
	In least speak most, to my capacity.	110
[Re-enter PHILOSTRATE]
PHILOSTRATE	So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.
THESEUS	Let him approach.
[Flourish of trumpets]
[Enter QUINCE for the Prologue]
Prologue	If we offend, it is with our good will.
	That you should think, we come not to offend,
	But with good will. To show our simple skill,	115
	That is the true beginning of our end.
	Consider then we come but in despite.
	We do not come as minding to contest you,
	Our true intent is. All for your delight
	We are not here. That you should here repent you,	120
	The actors are at hand and by their show
	You shall know all that you are like to know.
THESEUS	This fellow doth not stand upon points.
LYSANDER	He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows
	not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not	125
	enough to speak, but to speak true.
HIPPOLYTA	Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child
	on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.
THESEUS	His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing
	impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?	130
[Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion]
Prologue	Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
	But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
	This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
	This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.
	This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present	135
	Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;
	And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content
	To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
	This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
	Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,	140
	By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
	To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
	This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
	The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
	Did scare away, or rather did affright;	145
	And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
	Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
	Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
	And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain:
	Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,	150
	He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;
	And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
	His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
	Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
	At large discourse, while here they do remain.	155
[Exeunt Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine]
THESEUS	I wonder if the lion be to speak.
DEMETRIUS	No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.
Wall	In this same interlude it doth befall
	That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
	And such a wall, as I would have you think,	160
	That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
	Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
	Did whisper often very secretly.
	This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show
	That I am that same wall; the truth is so:	165
	And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
	Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
THESEUS	Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
DEMETRIUS	It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard
	discourse, my lord.	170
[Enter Pyramus]
THESEUS	Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!
Pyramus	O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!
	O night, which ever art when day is not!
	O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,
	I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!	175
	And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
	That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!
	Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
	Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
[Wall holds up his fingers]
	Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!	180
	But what see I? No Thisby do I see.
	O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!
	Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
THESEUS	The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
Pyramus	No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'	185
	is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to
	spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will
	fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
[Enter Thisbe]
Thisbe	O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
	For parting my fair Pyramus and me!	190
	My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,
	Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
Pyramus	I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
	To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!
Thisbe	My love thou art, my love I think.	195
Pyramus	Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;
	And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
Thisbe	And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
Pyramus	Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
Thisbe	As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.	200
Pyramus	O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
Thisbe	I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
Pyramus	Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
Thisbe	'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.
[Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe]
Wall	Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;	205
	And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
[Exit]
THESEUS	Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
DEMETRIUS	No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear
	without warning.
HIPPOLYTA	This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.	210
THESEUS	The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst
	are no worse, if imagination amend them.
HIPPOLYTA	It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
THESEUS	If we imagine no worse of them than they of
	themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here	215
	come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
[Enter Lion and Moonshine]
Lion	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.	220
	Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
	A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;
	For, if I should as lion come in strife
	Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.
THESEUS	A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.	225
DEMETRIUS	The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.
LYSANDER	This lion is a very fox for his valour.
THESEUS	True; and a goose for his discretion.
DEMETRIUS	Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his
	discretion; and the fox carries the goose.	230
THESEUS	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.
Moonshine	This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;--
DEMETRIUS	He should have worn the horns on his head.	235
THESEUS	He is no crescent, and his horns are
	invisible within the circumference.
Moonshine	This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
	Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.
THESEUS	This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man	240
	should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the
	man i' the moon?
DEMETRIUS	He dares not come there for the candle; for, you
	see, it is already in snuff.
HIPPOLYTA	I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!	245
THESEUS	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.
LYSANDER	Proceed, Moon.
Moonshine	All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the	250
	lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the 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 Thisbe]
Thisbe	This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?	255
Lion	[Roaring] Oh--
[Thisbe runs off]
DEMETRIUS	Well roared, Lion.
THESEUS	Well run, Thisbe.
HIPPOLYTA	Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a
	good grace.	260
[The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit]
THESEUS	Well moused, Lion.
LYSANDER	And so the lion vanished.
DEMETRIUS	And then came Pyramus.
[Enter Pyramus]
Pyramus	Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
	I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;	265
	For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
	I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
	But stay, O spite!
	But mark, poor knight,
	What dreadful dole is here!	270
	Eyes, do you see?
	How can it be?
	O dainty duck! O dear!
	Thy mantle good,
	What, stain'd with blood!	275
	Approach, ye Furies fell!
	O Fates, come, come,
	Cut thread and thrum;
	Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
THESEUS	This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would	280
	go near to make a man look sad.
HIPPOLYTA	Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
Pyramus	O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
	Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
	Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame	285
	That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd
	with cheer.
	Come, tears, confound;
	Out, sword, and wound
	The pap of Pyramus;	290
	Ay, that left pap,
	Where heart doth hop:
[Stabs himself]
	Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
	Now am I dead,
	Now am I fled;	295
	My soul is in the sky:
	Tongue, lose thy light;
	Moon take thy flight:
[Exit Moonshine]
	Now die, die, die, die, die.
[Dies]
DEMETRIUS	No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.	300
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
	prove an ass.
HIPPOLYTA	How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes
	back and finds her lover?	305
THESEUS	She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and
	her passion ends the play.
[Re-enter Thisbe]
HIPPOLYTA	Methinks she should not use a long one for such a
	Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.
DEMETRIUS	A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which	310
	Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us;
	she for a woman, God bless us.
LYSANDER	She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
DEMETRIUS	And thus she means, videlicet:--
Thisbe	Asleep, my love?	315
	What, dead, my dove?
	O Pyramus, arise!
	Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
	Dead, dead? A tomb
	Must cover thy sweet eyes.	320
	These My lips,
	This cherry nose,
	These yellow cowslip cheeks,
	Are gone, are gone:
	Lovers, make moan:	325
	His eyes were green as leeks.
	O Sisters Three,
	Come, come to me,
	With hands as pale as milk;
	Lay them in gore,	330
	Since you have shore
	With shears his thread of silk.
	Tongue, not a word:
	Come, trusty sword;
	Come, blade, my breast imbrue:	335
[Stabs herself]
	And, farewell, friends;
	Thus Thisby ends:
	Adieu, adieu, adieu.
[Dies]
THESEUS	Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
DEMETRIUS	Ay, and Wall too.	340
BOTTOM	[Starting up] No assure you; the wall is down that
	parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the
	epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two
	of our company?
THESEUS	No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no	345
	excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all
	dead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he
	that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself
	in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine
	tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably	350
	discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your
	epilogue alone.
[A dance]
	The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:
	Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
	I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn	355
	As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
	This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled
	The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
	A fortnight hold we this solemnity,
	In nightly revels and new jollity.	360
[Exeunt]
[Enter PUCK]
PUCK	Now the hungry lion roars,
	And the wolf behowls the moon;
	Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
	All with weary task fordone.
	Now the wasted brands do glow,	365
	Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
	Puts the wretch that lies in woe
	In remembrance of a shroud.
	Now it is the time of night
	That the graves all gaping wide,	370
	Every one lets forth his sprite,
	In the church-way paths to glide:
	And we fairies, that do run
	By the triple Hecate's team,
	From the presence of the sun,	375
	Following darkness like a dream,
	Now are frolic: not a mouse
	Shall disturb this hallow'd house:
	I am sent with broom before,
	To sweep the dust behind the door.	380
[Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train]
OBERON	Through the house give gathering light,
	By the dead and drowsy fire:
	Every elf and fairy sprite
	Hop as light as bird from brier;
	And this ditty, after me,	385
	Sing, and dance it trippingly.
TITANIA	First, rehearse your song by rote
	To each word a warbling note:
	Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
	Will we sing, and bless this place.	390
[Song and dance]
OBERON	Now, until the break of day,
	Through this house each fairy stray.
	To the best bride-bed will we,
	Which by us shall blessed be;
	And the issue there create	395
	Ever shall be fortunate.
	So shall all the couples three
	Ever true in loving be;
	And the blots of Nature's hand
	Shall not in their issue stand;	400
	Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
	Nor mark prodigious, such as are
	Despised in nativity,
	Shall upon their children be.
	With this field-dew consecrate,	405
	Every fairy take his gait;
	And each several chamber bless,
	Through this palace, with sweet peace;
	And the owner of it blest
	Ever shall in safety rest.	410
	Trip away; make no stay;
	Meet me all by break of day.
[Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train]
PUCK	If we shadows have offended,
	Think but this, and all is mended,
	That you have but slumber'd here	415
	While these visions did appear.
	And this weak and idle theme,
	No more yielding but a dream,
	Gentles, do not reprehend:
	if you pardon, we will mend:	420
	And, as I am an honest Puck,
	If we have unearned luck
	Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
	We will make amends ere long;
	Else the Puck a liar call;	425
	So, good night unto you all.
	Give me your hands, if we be friends,
	And Robin shall restore amends.

Return to: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Scenes

_________

Explanatory Notes for Act 5, Scene 1

From A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. K. Deighton. London: Macmillan & Co.

1. that, for the omission of the relative where the antecedent clause is emphatic, see Abb. § 244.

2. may, can; the original sense of 'may'; see Abb. § 307, 310.

3. antique, literally ancient, and so grotesque: toys, absurdities.

4. seething, boiling; cp. W. T, iii. 3. 64, "Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather?"

5. Such shaping fantasies, fancies capable of giving form and shape to things that have no existence: apprehend, seize hold of; perceive the existence of.

6. comprehends, takes hold of and assimilates to itself. The hasty clutching at an idea by fancy is contrasted with the deliberate manner in which reason examines an idea before accepting and making it a part of herself.

8. compact, made up of; put together with; cp. V. A. 149, "Love is a spirit all compact of fire ; A. Y, L. ii. 7. 5, "If he, compact of jars, grow musical."

10. all, wholly.

11. In a brow of Egypt, in the face of a gipsy..

12. in a fine frenzy rolling, rolling in the ecstasy of inspiration; cp. K. J. iv. 2. 192, "With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes"; and for the transitive use, Lucr, 368, "Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head."

14. bodies forth, presents as something concrete.

18. tricks, feats of conjuring.

19, 20. That, if ... that joy, that if its intention is merely to conceive some joy, it necessarily conceives also, etc. In the language of logicians, the idea denoting some joy is connoted by the idea of some cause of that joy.

21. imaginging, if one imagines; by a person imagining; for the participle without a noun subject, see Abb. § 378: fear, object of fear; cp. H. IV. IV. i. 3. 87, "Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears, When they have lost and forfeited themselves?"

22. easy, easily.

23-7. But all ... admirable, but the narration in all its particulars of what happened to them in the night, with the fact of their minds being all at one time affected by a similar transformation, gives proof of something more than fanciful imagination, and taken together has the appearance of real consistency; but this in any case, be that as it may (i.e. consistent or not), is worthy of wonder; witnesseth, the singular as though we had 'with' instead of and; constancy, cp. the adjective in T. N. iv. 2. 53, "I am no more mad than you are: make trial of it in any constant question"; for howsoever, cp. T. C. iii. 3. 297, "howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me"; Cymb, iv. 2. 146, "howsoever, My brother hath done well."

29. Joy, i.e. be to you: fresh days of love, days in which love will have lost none of its first freshness.

30. More, sc. joy.

31. Wait ... bed, be with you ever and everywhere.

33. this long ... hours, the three hours that will otherwise seem an age.

34. after-supper, the rear supper, as it was also called, refreshments taken after supper and answering to the dessert after dinner; cp. R. III. iv. 3. 31, "Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper."

35. our manager of mirth, the master of our revels, provider of entertainments.

36. in hand, preparing.

39. abridgement, amusement to make the time pass quickly; in Haml. ii. 2. 439, "my abridgement" means he who by his appearance cuts short my speech.

41. The lazy time, the time which passes so slowly when unoccupied.

42. brief, short statement; cp. A. C. v. 2. 138, "This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels I am possessed of:" ripe, sc. for performance, ready.

43. of, redundant; see Abb. § 179.

44. Centaurs, ie. the Bull-killers, an ancient mythological race, inhabiting Mt. Pelion in Theasaly. They are particularly celebrated in ancient story for their fight with the Lapithae, which arose at the marriage-feast of Pirithous. This fight is sometimes placed in connection with a combat of Hercules with the Centaurs.

45. to the harp, with the music of the harp as an accompaniment.

47. my kinsman, according to Plutarch, "they were near kinsmen, being cousins removed by the mother's side" (Shakespeare's Plutarch, ed. Skeat, p. 178).

48. Bacchanals, the frenzied devotees of the god Dionysus (Bacchus, in Roman mythology), who in their orgies tore to pieces the poet Orpheus for the contempt he had shown them by secluding himself from all female society after the loss of his wife, Eurydice.

51. from Thebes, where, aiding Adrastus in recovering the dead bodies of those slain in the war of the "Seven against Thebes," he captured the city.

52, 3. The thrice... beggary. By Warton and others this is supposed to allude to Spenser's poem The Tears of the Muses, which, however, could only be called a satire in the sense that the decay of poetry was in it held up to scorn. Knight thinks that the allusion is to a satire of Harvey's upon Robert Greene, lately dead, who as a Master of Arts in both Universities might have been ironically personified as Learning.

55. sorting, agreeing with, being appropriate to.

56. tedious brief, not necessarily a contradiction of terms, as Philostrate afterwards explains, though here so taken by Theseus.

59. wondrous strange, if the true reading, will mean as strange in nature as hot ice; for wondrous, as a trisyllable, see Abb. § 477. Various conjectures have been made in place of strange, e.g. 'scorching,' 'seething,' 'swarthy,' 'staining,' etc.

60. How shall ... discord? how can things so completely opposed to each other go harmoniously together?

61. some, about; see Abb. § 21.

65. fitted, given a part suitable to his capacity.

68. Which ... rehearsed, and this when I saw it rehearsed.

70. passion, strong feeling; see note on iii. 2. 74.

71. What, of what kind; less definite than 'who.'

72. Hard-handed, whose hands have been hardened by toil; cp. J. C. iv. 4. 74, "to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash"; Tennyson, Princess, ii. 143, " horn-handed breakers of the glebe."

74,5. And now ... nuptial, and now have exercised their hitherto unpractised memories in studying this play I have mentioned in preparation for your wedding feast; for toil'd, transitive, cp. Haml. i. 1. 72, "Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of the land"; in unbreathed the figure is from exercising horses and so getting them into good wind; cp. A. Y. L. i. 2. 230, "Yes, I beseech your grace: I am not yet well breathed"; T. S. Ind. ii. 50, "as swift As breathed stags"; for against your nuptial, see note on i. 1. 125.

77. not for you, not fitted for one of your greatness.

79, 80. Unless ... pain, unless the fact that they have desired to please you, and with that desire have laboured to the utmost in getting up their parts, will afford you amusement in spite of their shortcomings; properly speaking, it is not the intents that are Extremely stretch'd, but their labour due to those Intents; oonn'd, see note on i. 2. 102.

83. When simpleness ... it, when offered out of simple-minded loyalty; Steevens compares Ben Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, "Nothing which duty and desire to please Bears written on the forehead, comes amiss."

85, 6. I love not ... perishing, it is no pleasant sight to me to see poor wretches labouring under a task too heavy for them, and those who from a feeling of duty offer their services failing in their attempt to acquit themselves well; Hippolyta is unwilling that the poor rustics should be allowed to play before her and break down in the attempt; his, its; for perishing, in this sense, cp. M. M. v. 1. 458, "an intent That perish'd by the way."

88. kind, way, i.e. of acting.

89. The kinder ... nothing, if so, answers Theseus playing upon the word kind, our gracious thanks will be all the more gracious as being given for what does not in itself deserve them.

90. Our sport ... mistake, our amusement shall consist in accepting, as something worthily offered, their shortcomings, whatever they may be.

91, 2. And what ... merit, and in a case where poor creatures, anxious to show their duty, fail in their efforts, a generous mind accepts those efforts, taking into consideration their capacity as performers rather than the merit of their performance. Seymour would insert 'aright,' Coleridge, 'yet would' after do, putting noble respect into the latter of the two lines.

93. great clerks, deeply learned men; "learning," as Wright points out, "having been at one time almost confined to the clergy." He compares Per. v. Prol. 5, "Deep clerks she dumbs," i.e. "she puts to silence profound scholars."

95. Where, and in such cases.

96. Make periods, come to a stand-still.

97. Throttle ... fears, in their nervous excitement choke the utterance of those sentences which they had spent so much pains in committing to memory.

98, 9. And in conclusion ... welcome, and have ended in breaking off short in their address without giving me the welcome they had intended. For the ellipsis of the nominative, see Abb. § 399.

100. Out of... welcome, yet from this very silence of theirs I gathered a welcome; cp. M. V. ii. 9. 48, "how much honour Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times."

101-3. And In ... eloquence, and in the nervous bashfulness which these loyal creatures have betrayed, I have discovered as much real welcome as in the glib, fluent speech of those who were hindered by no scruples of diffidence.

104, 5. Love, therefore ... capacity, to my judgment, therefore, love and hesitating simplicity are most eloquent, though they can find but few words to express their feelings; Love and simplicity, loving and simple-minded creatures, the abstract for the concrete; for capacity, cp. T. N. ii. 5. 128, "this is evident to any formal capacity."

106. So please your grace, if your grace is willing to hear it; address'd, prepared, ready; see note on ii. 2. 143.

Stage Direction. Flourish of trumpets, Steevens shows that the Prologue was anciently ushered in by trumpets.

108-17. If we ... know. In Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, iii. 4. 34-68, there is a metrical epistle in which the stops are as carefully misplaced as in Quince's Prologue. The lines should be stopped as follows : —

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

How to cite the explanatory notes:

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. K. Deighton. London: Macmillan, 1891. Shakespeare Online. 15 Aug. 2011. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/mids_5_1.html >.

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