Act 4 — 000 Scene II. Athens. Quince’s house.

000 Scene II. Athens. Quince’s house.

MSND IV. 2 Enter Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling.

001 Quin. Have you sent to Bottom’s house? is he come home yet?

003 Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.

005 Flu. If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes not forward, doth it?

Quin. It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.

Flu. No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft 010 man in Athens.

011 Quin. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

013 Flu. You must say ‘paragon’: a paramour is, God 014 bless us, a thing of naught.

Enter Snug.

015 Snug. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

Flu. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence 019 a day during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence 020 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.

Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts?

Quin. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most 025 happy hour!

Bot. Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me 027 not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will 028 tell you every thing, right as it fell out.

Quin. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.

030 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 034 the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any 035 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 038 garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more 040 words: away! go, away! [Exeunt.