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.
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
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.
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.
Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.
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.
Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, 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.
You can never bring in a wall. What say you, 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.
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.
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.
Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet, ----.
---- Odours savours sweet: 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_).