Read Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew for Free Online Page A

hear that play;
    For never anything can be amiss,
    When simpleness and duty tender it.
    Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.

ACT V. Scene I (153–202).

SNOUT [as 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,
    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:
    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.
    THESEUS
    Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!

    BOTTOM [as 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!

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus] (cont).
    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!

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus] (cont).
    Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
    But what see I? No Thisby do I see.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus] (cont).
    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.

    BOTTOM
    No, in truth, sir, he should not. “Deceiving me” 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.

    FLUTE [as thisby]
    O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
    For parting my fair Pyramus and me!

    FLUTE [as thisby] (cont.)
    My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones,
    Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
    To spy an I can hear my Thisby’s face. Thisby!

    FLUTE [as thisby]
    My love thou art, my love I think.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace;
    And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
    FLUTE [as thisby]
    And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
    FLUTE [as thisby]
    As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!

    FLUTE [as thisby]
    I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
    FLUTE [as thisby]
    ’Tide life, ’tide death, I come without delay.

    SNOUT [as Wall ]
    Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
    And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

ACT V. Scene I (251–335).

FLUTE [as thisby]
    This is old Ninny’s tomb.

    FLUTE [as thisby] (cont.)
    Where is my love?

    SNUG [as Lion]
    Oh—

    DEMETRIUS
    Well roared, Lion.

    THESEUS
    Well run, thisby.

    HIPPOLYTA
    Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.

    THESEUS
    Well moused, Lion.

    LYSANDER
    And so the lion vanished.

    DEMETRIUS
    And then came Pyramus.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
    I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
    For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
    I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    But stay, O spite!
    But mark, poor knight,
    What dreadful dole is here!
    Eyes, do you see?
    How can it be?
    O dainty duck! O dear!
    Thy mantle good,
    What, stain’d with blood!
    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 go near to make a man look sad.

    HIPPOLYTA
    Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.

    BOTTOM [as Pyramus]
    O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
    Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear:
    Which