READ STUDY GUIDE: Act IV, scene ii |
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Act IV, Scene ii
| [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 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. |
| 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 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 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? |
| 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 not true Athenian. I will tell you |
| everything, right as it fell out. |
| QUINCE |
| Let us hear, sweet Bottom. |
| 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 over his part; for the short and the long |
| is, our play is preferred. In any 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 garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and |
| I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more |
| words: away! go; away! |
| [Exeunt.] |
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