Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (20 page)

LYSANDER

And he did bid us follow to the temple.

DEMETRIUS

Why, then, we are awake: let’s follow him

And by the way let us recount our dreams.

ACT V. Scene I (39–84).

T
he couples are wed with joy and celebration! Oberon and Titania have reconciled, and Bottom is returned to normal, although moved by the remarkable dream he had in the forest. Now that each Jack has his Jill, Theseus requests some entertainment for his lovely bride and his honored guests. Luckily Bottom and his companions are happy to oblige.

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:

Make choice of which your highness will see first.

THESEUS

“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.

“The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.”

THESEUS (cont.)

That is an old device; and it was play’d

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

“The thrice three Muses mourning for the death

Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.”

That is some satire, keen and critical,

Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

THESEUS (cont.)

“A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

And his love thisby; very tragical mirth.”

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;

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.

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,

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;

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.

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.

ACT V. Scene I (153–202).