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      Flu. Nay, faith; let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.

      Quin. That’s all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

      Bot. And I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too. I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice, “Thisne! Thisne! Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!”

      Quin. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.

      Bot. Well, proceed.

      Quin. Robin Starveling the tailor.

      Star. Here, Peter Quince.

      Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby’s mother. Tom Snout the tinker.

      Snout. Here, Peter Quince.

      Quin. You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisby’s father; Snug the joiner, you the lion’s part. And I hope here is a play fitted.

      Snug. Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

      Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

      Bot. Let me play the lion too. I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar, that I will make the Duke say, “Let him roar again; let him roar again.”

      Quin. And you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies, that they would shrike; and that were enough to hang us all.

      All. That would hang us, every mother’s son.

      Bot. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you and ’twere any nightingale.

      Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-fac’d man; a proper man as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely gentleman-like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

      Bot. Well; I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

      Quin. Why, what you will.

      Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-color beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in- grain beard, or your French-crown-color beard, your perfit yellow.

      Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all; and then you will play barefac’d. But, masters, here are your parts, and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by tomorrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogg’d with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not.

      Bot. We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains, be perfit; adieu.

      Quin. At the Duke’s oak we meet.

      Bot. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.

       Exeunt.

       ¶

      ACT II

      [Scene I]

       Enter a Fairy at one door and Robin Goodfellow [Puck] at another.

       Puck.

      How now, spirit, whither wander you?

       Fairy.

      Over hill, over dale,

      Thorough bush, thorough brier,

      Over park, over pale,

      Thorough flood, thorough fire,

      I do wander every where,

      Swifter than the moon’s sphere;

      And I serve the Fairy Queen,

      To dew her orbs upon the green.

      The cowslips tall her pensioners be,

      In their gold coats spots you see:

      Those be rubies, fairy favors,

      In those freckles live their savors.

      I must go seek some dewdrops here,

      And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

      Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone.

      Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.

       Puck.

      The King doth keep his revels here to-night;

      Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;

      For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,

      Because that she as her attendant hath

      A lovely boy stolen from an Indian king;

      She never had so sweet a changeling.

      And jealous Oberon would have the child

      Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;

      But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy,

      Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.

      And now they never meet in grove or green,

      By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,

      But they do square, that all their elves for fear

      Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there.

       Fairy.

      Either I mistake your shape and making quite,

      Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite

      Call’d Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he

      That frights the maidens of the villagery,

      Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern,

      And bootless make the breathless huswife churn,

      And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,

      Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?

      Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,

      You do their work, and they shall have good luck.

      Are not you he?

       Puck.

      Thou speakest aright;

      I am that merry wanderer of the night.

      I jest to Oberon and make him smile

      When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,

      Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;

      And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,

      In very likeness of a roasted crab,

      And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,

      And on her withered dewlop pour the ale.

      The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,

      Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;

      Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,

      And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;

      And then the whole quire hold their hips and loff,

      And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear

      A

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