SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS.
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants
HIPPOLYTA
'Tis strange my Theseus, that these
HIPPOLYTA
lovers speak of.
THESEUS
More strange than true: I never may believe
THESEUS
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
THESEUS
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
THESEUS
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
THESEUS
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
THESEUS
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
THESEUS
Are of imagination all compact:
THESEUS
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
THESEUS
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
THESEUS
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
THESEUS
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
THESEUS
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
THESEUS
And as imagination bodies forth
THESEUS
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
THESEUS
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
THESEUS
A local habitation and a name.
THESEUS
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
THESEUS
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
THESEUS
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
THESEUS
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
THESEUS
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
HIPPOLYTA
But all the story of the night told over,
HIPPOLYTA
And all their minds transfigured so together,
HIPPOLYTA
More witnesseth than fancy's images
HIPPOLYTA
And grows to something of great constancy;
HIPPOLYTA
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
THESEUS
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA
THESEUS
Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love
THESEUS
Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER
Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THESEUS
Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
THESEUS
To wear away this long age of three hours
THESEUS
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
THESEUS
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
THESEUS
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
THESEUS
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
THESEUS
Call Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE
Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS
Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
THESEUS
What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
THESEUS
The lazy time, if not with some delight?
PHILOSTRATE
There is a brief how many sports are ripe:
PHILOSTRATE
Make choice of which your highness will see first.
THESEUS
'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
THESEUS
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
THESEUS
We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
THESEUS
In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
THESEUS
'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
THESEUS
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
THESEUS
That is an old device; and it was play'd
THESEUS
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
THESEUS
'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
THESEUS
Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.'
THESEUS
That is some satire, keen and critical,
THESEUS
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
THESEUS
'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
THESEUS
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'
THESEUS
Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
THESEUS
That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
THESEUS
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
PHILOSTRATE
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
PHILOSTRATE
Which is as brief as I have known a play;
PHILOSTRATE
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
PHILOSTRATE
Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
PHILOSTRATE
There is not one word apt, one player fitted:
PHILOSTRATE
And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
PHILOSTRATE
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
PHILOSTRATE
Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
PHILOSTRATE
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
PHILOSTRATE
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
THESEUS
What are they that do play it?
PHILOSTRATE
Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
PHILOSTRATE
Which never labour'd in their minds till now,
PHILOSTRATE
And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories
PHILOSTRATE
With this same play, against your nuptial.
THESEUS
And we will hear it.
PHILOSTRATE
No, my noble lord;
PHILOSTRATE
It is not for you: I have heard it over,
PHILOSTRATE
And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
PHILOSTRATE
Unless you can find sport in their intents,
PHILOSTRATE
Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
PHILOSTRATE
To do you service.
THESEUS
I will hear that play;
THESEUS
For never anything can be amiss,
THESEUS
When simpleness and duty tender it.
THESEUS
Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
HIPPOLYTA
I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged
HIPPOLYTA
And duty in his service perishing.
THESEUS
Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
HIPPOLYTA
He says they can do nothing in this kind.
THESEUS
The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
THESEUS
Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:
THESEUS
And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
THESEUS
Takes it in might, not merit.
THESEUS
Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
THESEUS
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
THESEUS
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
THESEUS
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
THESEUS
Throttle their practised accent in their fears
THESEUS
And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,
THESEUS
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
THESEUS
Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
THESEUS
And in the modesty of fearful duty
THESEUS
I read as much as from the rattling tongue
THESEUS
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
THESEUS
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
THESEUS
In least speak most, to my capacity.
PHILOSTRATE
So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.
THESEUS
Let him approach.
Enter QUINCE for the Prologue
