SCENE II
Athens. QUINCE'S house.Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.
Quin.
Have you sent to Bottom's house?
is he come home yet?
Star.
He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt
he is transported.
Flu.
If he come not, then the play is
marred: it goes not forward, doth it?
Quin.
It is not possible: you have not a
man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus
but he.
Flu.
No, he hath simply the best wit of (10)
any handicraft man in Athens.
Quin.
Yea, and the best person too; and
he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.
Flu.
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.
Flu.
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.
Bot.
Where are these lads? where are
these hearts?
Quin.
Bottom! O most courageous day!
O most happy hour!
Bot.
Masters, I am to discourse wonders:
but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am
no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing,
right as it fell out.
Quin.
Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
Bot.
Not a word of me. All 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 o'er his part;
for the short and the long is, our play is pre-
ferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean
linen; and let not him that plays the lion pair
his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's
claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions
nor garlic, 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.
