THESEUS
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.—
Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love
Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER
More than to us
Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THESEUS
Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bedtime?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE
Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS
Say, what abridgment 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.
[Giving a paper]
THESEUS
[Reads]
‘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.’
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 deceas’d in beggary.’
That is some satire, keen and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; 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 rehears’d, 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 unbreath’d 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.
[Exit PHILOSTRATE.]
HIPPOLYTA
I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged,
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.
Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:
And what poor duty cannot do,
Noble respect takes it in might, not merit.
Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis’d accent in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence yet I pick’d a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most to my capacity.
[Enter PHILOSTRATE.]
PHILOSTRATE
So please your grace, the prologue is address’d.
THESEUS
Let him approach.
[Flourish of trumpets. Enter PROLOGUE.]
PROLOGUE
‘If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then, we come but in despite.
We do not come, as minding to content you,
Our true intent is. All for your delight
We are not here. That you should here repent you,
The actors are at hand: and, by their show,
You shall know all that you are like to know,’
THESEUS
This fellow doth not stand upon points.
LYSANDER
He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true.
HIPPOLYTA
Indeed he hath played on this prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.