A Midsummer Night's Dream

long is, our play is preferred33. In any case, let Thisbe have clean linen, and let not him that plays the lion pare34 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

Act 5 Scene 1

running scene 7

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and his lords

HIPPOLYTA 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that1 these lovers speak of.

THESEUS More strange than true. I never may believe These antic fables, nor these fairy toys3.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies that apprehend5

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

Are of imagination all compact8.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic10, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt11.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

And as imagination bodies forth14

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination,

That if it would but apprehend19 some joy, It comprehends20 some bringer of that joy.

Or in the night, imagining some fear,

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

HIPPOLYTA But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured24 so together, More witnesseth25 than fancy's images And grows to something of great constancy26; But howsoever, strange and admirable27.

Enter lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, Helena

THESEUS Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.