A Midsummer Night's Dream

My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones,

Thy stones with lime and hair194 knit up in thee.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM] I see a voice; now will I to the chink, To spy an196 I can hear my Thisbe's face. Thisbe?

THISBE [FLUTE] My love thou art, my love197 I think.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM] Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace198

And like Limander199 am I trusty still.

THISBE [FLUTE] And I like Helen200, till the Fates me kill.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM] Not Shafalus to Procrus201 was so true.

THISBE [FLUTE] As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM] O, kiss me through the hole204 of this vile wall!

THISBE [FLUTE] I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM] Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?

THISBE [FLUTE] 'Tide206 life, 'tide death, I come without delay.

[Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe]

WALL [SNOUT] Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so; And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

Exit

THESEUS Now is the mural209 down between the two neighbours.

DEMETRIUS No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful211 to hear without warning.

HIPPOLYTA This is the silliest stuff that e'er I heard.

THESEUS The best in this kind are but shadows214, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.

HIPPOLYTA It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.

THESEUS If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two

noble beasts in, a man and a lion.

Enter Lion and Moonshine [with a lantern, thorn-bush and dog]

LION [SNUG] You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear The smallest monstrous222 mouse that creeps on floor, May now perchance both quake and tremble here,

When lion rough224 in wildest rage doth roar.

Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am

A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam226, For if I should as lion come in strife

Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.

THESEUS A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.