A Midsummer Night's Dream

impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?

Enter, with a trumpet[er] before them, Pyramus [Bottom] and Thisbe [Flute], Wall [Snout], Moonshine [Starveling], and Lion [Snug]

PROLOGUE [QUINCE] Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show, But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.

This man is Pyramus, if you would know;

This beauteous lady Thisbe is certain.

This man with lime and rough-cast doth present

Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder135.

And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content

To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.

This man, with lantern, dog, and bush of thorn,

Presenteth Moonshine. For, if you will know,

By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn140

To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.

This grisly beast, which Lion hight142 by name, The trusty Thisbe, coming first by night,

Did scare away, or rather did affright.

And as she fled, her mantle she did fall145, Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall147, And finds his trusty Thisbe's mantle slain;

Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,

He bravely broached150 his boiling bloody breast.

And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade,

His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,

Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain153

At large discourse, while here they do remain.

Exeunt all but Wall

THESEUS I wonder if the lion be to speak.

DEMETRIUS No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.

WALL [SNOUT] In this same interlude158 it doth befall That I, one Snout by name, present a wall.

And such a wall, as I would have you think,

That had in it a crannied hole or chink,

Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,