PYRAMUS.
I see a voice; now will I to the chink,
To spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face.
Thisbe?
THISBE.
My love thou art, my love I think.
PYRAMUS.
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace;
And like Limander am I trusty still.
THISBE.
And I like Helen, till the fates me kill.
PYRAMUS.
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
THISBE.
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
PYRAMUS.
O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
THISBE.
I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
PYRAMUS.
Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
THISBE.
’Tide life, ’tide death, I come without delay.
WALL.
Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
[_Exeunt Wall, Pyramus and Thisbe._]
THESEUS.
Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
DEMETRIUS.
No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning.
HIPPOLYTA.
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THESEUS.
The best in this kind are but shadows; 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.
LION.
You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
A lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam;
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.
DEMETRIUS.
The very best at a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.
LYSANDER.
This lion is a very fox for his valour.
THESEUS.
True; and a goose for his discretion.
DEMETRIUS.
Not so, my lord, for his valour cannot carry his discretion, and the
fox carries the goose.
THESEUS.
His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for the goose
carries not the fox. It is well; leave it to his discretion, and let us
listen to the moon.
MOONSHINE.
This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present.
DEMETRIUS.
He should have worn the horns on his head.
THESEUS.
He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the
circumference.
MOONSHINE.
This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present;
Myself the man i’ the moon do seem to be.
THESEUS.
This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into
the lantern. How is it else the man i’ the moon?
DEMETRIUS.
He dares not come there for the candle, for you see, it is already in
snuff.
HIPPOLYTA.
I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!
THESEUS.
It appears by his small light of discretion that he is in the wane; but
yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time.
LYSANDER.
Proceed, Moon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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