Shakespeare and the Stage / With a Complete List of Theatrical Terms Used by Shakespeare in His Plays and Poems, Arranged in Alphabetical Order, & Explanatory Notes

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

QUINCE.

Is all our company here?

BOTTOM.

You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

QUIN.

Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.

BOT.

First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.

QUIN.

Marry, our play is, the most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

BOT.

A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.

QUIN.

Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

BOT.

Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.

QUIN.

You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.

BOT.

What is Pyramus? a lover or a tyrant?

QUIN.

A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.

BOT.

That will ask some tears in the true performing of it; if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a tyrant; I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

The raging rocks

And shivering shocks

Shall break the locks

Of prison-gates;

And Phibbus’ car

Shall shine from far,

And make and mar

The foolish Fates.

This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein; a lover is more condoling.

QUIN.

Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

FLU.

Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN.

Flute, you must take Thisby on you.

FLU.

What is Thisby?—a wandering knight?

QUIN.

It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

FLU.

Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

QUIN.

That’s all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.

BOT.

And I may hide my face. Let me play Thisby, too; I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: “Thisne, Thisne”; “Ah, Pyramus, my lover, dear! thy Thisby, dear, and lady dear!”

QUIN.

No, no; you must play Pyramus; and, Flute you Thisby.

BOT.

Well, proceed.

QUIN.

Robin Starveling, the tailor.

STAR.

Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN.

You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisby’s father; Snug, the joiner; you, the lion’s part; and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

SNUG.

Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

QUIN.

You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

BOT.

Let me play the lion, too: I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the Duke say: “Let him roar again, let him roar again.”

QUIN.

And you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

ALL.

That would hang us, every mother’s son.

BOT.

I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an’ ’twere any nightingale.

QUIN.

You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

BOT.

Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

QUIN.

Why, what you will.

BOT.

I will discharge it in either your straw colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French crown colour beard, your perfect yellow.

QUIN.

Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. But, masters, here are your parts; and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there we will rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.

BOT.

We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect. Adieu.

QUIN.

At the duke’s oak we meet.

BOT.

Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.

Act I. Scene II.

BOT.

Are we all met?

QUIN.

Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke.

BOT.

Peter Quince——.

QUIN.

What sayest thou, Bully Bottom?

BOT.

There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

SNOUT.

By’r lakin, a parlous fear.

STAR.

I believe we must leave the killing out when all is done.

BOT.

Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom, the weaver: this will put them out of fear.

QUIN.

Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.

BOT.

No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

SNOUT.

Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

STAR.

I fear it, I promise you.

BOT.

Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in—God shield us!—a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to’t.

SNOUT.

Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

BOT.

Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect: “Ladies,”—or, “Fair ladies—I would wish you”—or, “I would request you,”—or, “I would entreat you—not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are”; and there indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly, he is Snug, the joiner.

QUIN.

Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber, for, you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.

SNOUT.

Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?

BOT.

A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.

QUIN.

Yes, it doth shine that night.

BOT.

Why, then, may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.

QUIN.

Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.

SNOUT.

You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?

BOT.

Some man or other must present wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

QUIN.

If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake, and so every one according to his cue.

(Enter Puck, behind.)

PUCK.

What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,

So near the cradle of the fairy queen?

What, a play toward! I’ll be an auditor;

An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.

QUIN.

Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.

BOT.

Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet, ——.

QUIN.

Odours, odours.

BOT.

—— Odours savours sweet:

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby, dear.

But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,

And by and by I will to thee appear. (Exit).

PUCK.

A stranger Pyramus than e’er play’d here.

FLU.

Must I speak now?

QUIN.

Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

FLU.

Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,

Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,

Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,

As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire,

I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.

QUIN.

“Ninus’ tomb,” man; why, you must not speak that yet; that you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues and all. Pyramus enter: your due is past; it is, “never tire.”

FLU.

O,—As true as truest horse, that would never tire.

(Re-enter Puck and Bottom, with an ass’s head.)

BOT.

If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.

QUIN.

O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted.

Pray, masters! fly, masters! Help!

Act III, Sc. I, lines 1–107.

THESEUS.

Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have

To wear away this long age of three hours

Between our after-supper and bed-time?

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.

PHIL.

Here, mighty Thesus.

THE.

Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?

What masque? what music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time, if not with some delight?

PHIL.

There is a brief how many sports are ripe:

Make choice of which your highness will see first.

THE.

(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.

(Reads) The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.

That is an old decide; and it was play’d

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

(Reads) The thrice three Muses mourning for the death

Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.

That is some satire, keen and critical,

Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

(Reads) 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?

PHIL.

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 play fitted:

And tragical, my noble lord, it is;

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.

Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,

Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears

The passion of loud laughter never shed.

THE.

What are they that do play it?

PHIL.

Hard-handed men, that work in Athens here,

Which never labour’d in their minds till now;

And now have toil’d their unbreathed memories

With this same play, against your nuptial.

THE.

And we will hear it.

PHIL.

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.

THE.

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.

HIP.

I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged,

And duty in his service perishing.

THE.

Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

HIP.

He says they can do nothing in this kind.

THE.

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 in it 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 practised accent in their fears,

And, in conclusion, dumbly have broken off,

Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,

Out of this silence yet I picked 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.

(Re-enter Philostrate.)

PHIL.

So please, your Grace, the Prologue is address’d.

(Flourish of trumpets.)

(Enter Quince for the Prologue.)

PRO.

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.

THE.

This fellow doth not stand upon points.

LYS.

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.

HIP.

Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.

THE.

His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?

(Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine and Lion.)

PRO.

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, Thisby, is certain.

This man, with line and rough-cast, doth present

Wall, that vile Wall, which did these lovers sunder;

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

To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.

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

Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,

By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn.

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

This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,

The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,

Did scare away, or rather did affright;

And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,

Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,

And finds his trusty Thisby’s mantle slain:

Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,

He bravely broach’d his boiling bloody breast;

And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,

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

Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain

At large discourse, while here they do remain.

(Exeunt Prologue, Pyramus, Thisbe, Lion and Moonshine.)

THE.

I wonder if the lion be to speak.

DEM.

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

WALL.

In this same interlude 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 Thisby,

Did whisper often very secretly.

This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show

That I am that same wall; the truth is so:

And this the cranny is, right and sinister,

Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.

THE.

Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?

DEM.

It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.

THE.

Pyramus draws near the wall; silence!

(Re-enter Pyramus).

PYR.

O grim-look’d night! O night with hue so black!

O night, which ever art when day is not!

O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,

I fear my Thisby’s promise is forgot!

And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,

That stand’st between her father’s ground and mine!

Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,

Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!

(Wall holds up his fingers.)

Thanks, courteous wall; Jove shield thee well for this!

But what see I? No Thisby do I see.

O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!

Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!

THE.

The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.

PYR.

No, in truth, sir, he should not. “Deceiving me,” is Thisby’s cue; she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.

(Re-enter Thisbe.)

THIS.

O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,

For parting my fair Pyramus and me!

My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones,

Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.

PYR.

I see a voice: now will I to the chink,

To spy an’ I can hear my Thisby’s face.

Thisby!

THIS.

My love thou art, my love I think.

PYR.

Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grave;

And, like Limander, am I trusty still.

THIS.

And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.

PYR.

Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.

THIS.

As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

PYR.

O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!

THIS.

I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.

PYR.

Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?

THIS.

’Tide life, ’tide death, I’d come without delay.

(Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe.)

WALL.

Thus have I, wall, my part discharged so;

And, being done, this wall away doth go.

THE.

Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.

DEM.

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

HIP.

This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.

THE.

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

HIP.

It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.

THE.

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.

(Re-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.

THE.

A very gentle beast, and of good conscience.

DEM.

The very best at a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.

LYS.

This lion is a very fox for his valour.

THE.

True; and a goose for his discretion.

DEM.

Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his discretions; and the fox carries the goose.

THE.

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.

MOON.

This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;—

DEM.

He should have worn the horns on his head.

THE.

He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference.

MOON.

This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;

Myself the man i’ the moon do seem to be.

THE.

This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the man i’ the moon?

DEM.

He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it is already in snuff.

HIP.

I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!

THE.

It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is on the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time.

LYS.

Proceed, Moon.

MOON.

All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man i’ the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

DEM.

Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.

(Re-enter Thisbe.)

THIS.

This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?

LION.

(Roaring) Oh,——.

DEM.

Well roared, Lion.

THE.

Well run, Thisbe.

HIP.

Well shone, Moon. Truly the moon shines with a good grace.

(The Lion shakes Thisbe’s mantle, and exit.)

THE.

Well moused, Lion.

DEM.

And then came Pyramus.

LYS.

And so the Lion vanished.

(Re-enter Pyramus.)

PYR.

Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;

I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;

For, by thy gravious, golde, glittering gleams,

I trust to take of truest Thisby’s sight.

But stay, O spite!

But mark, poor knight,

What dreadful dole is here!

Eyes, do you see?

How can it be?

O dainty duck! O dear!

Thy mantle good,

What, stain’d with blood!

Approach, ye Furies fell!

O Fates, come, come,

Cut thread and thrum;

Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!

THE.

This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.

HIP.

Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.

PYR.

O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?

Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear:

Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame

That lived, that loved, that liked, that look’d with cheer.

Come, tears, confound;

Out, sword, and wound

The pap of Pyramus;

Ay, that left pap,

Where heart doth hop. (Stabs himself.)

Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.

Now am I dead,

Now am I fled;

My soul is in the sky;

Tongue, lose thy light;

Moon, take thy flight. (Exit Moonshine.)

Now die, die, die, die, die. (Dies.)

DEM.

No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.

LYS.

Less than an ace, man, for he is dead; he is nothing.

THE.

With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass.

HIP.

How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover?

THE.

She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her passion ends the play.

(Re-enter Thisbe.)

HIP.

Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus. I hope she will be brief.

DEM.

A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us.

LYS.

She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.

DEM.

And thus she means, videlicet:

THIS.

Asleep, my love?

What, dead, my dove?

O Pyramus, arise!

Speak, speak. Quite dumb?

Dead, dead! A tomb

Must cover thy sweet eyes.

These lily lips,

This cherry nose,

These yellow cowslip cheeks,

Are gone, are gone,

Lovers, make moan:

His eyes were green as leeks.

O Sisters Three,

Come, come to me,

With hands as pale as milk:

Lay them in gore,

Since you have shore

With shears his thread of silk.

Tongue, not a word:

Come, trusty sword;

Come, blade, my breast imbrue: (Stabs herself.)

And, farewell, friends:

Thus Thisbe ends:

Adieu, adieu, adieu. (Dies.)

THE.

Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.

DEM.

Ay, and Wall, too.

BOT.

(Starting up.) No, I assure you, the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?

THE.

No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse, for when the players are all dead there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe’s garter, it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is, truly; and very notably discharged. But, come, your Bergomask: let your epilogue alone.

Act V. Scene I. Line 32–line 369.

ACTORS.

Read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point.

I, 2, 9.

Call forth your actors by the scroll,

Masters spread yourselves.

I, 2, 16.

I’ll be an auditor;

An actor, too, perhaps. If I see cause.

III, 1, 82.

Most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.

IV, 2, 43.

Shakespeare and the Stage / With a Complete List of Theatrical Terms Used by Shakespeare in His Plays and Poems, Arranged in Alphabetical Order, & Explanatory Notes

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM