Peter Quince A Midsummer Night’s Dream

enter scene Is all our company here?
According to the scrip. 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 duchess on his wedding day at night.
And so grow to a point. Marry, our play is “The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby”.
Masters, spread yourselves. Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom the weaver.
…Proceed. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
A tyrant? A lover that kills himself, most gallant, for love.
Now name the rest of the players. Frantic Flute the bellows mender.
Here, Peter Quince. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
A wandering knight? It is the lady Pyramus must love.
I have a beard coming. That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.
And lady dear! No, no, you must play Pyramus; and Flute, you Thisby.
Well, proceed Robin Starveling the tailor.
Here, Peter Quince (2nd time) Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby’s mother. Tom Snout the tinker.
Here, Peter Quince (3rd time) You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisby’s father; Snug the joiner, you the lions part. And I hope here is a play fitted.
For I am slow of study You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
Let him roar again. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, and they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.
’twere any nightingale 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 gentlemanlike man. Therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
What beard were I best to play it in? Why, what you will. Masters, here are you parts; I am to entreat you, request you and desire you to con them by tomorrow night, and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight. There we will rehearse. I pray you fail me not.
Adieu At the Duke’s Oak we meet.
Are we all met? Pat, pat; and here’s a marvelous 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.
Peter Quince? What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
This will put them out of fear. Well, we will have such a prologue, and it shall be written in eight and six.
And tell them plainly that he is Snug the joiner. 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.
Find out moonshine. Yes, it doth shine that night.
..and the moon may shine in at the casement. 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.
…and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper. 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.
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause. Speak Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
Thisby, the flowers of odious savors sweet – Odorous, odorous!