Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) by Colman George Garrick David Shakespeare William
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 111 lines and 5559 words, and 3 pages
Quin. Why what you will.
Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour'd beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour'd beard, your perfect yellow.
Quin. Some of your French-crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters here are your parts, and I am to intreat 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 dog'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time 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 more obscenely and courageously. Take pains, be perfect, adieu.
Quin. At the Duke's oak we meet.
Bot. But hold ye, hold ye, neighbours; are your voices in order, and your tunes ready? For if we miss our musical pitch, we shall be all 'sham'd and abandon'd.
Quin. Ay, ay! Nothing goes down so well as a little of your sol, fa, and long quaver; therefore let us be in our airs--and for better assurance I have got the pitch pipe.
Bot. Stand round, stand round! We'll rehearse our eplog--Clear up your pipes, and every man in his turn take up his stanza-verse--Are you all ready?
All. Ay, ay!--Sound the pitch-pipe, Peter Quince.
Thunder and Lightning.
Quin. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted: Pray masters, fly masters, help!
Puck. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Thro' bog, thro' bush, thro' brake, thro' briar; Sometimes a horse I'll be, sometimes a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometimes a fire, And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
Enter Bottom.
Bot. Why do they let a little thunder frighten them away? But I will not stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.
AIR.
The ousel-cock, so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, The throstle, with his note so true, The wren with little quill.
Queen. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?
Bot. The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain-song cuckow grey, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer nay.
Queen. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again, Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape, On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
Bot. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that; and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days. The more the pity, that some honest neighbours will not make them friends. Nay I can gleek upon occasion.
Queen. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
Bot. Not so neither: But if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
Queen. Out of this wood do not desire to go; Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no, I am a spirit of no common rate; The summer still doth tend upon my state, And I do love thee; therefore go with me, I'll give thee Fairies to attend on thee; And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And sing, while thou on pressed flow'rs doth sleep; And I will purge thy mortal grossness so, That thou shalt like an airy Spirit go. Peaseblossom, Cob, Moth, Mustardseed!
Enter Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, Four Fairies.
Pease. Ready.
Queen. Be kind and courteous to this Gentleman; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricots and dewberries; With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey-bags steal from the humble bees, And for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worms eyes, To have my love to-bed, and to arise: Nod to him, Elves, and do him courtesies.
Pease. Hail, mortal, hail!
Cob. Hail!
Moth. Hail!
SCENE Another part of the Wood.
Enter Oberon.
Ob. I wonder if Titania be awak'd: Then what it was that next came in her eye, Which she must doat on in extremity?
Enter Puck.
Here comes my messenger! how now, mad sprite! What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
Puck. My mistress with a mortal is in love.
AIR.
Up and down, up and down, We will trip it up and down. We will go through field and town, We will trip it up and down.
SCENE The Wood and Bower.
Enter Queen of Fairies, Bottom; Fairies attending and the King behind them.
Queen. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed. Say wilt thou hear some music sweet dove.
Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in music.
Welcome, welcome to this place, Favorite of the Fairy Queen; Zephyrs, play around his face, Wash, ye dews, his graceful mien.
Pluck the wings from butterflies, To fan the moon-beams from his eyes; Round him in eternal spring Grashoppers and crickets sing.
Queen. Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat. I have a ventrous Fairy that shall seek The squirrels hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
Bot. I pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
Enter Puck, at one door, Oberon and 1st Fairy at another.
AIR.
Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.
Queen. My Oberon! What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour'd of a mortal.
Ob. There lies your love.
Queen. How came these things to pass? O how mine eyes do loath this visage now!
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page