No Fear Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 4, Scene 2
Original Text | Modern Text | |
Enter QUINCE,
FLUTE, SNOUT, and
STARVELING
|
QUINCE, FLUTE,
SNOUT, and STARVELING
enter. | |
|
QUINCE
Have you sent to Bottom’s house? Is he come home
yet?
|
QUINCE
Have you sent anyone to Bottom’s house? Has he come
home yet?
| |
|
STARVELING
He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.
|
STARVELING
No one’s heard from him. I’m sure
he’s been kidnapped.
| |
|
FLUTE
If he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not forward. Doth
it?
|
FLUTE
If he doesn’t show up, the play is ruined. It
won’t go on. Will it?
| |
|
QUINCE
It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able to
discharge Pyramus but he.
|
QUINCE
No, it would be impossible. He’s the only person in
Athens who can play Pyramus.
| |
5 |
FLUTE
No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in
Athens.
|
FLUTE
Definitely. He’s quite simply the smartest working-man
in Athens.
|
|
QUINCE
Yea, and the best person too. And he is a very paramour for a
sweet voice.
|
QUINCE
Yes, and the best looking too. And his voice is the paramour of
sweetness.
| |
|
FLUTE
You must say “paragon.” A
“paramour” is, God bless us, a thing of
naught.
|
FLUTE
You mean “paragon.” A “paramour” is something bad.
| |
Enter SNUG
|
SNUG enters. | |
|
SNUG
Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or
three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward,
we had all been made men.
|
SNUG
The duke’s leaving the temple. Two or three more lords
and ladies have been married too. If we’d been able to
put on our play, we would have had it made.
| |
|
FLUTE
O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his
life. He could not have ’scaped sixpence a day. An the
duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged.
|
FLUTE
Oh that great, funny guy, Bottom! He would have gotten a pension
of six pence a day for his whole life. Six pence a day
would’ve been forced on him. I’ll be damned if
the duke wouldn’t have given him six pence a day for
playing Pyramus.
|
