William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream

ACT IV 2. SCENE II. Athens. A Room in QUINCE'S House.

[Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING.]

QUINCE
Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet?

STARVELING
He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is transported.

FLUTE
If he come not, then the play is marred; it goes not
forward, doth it?

QUINCE
It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens
able to discharge Pyramus but he.

FLUTE
No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in
Athens.

QUINCE
Yea, and the best person too: and he is a very paramour
for a sweet voice.

FLUTE
You must say paragon: a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of
naught.

[Enter SNUG.]

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.

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; he would have deserved it: sixpence a-day in
Pyramus, or nothing.

[Enter BOTTOM.]

BOTTOM
Where are these lads? where are these hearts?

QUINCE
Bottom!--O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

BOTTOM
Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not
what; for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you
everything, right as it fell out.

QUINCE
Let us hear, sweet Bottom.