William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream

ACT V 1. SCENE I. Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of THESEUS. (continued)

PYRAMUS
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.

THISBE
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

PYRAMUS
O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.

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

PYRAMUS
Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?

THISBE
'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.

WALL
Thus have I, wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

[Exeunt WALL, PYRAMUS and THISBE.]

THESEUS
Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.

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

HIPPOLYTA
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.

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

HIPPOLYTA
It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.

THESEUS
If we imagine no worse of them than they of
themselves, they may pass for excellent men.
Here come two noble beasts in, a moon and a lion.

[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.

THESEUS
A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.