Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Arthur Rackham, William Shakespeare

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486139586
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Arte europea

Shakespeare's incomparable romantic comedy takes on a new and vivid life in these brilliant images by one of the 20th century's leading illustrators. The fairy world of A Midsummer Night's Dream is the perfect milieu for the artistry of Arthur Rackham, a popular illustrator of fairy tales who possessed a striking gift for depicting fanciful creatures. His dreamlike visions provide a series of unique portraits from the enchanted wood outside ancient Athena, where Oberon and Titania rule a kingdom of diminutive sprites.
Rackham's career coincided with the era known as the Golden Age of Illustration, an age that witnessed the rise of increasingly sophisticated color printing techniques. His interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which first appeared in 1908, received the full benefit of the improved technology, and this faithful reprint offers a quality of printing and sharpness of reproduction that rivals the limited and first editions. The complete text of the play appears here, along with 40 full-color and numerous black-and-white illustrations — a splendid tribute by a master of fantasy art to an immortal play.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

The wood. TITANIA lying asleep.

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT,
and STARVELING.

BOTTOM.

Are we all met ?

QUINCE.

Pat, pat ; and here’s a marvellous 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.

BOTTOM.

Peter Quince,—

QUINCE.

What sayest thou, Bully Bottom ?

BOTTOM.

There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that ?

SNOUT.

By’r lakin, a parlous fear.

STARVELING.

I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

BOTTOM.

Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords and that Pyramus is not killed indeed ; and, for the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver : this will put them out of fear.

QUINCE.

Well, we will have such a prologue ; and it shall be written in eight and six.

BOTTOM.

No, make it two more ; let it be written in eight and eight.

SNOUT.

Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion ?

STARVELING.

I fear it, I promise you.

BOTTOM.

Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in—God shield us!—a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing ; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living ; and we ought to look to ’t.

SNOUT.

Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

BOTTOM.

Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck : and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,—‘ Ladies,’ or ‘ Fair ladies,—I would wish you,’—or ‘ I would request you,’—or ‘ I would entreat you,—not to fear, not to tremble : my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life : no, I am no such thing ; I am a man as other men are ;’ and there indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.

QUINCE.

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.

SNOUT.

Doth the moon shine that night we play our play ?

BOTTOM.

A calendar, a calendar ! look in the almanac ; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.

QUINCE.

Yes, it doth shine that night.

BOTTOM.

Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber-window, where we play, open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.

QUINCE.

Ay ; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, 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.

SNOUT.

You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom ?

BOTTOM.

Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall ; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

QUINCE.

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.

Enter PUCK behind.

PUCK.

What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,
So near the cradle of the fairy queen ?
What, a play toward! I’ll be an auditor;
An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.

QUINCE.

Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.

BOTTOM.

Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,—

QUINCE.

Odours, odours.

BOTTOM.

——odours savours sweet :
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
But hark, a voice ! stay thou but here awhile,
And by and by I will to thee appear.

[Exit.

PUCK.

A st...