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移除书签[Stage] Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, and Philostrate, with other attendant lords
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
‘Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
Theseus（提修斯）
More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold—
That is the madman.
The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy’s images
And grows to something of great constancy,
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
Theseus（提修斯）
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
Joy, gentle friends! Joy and fresh days of love
Accompany your hearts!
[Stage] The lovers enter: Lysander, Demetrius, Helena, and Hermia.
Lysander（拉山德）
More than to us
Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
Theseus（提修斯）
Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bedtime?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand?
Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
Philostrate（菲洛斯特雷特）
Here, mighty Theseus.
Theseus（提修斯）
Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
What masque, what music? How shall we beguile
The lazy time if not with some delight?
Philostrate（菲洛斯特雷特）
[Giving Theseus a paper]
There is a brief, how many sports are ripe.
Make choice of which your highness will see first.
Theseus（提修斯）
“The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.”
We’ll none of that. That have I told my love,
In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
“The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.”
That is an old device, and it was played
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
“The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceased in beggary.”
That is some satire, keen and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
“A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe. Very tragical mirth.”
“Merry” and “tragical?” “Tedious” and “brief?”
That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
Philostrate（菲洛斯特雷特）
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play.
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious.
For in all the play
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is.
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water—but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
Theseus（提修斯）
What are they that do play it?
Philostrate（菲洛斯特雷特）
Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
Which never labored in their minds till now,
And now have toiled their unbreathed memories
With this same play against your nuptial.
Theseus（提修斯）
And we will hear it.
Philostrate（菲洛斯特雷特）
No, my noble lord.
It is not for you.
I have heard it over,
And it is nothing, nothing in the world—
Unless you can find sport in their intents,
Extremely stretched and conned with cru ‘l pain
To do you service.
Theseus（提修斯）
I will hear that play.
For never anything can be amiss
When simpleness and duty tender it.
Go, bring them in. And take your places, ladies.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
I love not to see wretchedness o’er charged
And duty in his service perishing.
[Stage] Philostrate exits.
Theseus（提修斯）
Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
He says they can do nothing in this kind.
Theseus（提修斯）
The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
Our sport shall be to take what they mistake,
And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
Takes it in might, not merit.
Where I have come, great clerks have purposèd
To greet me with premeditated welcomes,
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practiced accent in their fears,
And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome.
Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence yet I picked a welcome,
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most, to my capacity.
[Stage] Philostrate enters.
Philostrate（菲洛斯特雷特）
So please your grace, the Prologue is addressed.
Theseus（提修斯）
Let him approach.
[Stage] Quince enters, performing as the Prologue.
Prologue（序言）
If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think we come not to offend,
But with good will.
To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then we come but in despite.
We do not come as minding to contest you,
Our true intent is. All for your delight
We are not here.
That you should here repent you,
The actors are at hand, and by their show
You shall know all that you are like to know.
Theseus（提修斯）
This fellow doth not stand upon points.
Lysander（拉山德）
He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt. He knows
not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to
speak, but to speak true.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a
recorder—a sound, but not in government.
Theseus（提修斯）
His speech was like a tangled chain. Nothing impaired,
but all disordered. Who is next?
[Stage] Enter Bottom as Pyramus; Flute as Thisbe; Snout as Wall; Starveling as Moonshine; and Snug as Lion.
Prologue（序言）
Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show.
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
This man is Pyramus, if you would know.
This beauteous lady Thisbe is certain.
This man, with lime and roughcast, doth present
Wall, that vile wall which did these lovers sunder.
And through Wall’s chink, poor souls, they are content
To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
Presenteth Moonshine. For, if you will know,
By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
To meet at Ninus’ tomb—there, there to woo.
This grisly beast, which “Lion” hight by name,
The trusty Thisbe, coming first by night,
Did scare away, or rather did affright.
And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
And finds his trusty Thisbe’s mantle slain.
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.
And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade,
His dagger drew, and died.
For all the rest,
Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
At large discourse, while here they do remain.
Theseus（提修斯）
I wonder if the lion be to speak.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
No wonder, my lord. One lion may when many asses do.
Wall（墙）
In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall.
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole, or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,
Did whisper often very secretly.
This loam, this roughcast, and this stone doth show
That I am that same wall. The truth is so.
And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
[Stage] Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine exit.
Theseus（提修斯）
Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard
discourse, my lord.
Theseus（提修斯）
Pyramus draws near the wall. Silence!
[Stage] Pyramus enters.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
O grim-looked night! O night with hue so black!
O night, which ever art when day is not!
O night, O night! Alack, alack, alack,
I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot!
And thou, O Wall, O sweet, O lovely Wall,
That stand’st between her father’s ground and mine.
Thou Wall, O Wall, O sweet and lovely Wall,
Show me thy chink to blink through with mine eyne!
[Stage] Wall holds up two fingers, spread a bit apart.
Thanks, courteous Wall. Jove shield thee well for this!
But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.
O wicked Wall through whom I see no bliss!
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
Theseus（提修斯）
The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
Bottom（波顿）
No, in truth, sir, he should not. “Deceiving me” is
Thisbe’s cue. She is to enter now and I am to spy her
through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I
told you. Yonder she comes.
[Stage] Thisbe enters.
Thisbe（提斯柏）
O Wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
I see a voice. Now will I to the chink,
To spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face. Thisbe?
Thisbe（提斯柏）
My love thou art, my love, I think.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace.
And like Limander am I trusty still.
Thisbe（提斯柏）
And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
Thisbe（提斯柏）
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
Oh, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
Thisbe（提斯柏）
I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
Thisbe（提斯柏）
Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.
[Stage] Pyramus and Thisbe exit.
Wall（墙）
Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so.
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
[Stage] Wall exits.
Theseus（提修斯）
Now is the moon down between the two neighbors.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
No remedy, my lord, when walls are so willful to hear
without warning.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
Theseus（提修斯）
The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst
are no worse if imagination amend them.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
Theseus（提修斯）
If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves,
they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble
beasts in, a man and a lion.
Lion（狮子）
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, as 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.
[Stage] Lion and Moonshine enter.
Theseus（提修斯）
A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
A very best at a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.
Lysander（拉山德）
This lion is a very fox for his valor.
Theseus（提修斯）
True. And a goose for his discretion.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
Not so, my lord. For his valor cannot carry his
discretion, and the fox carries the goose.
Theseus（提修斯）
His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valor, for
the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to
his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.
Moonshine（月光）
This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present—
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
He should have worn the horns on his head.
Theseus（提修斯）
He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within
the circumference.
Moonshine（月光）
This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present.
Myself the man i’ th’ moon do seem to be.
Theseus（提修斯）
This is the greatest error of all the rest. The man
should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the “man
i’ th’ moon?”
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
He dares not come there for the candle. For you see, it
is already in snuff.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!
Theseus（提修斯）
It appears by his small light of discretion, that he is
in the wane. But yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we
must stay the time.
Lysander（拉山德）
Proceed, Moon.
Moonshine（月光）
All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn
is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thornbush, my
thornbush; and this dog, my dog.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
Why, all these should be in the lanthorn, for all these
are in the moon. But silence! Here comes Thisbe.
[Stage] Thisbe enters.
Thisbe（提斯柏）
This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?
Lion（狮子）
[Roaring] O!
[Stage] Thisbe runs off, leaving her cloak behind.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
Well roared, Lion!
Theseus（提修斯）
Well run, Thisbe!
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
Well shone, Moon! Truly, the moon shines with a good
grace.
[Stage] Lion bites and shakes Thisbe’s cloak, staining it with blood.
Theseus（提修斯）
Well moused, Lion!
[Stage] Pyramus enters.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
And then came Pyramus.
[Stage] Lion exits.
Lysander（拉山德）
And so the lion vanished.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams.
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright.
For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.
But stay, O spite!
But mark, poor knight,
What dreadful dole is here!
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck! O dear!
Thy mantle good,
What, stained with blood?
Approach, ye Furies fell!
O Fates, come, come,
Cut thread and thrum.
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
Theseus（提修斯）
This passion and the death of a dear friend would go
near to make a man look sad.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
Pyramus（皮拉摩斯）
O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
Since lion vile hath here deflowered my dear,
Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame
That lived, that loved, that liked, that looked with
cheer.
Come, tears, confound!
Out, sword, and wound!
The pap of Pyramus—
Ay, that left pap
Where heart doth hop.
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead.
Now am I fled.
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light.
Moon, take thy flight.
[Stage] Moonshine exits.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
No die, but an ace for him, for he is but one.
[Stage]
Now die, die, die, die, die.
[He dies]
Lysander（拉山德）
Less than an ace, man. For he is dead. He is nothing.
Theseus（提修斯）
With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and
prove an ass.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back
and finds her lover?
Theseus（提修斯）
She will find him by starlight. Here she comes, and her
passion ends the play.
[Stage] Thisbe enters.
Hippolyta（希波吕妲）
Methinks she should not use a long one for such a
Pyramus.
I hope she will be brief.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which
Thisbe, is the better. He for a man, God warrant us, she
for a woman, God bless us.
Lysander（拉山德）
She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
And thus she means , videlice t —
Thisbe（提斯柏）
Asleep, my love?
What, dead, my dove?
O Pyramus, arise!
Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
Dead, dead? A tomb
Must cover thy sweet eyes.
These lily lips,
This cherry nose,
These yellow cowslip cheeks
Are gone, are gone.
Lovers, make moan.
His eyes were green as leeks.
O Sisters three,
Come, come to me
With hands as pale as milk.
Lay them in gore,
Since you have shore
With shears his thread of silk.
Tongue, not a word.
Come, trusty sword.
Come, blade, my breast imbrue.
Thus Thisbe ends.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. [She dies]
Theseus（提修斯）
Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
Demetrius（狄米特律斯）
Ay, and Wall too.
Bottom（波顿）
[Out of character] No, assure you. The wall is down
that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the
epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of
our company?
Theseus（提修斯）
No epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no excuse.
Never excuse—for when the players are all dead, there
needs none to be blamed.
Marry, if he that writ it had
played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe’s garter, it
would have been a fine tragedy.
And so it is, truly,
and very notably discharged. But come, your Bergomask.
Let your epilogue alone.
[Stage] The actors dance. Bottom and Flute exit.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Lovers,
to bed. ‘Tis almost fairy time.
I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn
As much as we this night have overwatched.
This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled
The heavy gait of night.
Sweet friends, to bed. A
fortnight hold we this solemnity,
In nightly revels and new jollity.
Robin（罗宾）
Now the hungry lion roars
And the wolf behowls the moon,
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the churchway paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic.
Not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house.
I am sent with broom before
To sweep the dust behind the door.
[Stage] Oberon and Titania enter with all their servants and followers.
Oberon（奥布朗）
Through the house give glimmering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire.
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier.
And this ditty, after me,
Sing and dance it trippingly.
Titania（泰坦尼娅）
First, rehearse your song by rote,
To each word a warbling note.
Hand in hand with fairy grace
Will we sing and bless this place.
Oberon（奥布朗）
Now until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride bed will we,
Which by us shall blessèd be.
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be.
And the blots of Nature’s hand
Shall not in their issue stand.
Never mole, harelip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despisèd in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait.
And each several chamber bless
Through this palace with sweet peace.
And the owner of it blessed
Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away. Make no stay.
Meet me all by break of day.
[Stage] Oberon and Titania and the Fairies sing and dance.
[Stage] All exit except for Robin.
Robin（罗宾）
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended—
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearnèd luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long.
Else the Puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
[Stage] Robin exits.
