A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act 1, Scene 2 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 1, Scene 2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Enter Quince the carpenter, and Snug the joiner, and Bottom the weaver, and Flute the bellows-mender, and Snout the tinker, and Starveling the tailor. QUINCE Is all our company here? BOTTOM You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. QUINCE Here is the scroll of every man’s name which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our 5 interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding day at night.	Elsewhere in Athens, a group of "Mechanicals" (a.k.a., craftsmen) meet up to practice a play they plan to perform at Theseus and Hippolyta's upcoming wedding. (Psst! All of the men's names are clever plays on their professions. You can read more on this by going to "Tools of Characterization.")
BOTTOM First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point. 10 QUINCE Marry, our play is “The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.” BOTTOM A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your 15 actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.	Quince is the brains of the operation, and he'll lead the Mechanicals as they rehearse and then perform the chosen play. When he announces the play they'll be doing, Bottom, who is definitely not the brains of the operation, says that it sounds like a happy piece of work for the wedding night. We're guessing that Bottom missed the whole "cruel death" part. Brain Snack: Pyramus and Thisbe is a story from Roman mythology about two young lovers who die tragically after running off to elope. Sound familiar? It comes from Book 4 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and it's one of the major literary sources for Romeo and Juliet.
QUINCE Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. BOTTOM Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. QUINCE You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. 20 BOTTOM What is Pyramus—a lover or a tyrant? QUINCE A lover that kills himself most gallant for love. BOTTOM That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms; I will condole in some 25 measure. To the rest.—Yet my chief humor is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split: "The raging rocks And shivering shocks 30 Shall break the locks Of prison gates. And Phibbus’ car Shall shine from far And make and mar 35 The foolish Fates." This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein. A lover is more condoling.	Quince proceeds to assign each man his role. Bottom is to be "Pyramus," the male lead. Bottom asks a few questions to get a feel for his character and then promises to bring the audience to tears—though ultimately, he thinks he'd be better at playing a tyrant. He's also sure he could put on a good Hercules. Bottom delivers some really bad poetry to prove the point.
QUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. 40 FLUTE Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE Flute, you must take Thisbe on you. FLUTE What is Thisbe—a wand’ring knight? QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love. FLUTE Nay, faith, let not me play a woman. I have a 45 beard coming. QUINCE That’s all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.	Quince keeps reading down the role assignments. Flute will be "Thisbe." Unfortunately, Thisbe is not the wandering knight Flute had hoped, but a woman in love (remember, in Shakespeare's day, women's roles were played by young men). Flute claims he can't do this role because he has a beard coming in. Quince says his the peach fuzz is irrelevant; Flute can wear a mask and use a high voice. In other words: deal with it.
BOTTOM An I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too. I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: “Thisne, 50 Thisne!”—“Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy Thisbe dear and lady dear!” QUINCE No, no, you must play Pyramus—and, Flute, you Thisbe. BOTTOM Well, proceed. 55	Bottom heartily volunteers to play Thisbe, saying that he can make his voice tiny, womanly, and beautiful. Quince reminds him that he already has a role.
QUINCE Robin Starveling, the tailor. STARVELING Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother.—Tom Snout, the tinker. SNOUT Here, Peter Quince. 60 QUINCE You, Pyramus’ father.—Myself, Thisbe’s father.—Snug the joiner, you the lion’s part.— And I hope here is a play fitted. SNUG Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. 65 QUINCE You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.	Quince continues to assign the roles: Starveling will be Thisbe's mother and Quince, her father. Snout will play Pyramus's father, and Snug will play the part of the lion, which is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say “Let him roar again. Let 70 him roar again!” QUINCE An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies that they would shriek, and that were enough to hang us all. ALL That would hang us, every mother’s son. 75 BOTTOM I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us. But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale. 80	After hearing about the roaring, Bottom offers to play the lion, too, as he can roar quite fearsomely. Still, the terrifying noises might upset the ladies, so Bottom volunteers to roar as gently as a dove.
QUINCE You can play no part but Pyramus, for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man, a proper man as one shall see in a summer’s day, a most lovely gentlemanlike man. Therefore you must needs play Pyramus. 85	Quince cuts off all of this nonsense: Bottom must play Pyramus because he's the prettiest and most gentlemanly of the group.
BOTTOM Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? QUINCE Why, what you will. BOTTOM I will discharge it in either your straw-color beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain 90 beard, or your French-crown-color beard, your perfit yellow.	Bottom, now that he's finally accepted a single role, turns his attention to determining what sort of beard would be right for his character. He wonders if he should wear a "French-crown-colour beard" (meaning a beard that's the color of a French gold coin or "crown").
QUINCE Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. But, masters, here are your parts, giving out the parts, and I am 95 to entreat you, request you, and desire you to con them by tomorrow night and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight. There will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company and our devices known. In 100 the meantime I will draw a bill of properties such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not.	Quince takes this opportunity to crack a dirty joke about there being so many bald "French crowns" in the world. (This is a reference to "the French disease," syphilis, a STD that causes your hair to fall out if it's left untreated.) From that pleasant reference, he moves straight into director mode, telling his crew to memorize their lines and meet in the woods tomorrow night. Since it's private and shielded from the Athenian court, it's the perfect rehearsal spot.
BOTTOM We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains. Be perfit. Adieu. 105 QUINCE At the Duke’s Oak we meet. BOTTOM Enough. Hold or cut bowstrings. They exit.	Bottom confirms the plans, as well as his commitment to act obscenely (we don't think that word means what he thinks it means), and the craftsmen depart. Brain Snack: When Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream, craftsmen didn't usually run around putting on plays like this. Back in early medieval England, though, guilds of craftsmen got together each year and put on plays for the Corpus Christi festival. So, Shakespeare's "Mechanicals" are a shout-out to the craftsmen who moonlighted as amateur actors each year.