Page:A Midsummer-Nights Dream (Rackham).djvu/181

Rh [Reads] ‘The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.’

Well none of that: that have I told my love,

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

[Reads] ‘The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.’

That is an old device; and it was play’d

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

[Reads] ‘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,

[Reads] ‘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?

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.