Enter Puck.
Here comes my messenger.
How now, mad spirit!4
What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
Puck. My mistress with a monster is in love.
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,8
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.12
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented in their sport,
Forsook his scene, and enter'd in a brake:
When I did him at this advantage take,16
An ass's nowl I fixed on his head:
Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
And forth my mimick comes. When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,20
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky;
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly,24
And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls;
He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.
Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,27
Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
5 night-rule: diversion of the night
haunted: much frequented
7 close: secret
9 patches: clowns, fools
mechanicals: workingmen
13 barren sort: dull company
17 nowl: noddle, pate
21 russet-pated: grey-headed
choughs: jackdaws
25 our stamp; cf. n.
