Bottom wakes.
Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and
I will answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyra-
mus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the
bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling!
God's my life! stolen hence, and left me asleep!
I have had a most rare vision. I have had a211
dream, past the wit of man to say what dream
it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to ex-
pound this dream. Methought I was—there is
no man can tell what. Methought I was,—and
methought I had,—but man is but a patched
fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had.
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man218
hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste,
his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report,
what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to
write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called
Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom;
and I will sing it in the latter end of a play,
before the duke: peradventure, to make it the
more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.226
Exit.
Scene Two
[A Room in Quince's House]
Enter Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling.
Quin. Have you sent to Bottom's house? is
he come home yet?
216 patched: motley
226 gracious: acceptable
at her death; cf. n.
