To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,36
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
Philost. Here, mighty Theseus.
The. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?
What masque? what music? How shall we beguile40
The lazy time, if not with some delight?
Philost. There is a brief how many sports are ripe;
Make choice of which your highness will see first.
[Gives a paper.]
The. 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung44
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,48
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.
'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary.'53
That is some satire keen and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus56
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?
34 after-supper: dessert
39 abridgment: pastime
49 Thracian singer: Orpheus
50 device: something devised for dramatic representation
54 critical: censorious
55 sorting with: befitting
