THE BEATLES'Shakespeare Comedy Sketch (IN COLOR)

 

Les Beatles jouent Shakespeare dans Around The Beatles

La reconciliation d’ Oberon et Titania dans « Le Songe D’une Nuit D’Eté » de William Shakespeare

Act 5

HIPPOLYTA
	'Tis strange my Theseus, that these       lovers speak of.
THESEUS
	More strange than true: I never may believe       These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. 5     Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,       Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend       More than cool reason ever comprehends.       The lunatic, the lover and the poet       Are of imagination all compact: 10    One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,       That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,       Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:       The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,       Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; 15    And as imagination bodies forth       The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen       Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing       A local habitation and a name.       Such tricks hath strong imagination, 20    That if it would but apprehend some joy,       It comprehends some bringer of that joy;       Or in the night, imagining some fear,       How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
HIPPOLYTA
	But all the story of the night told over, 25    And all their minds transfigured so together,       More witnesseth than fancy's images       And grows to something of great constancy;       But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
THESEUS
	Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA 30    Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love       Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER
	More than to us       Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THESEUS
	Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have, 35    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,       To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? 40    Call Philostrate.
PHILOSTRATE
	Here, mighty Theseus.
THESEUS
	Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?       What masque? what music? How shall we beguile       The lazy time, if not with some delight?
PHILOSTRATE
	45    There is a brief how many sports are ripe:       Make choice of which your highness will see first.
Giving a paper
THESEUS
	(Reads) 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung       By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'       We'll none of that: that have I told my love, 50    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 55    '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 60    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?
PHILOSTRATE
	A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, 65    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; 70    For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.       Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,       Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears       The passion of loud laughter never shed.
THESEUS
	What are they that do play it?
PHILOSTRATE
	75    Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,       Which never labour'd in their minds till now,       And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories       With this same play, against your nuptial.
THESEUS
	And we will hear it.
PHILOSTRATE
	80    No, my noble lord;       It is not for you: I have heard it over,       And it is nothing, nothing in the world;       Unless you can find sport in their intents,       Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain, 85    To do you service.
THESEUS
	I will hear that play;       For never anything can be amiss,       When simpleness and duty tender it.       Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
Exit PHILOSTRATE
HIPPOLYTA
	90    I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged       And duty in his service perishing.
THESEUS
	Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
HIPPOLYTA
	He says they can do nothing in this kind.
THESEUS
	The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. 95    Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:       And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect       Takes it in might, not merit.       Where I have come, great clerks have purposed       To greet me with premeditated welcomes; 100   Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,       Make periods in the midst of sentences,       Throttle their practised accent in their fears       And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,       Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet, 105   Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;       And in the modesty of fearful duty       I read as much as from the rattling tongue       Of saucy and audacious eloquence.       Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity 110   In least speak most, to my capacity.
Re-enter PHILOSTRATE
PHILOSTRATE
	So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd.
THESEUS
	Let him approach.
Flourish of trumpets
Enter QUINCE for the Prologue
Prologue
	If we offend, it is with our good will.       That you should think, we come not to offend, 115   But with good will. To show our simple skill,       That is the true beginning of our end.       Consider then we come but in despite.       We do not come as minding to contest you,       Our true intent is. All for your delight 120   We are not here. That you should here repent you,       The actors are at hand and by their show       You shall know all that you are like to know.
THESEUS
	This fellow doth not stand upon points.
LYSANDER
	He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows 125   not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not       enough to speak, but to speak true.
HIPPOLYTA
	Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child       on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.
THESEUS
	His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing 130   impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?
Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion
Prologue
	Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;       But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.       This man is Pyramus, if you would know;       This beauteous lady Thisby is certain. 135   This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present       Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;       And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content       To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.       This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn, 140   Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,       By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn       To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.       This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,       The trusty Thisby, coming first by night, 145   Did scare away, or rather did affright;       And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,       Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.       Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,       And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain: 150   Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,       He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;       And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,       His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,       Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain 155   At large discourse, while here they do remain.
Exeunt Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine
THESEUS
	I wonder if the lion be to speak.
DEMETRIUS
	No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.
Wall
	In this same interlude it doth befall       That I, one Snout by name, present a wall; 160   And such a wall, as I would have you think,       That had in it a crannied hole or chink,       Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,       Did whisper often very secretly.       This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show 165   That I am that same wall; the truth is so:       And this the cranny is, right and sinister,       Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
THESEUS
	Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
DEMETRIUS
	It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard 170   discourse, my lord.
Enter Pyramus
THESEUS
	Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!
Pyramus
	O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!       O night, which ever art when day is not!       O night, O night! alack, alack, alack, 175   I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!       And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,       That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!       Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,       Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne! Wall holds up his fingers 180   Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!       But what see I? No Thisby do I see.       O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!       Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
THESEUS
	The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
Pyramus
	185   No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me'       is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to       spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will       fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
Enter Thisbe
Thisbe
	O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans, 190   For parting my fair Pyramus and me!       My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,       Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
Pyramus
	I see a voice: now will I to the chink,       To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!
Thisbe
	195   My love thou art, my love I think.
Pyramus
	Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;       And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
Thisbe
	And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
Pyramus
	Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
Thisbe
	200   As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
Pyramus
	O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
Thisbe
	I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
Pyramus
	Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
Thisbe
	'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.
Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe
Wall
	205   Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;       And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
Exit
THESEUS
	Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
DEMETRIUS
	No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear       without warning.
HIPPOLYTA
	210   This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THESEUS
	The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst       are no worse, if imagination amend them.
HIPPOLYTA
	It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
THESEUS
	If we imagine no worse of them than they of 215   themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here       come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
Enter Lion and Moonshine
Lion
	You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear       The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,       May now perchance both quake and tremble here, 220   When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.       Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am       A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam;       For, if I should as lion come in strife       Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.
THESEUS
	225   A very gentle beast, of a good conscience.
DEMETRIUS
	The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.
LYSANDER
	This lion is a very fox for his valour.
THESEUS
	True; and a goose for his discretion.
DEMETRIUS
	Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his 230   discretion; and the fox carries the goose.
THESEUS
	His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;       for the goose carries not the fox. It is well:       leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.
Moonshine
	This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;--
DEMETRIUS
	235   He should have worn the horns on his head.
THESEUS
	He is no crescent, and his horns are       invisible within the circumference.
Moonshine
	This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;       Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.
THESEUS
	240   This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man       should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the       man i' the moon?
DEMETRIUS
	He dares not come there for the candle; for, you       see, it is already in snuff.
HIPPOLYTA
	245   I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!
THESEUS
	It appears, by his small light of discretion, that       he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all       reason, we must stay the time.
LYSANDER
	Proceed, Moon.
Moonshine
	250   All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the       lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this       thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
DEMETRIUS
	Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all       these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.
Enter Thisbe
Thisbe
	255   This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?
Lion
	(Roaring) Oh--
Thisbe runs off
DEMETRIUS
	Well roared, Lion.
THESEUS
	Well run, Thisbe.
HIPPOLYTA
	Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a 260   good grace.
The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit
THESEUS
	Well moused, Lion.
LYSANDER
	And so the lion vanished.
DEMETRIUS
	And then came Pyramus.
Enter Pyramus
Pyramus
	Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; 265   I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;       For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,       I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.       But stay, O spite!       But mark, poor knight, 270   What dreadful dole is here!       Eyes, do you see?       How can it be?       O dainty duck! O dear!       Thy mantle good, 275   What, stain'd with blood!       Approach, ye Furies fell!       O Fates, come, come,       Cut thread and thrum;       Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
THESEUS
	280   This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would       go near to make a man look sad.
HIPPOLYTA
	Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
Pyramus
	O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?       Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear: 285   Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame       That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd       with cheer.       Come, tears, confound;       Out, sword, and wound 290   The pap of Pyramus;       Ay, that left pap,       Where heart doth hop: Stabs himself       Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.       Now am I dead, 295   Now am I fled;       My soul is in the sky:       Tongue, lose thy light;       Moon take thy flight: Exit Moonshine       Now die, die, die, die, die.
Dies
DEMETRIUS
	300   No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.
LYSANDER
	Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.
THESEUS
	With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and       prove an ass.
HIPPOLYTA
	How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes 305   back and finds her lover?
THESEUS
	She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and       her passion ends the play.
Re-enter Thisbe
HIPPOLYTA
	Methinks she should not use a long one for such a       Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.
DEMETRIUS
	310   A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which       Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us;       she for a woman, God bless us.