SNUG
Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE.
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOTTOM.
Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say ‘Let him roar again, let him roar again.’
QUINCE.
If you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.
ALL
That would hang us every mother’s son.
BOTTOM.
I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us. But I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an ’twere any nightingale.
QUINCE.
You can play no part but Pyramus, for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely gentleman-like man. Therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
BOTTOM.
Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?
QUINCE.
Why, what you will.
BOTTOM.
I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.