Speeches (Lines) for Flute in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Quince. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

Flute. Here, Peter Quince.

Quince. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.

Flute. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?

Quince. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

Flute. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

Puck. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here.

Flute. Must I speak now?

Quince. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes
but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

Flute. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,
I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.

Quince. 'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that
yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your
part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue
is past; it is, 'never tire.'

Flute. O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would
never tire.

Starveling. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is
transported.

Flute. If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes
not forward, doth it?

Quince. It is not possible: you have not a man in all
Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he.

Flute. No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft
man in Athens.

Quince. Yea and the best person too; and he is a very
paramour for a sweet voice.

Flute. You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us,
a thing of naught.

Snug. Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and
there is two or three lords and ladies more married:
if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made
men.

Flute. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a
day during his life; he could not have 'scaped
sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him
sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged;
he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in
Pyramus, or nothing.

Bottom. 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.

Flute. [as Thisbe] O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
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.

Bottom. I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby!

Flute. [as Thisbe] My love thou art, my love I think.

Bottom. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;
And, like Limander, am I trusty still.

Flute. [as Thisbe] And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.

Bottom. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.

Flute. [as Thisbe] As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

Bottom. O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!

Flute. [as Thisbe] I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.

Bottom. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?

Flute. [as Thisbe] 'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay.

Demetrius. Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all
these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.

Flute. [as Thisbe] This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?

Demetrius. And thus she means, videlicet:--

Flute. [as Thisbe] Asleep, my love?
What, dead, my dove?
O Pyramus, arise!
Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
Dead, dead? A tomb
Must cover thy sweet eyes.
These My lips,
This cherry nose,
These yellow cowslip cheeks,
Are gone, are gone:
Lovers, make moan:
His eyes were green as leeks.
O Sisters Three,
Come, come to me,
With hands as pale as milk;
Lay them in gore,
Since you have shore
With shears his thread of silk.
Tongue, not a word:
Come, trusty sword;
Come, blade, my breast imbrue:
[Stabs herself]
And, farewell, friends;
Thus Thisby ends:
Adieu, adieu, adieu.