1 Three and three, We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
2 I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child.
3 Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
4 Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement.
5 Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.
6 But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigur'd so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images, And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
7 Near to her close and consecrated bower, While she was in her dull and sleeping hour, A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, Were met together to rehearse a play Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.
8 Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears, And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome.