Applied Practice in a Midsummer Night's Dream

Applied Practice in

A Midsummer Night’s Dream PRE-AP*/AP*

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Printed in the United States of America Passage 5, Questions 31-38. Read the following passage from Act III, Scene i of A Midsummer Night’s Dream carefully before you choose your answers.

The wood. TITANIA lying asleep. [Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING] BOTTOM Are we all met? QUINCE Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our (5) stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke. BOTTOM Peter Quince,— QUINCE What sayest thou, bully Bottom? BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and (10) Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that? SNOUT By’r lakin, a parlous fear. STARVELING I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done. (15) BOTTOM Not a whit! I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not (20) Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear. QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six. BOTTOM No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight. (25) SNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion? STARVELING I fear it, I promise you. BOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in—God shield us!—a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful (30) wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to look to ’t. SNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion. BOTTOM Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck, and he himself (35) must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,—’Ladies,’ —or ‘Fair-ladies—I would wish You,’ —or ‘I would request you,’ —or ‘I would entreat you, —not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it (40) were pity of my life. No! I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are;’ and there indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner. QUINCE Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, (45) you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight. SNOUT Doth the moon shine that night we play our play? BOTTOM A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine. QUINCE Yes, it doth shine that night. (50) BOTTOM Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon

©2009 by Applied Practice, Dallas, TX. All rights reserved. may shine in at the casement. QUINCE Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to (55) present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby (says the story) did talk through the chink of a wall. SNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom? (60) BOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper. (65) QUINCE If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every one according to his cue. (70) [Enter PUCK behind] PUCK What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here, So near the cradle of the fairy queen? What, a play toward! I’ll be an auditor; An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause. (75) QUINCE Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth. BOTTOM Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet, — QUINCE Odours, odours. BOTTOM —odours savours sweet: So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear. (80) But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile, And by and by I will to thee appear. [Exit] PUCK A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here. [Exit] (85) 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, (90) 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 (95) 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. [Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass’s head] (100) BOTTOM If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine. QUINCE O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters, fly, masters! Help! [Exeunt QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING] PUCK I’ll follow you, I’ll lead you about a round, (105) Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier: Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;

©2009 by Applied Practice, Dallas, TX. All rights reserved. And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. (110) [Exit] BOTTOM Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to make me afeard. [Re-enter SNOUT] SNOUT O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee? (115) BOTTOM What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do you? [Exit SNOUT] [Re-enter QUINCE] QUINCE Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art (120) translated. [Exit] BOTTOM I see their knavery. This is to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can. I will walk up (125) and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. [Sings] The ousel cock so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, (130) The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill,— TITANIA [Awaking] What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? BOTTOM [Sings] The finch, the sparrow and the lark, (135) The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer nay;— for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry (140) ‘cuckoo’ never so? TITANIA I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape; And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me (145) On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee. BOTTOM Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days; the more the pity that some honest neighbours will not (150) make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion. TITANIA Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful. BOTTOM Not so, neither, but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn. TITANIA Out of this wood do not desire to go; (155) Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no. I am a spirit of no common rate; The summer still doth tend upon my state; And I do love thee; therefore, go with me. I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee, (160) And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep; And I will purge thy mortal grossness so That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.

(A) popular appeal (B) lyricism (C) psychological depth (D) comic relief (E) verisimilitude

32. The players agree that both moonlight and the wall will be

(A) bowdlerized (B) personified (C) burlesqued (D) satirized (E) magnified

33. All of the following are malapropisms EXCEPT

(A) “defect” (line 36) (B) “disfigure” (line 54) (C) “odious” (line 76) (D) “Ninny’s” (line 98) (E) “ass” (line 122)

34. Speaking his “aside” in line 83, Puck acts as a kind of

(A) prologue (B) narrator (C) chorus (D) antagonist (E) foil

35. In line 111, Bottom’s charge of “knavery” is

(A) insightful (B) misplaced (C) cruel (D) outrageous (E) said in jest

36. In line 143, when Titania says she is “enthrallèd” she

(A) is being sarcastic (B) is being disingenuous (C) is being equivocal (D) speaks more truth than she realizes (E) speaks for all the characters in the passage

(A) smooth talk (B) poetic license (C) faint praise (D) bad faith (E) rhetorical posturing

38. In lines 158-63, Titania’s tone is best described as

(A) seductive (B) brooding (C) biting (D) triumphant (E) wistful

31. (E) verisimilitude. Bottom and the other players are so convinced that their play is lifelike that they resolve to “tone it down.” Starveling proposes that they “leave the killing out,” so as not to scare “the ladies.” Bottom insists that they do not have to censor themselves that much. Through the “device” of a prologue, he argues, they can put their audience “out of fear” by explaining that none of the acting is real: Pyramus is really Bottom, the lion is really Snug, and no one has been harmed in the performance of this play.

32. (B) personified. The moonlight and the wall, both inanimate objects, will be played by humans in the production. Quince says that one of the acting troupe will represent “the person of Moonshine.” Bottom says that “Some man or other must present Wall.” Other aspects of the play have been bowdlerized or censored (see Explanation 31 above), but the players decide to personify moonshine and the wall as a means of overcoming technical limitations (“You can never bring in a wall”). It is essential to note that while the audience may find the players’ efforts and artistic decisions very funny, the players themselves are taking this very seriously. For them, this play is not burlesque or satire, but tragedy.

33. (E) “ass” (line 122). Bottom’s use of this word has a double meaning (fool, donkey), but at least it is an accurate rendering of the word he wants. In all the other instances, the speakers mangle the word they intend to use. Hence Bottom says “defect” instead of “effect”; Quince says “disfigure” instead of “figure”; Bottom says “odious” instead of “odours”; and Flute says “Ninny’s” instead of “Ninus.’”

34. (C) chorus. The function of the chorus, an important convention in ancient Greek drama, is to comment on and interpret the action of the play. The chorus stands half-way, as it were, between the actors and the audience. At this particular moment, Puck is more observer than actor—he is not taking part in the rehearsal but (for now) watching it; in this role, he offers a criticism (“A stranger Pyramus than e’ver played here!”) that might very well be voicing the audience’s reaction.

35. (B) misplaced. Bottom is quite right when he says that the sudden disruption of the rehearsal is the result of “knavery”; he just accuses the wrong party. The other players are quite innocent. It is mischievous Puck who is making “an ass” of him.

36. (D) speaks more truth than she realizes. Titania is being quite sincere when she says that her eye is “enthralléd to” Bottom’s (new) shape (to be a thrall is to be a slave). What she does not know is that she has no free will in the matter. Her eye is literally enslaved because Puck has poured into it the drops of the magic flower-juice, condemning her to fall in love with the first creature she sees upon waking—namely, a man with a donkey’s head.

©2009 by Applied Practice, Dallas, TX. All rights reserved. 37. (C) faint praise. Because she is under a spell, Titania is quite sincere in everything she says (see Explanation 36 above). While she is not being sarcastic at all, the reader, fully aware of what is going on, can enjoy the unintended ironies of what she says. How “beautiful” is Bottom? Not at all; he has a human body and a donkey’s head, so to say he has as much wisdom as he has beauty is faint praise indeed—from our point of view.

38. (A) seductive. In her “enthralléd” state, Titania is determined that Bottom “shalt remain here” in the forest. Hence she uses all of her considerable charms to get him to stay with her, making him enticing promises (“And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep”) and lulling him (“while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep”). She presents him with a vision of the good life, free from human cares: “And I will purge thy mortal grossness so, / That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.”