A Midsummer Night's Dream (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

Quince: Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. 

Bottom: Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. 

Quince: You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. 

Bottom: What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant? 

Quince: A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.

Bottom: That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest — yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. 

‘The raging rocks 
And shivering shocks 
Shall break the locks 
Of prison gates; 
And Phibbus’ car 
Shall shine from far, 
And make and mar 
The foolish Fates.’ 

This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein: a lover is more condoling. 

Quince: Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. 

Flute: Here, Peter Quince. 

Quince: Flute, you must take Thisby on you. 

Flute: What is Thisby? A wand’ring knight? 

Quince: It is the lady that Pyramus must love. 

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

Quince: That’s all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too. I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: ‘Thisne, Thisne!’ [Then speaking small] ‘Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!’ 

Quince: No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby. 

Bottom: Well; proceed. 

Quince: Robin Starveling, the tailor. 

Star: Here, Peter Quince.

Quince: Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby’s mother. Tom Snout; the tinker. 

Snout: Here, Peter Quince. You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisby’s father; Snug, the joiner, you, the lion’s part. And I hope here is a play fitted. 

Snug: Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it to 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: An 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-fac’d 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. 

[from Act 1, Scene 2]

Hermia: O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom! You thief of love! What! Have you come by night, And stol’n my love’s heart from him?

Helena: Fine, i’ faith! Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear Impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!

Hermia: ‘Puppet!’ why so? Ay, that way goes the game. Now I perceive that she hath made compare Between our statures; she hath urg’d her height; And with her personage, her tall personage, Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail’d with him. And are you grown so high in his esteem Because I am so dwarfish and so low? How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak. How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

Helena: I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me. I was never curst; I have no gift at all in shrewishness; I am a right maid for my cowardice; Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, Because she is something lower than myself, That I can match her.

Hermia: ‘Lower’ hark, again.

Helena: Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. I evermore did love you,

Hermia, Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong’d you; Save that, in love unto Demetrius, I told him of your stealth unto this wood. He followed you; for love I followed him; But he hath chid me hence, and threat’ned me To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too; And now, so you will let me quiet go, To Athens will I bear my folly back, And follow you no further. Let me go. You see how simple and how fond I am.

Hermia: Why, get you gone! Who is’t that hinders you?

Helena: A foolish heart that I leave here behind.

Hermia: What! with Lysander?

Helena: With Demetrius.

Lysander: Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.

Demetrius: No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.

Helena: O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd; She was a vixen when she went to school; And, though she be but little, she is fierce.

Hermia: ‘Little’ again! Nothing but ‘low’ and ‘little’! Why will you suffer her to flout me thus? Let me come to her.

Lysander: Get you gone, you dwarf; You minimus, of hind’ring knot-grass made; You bead, you acorn.

[from Act 3, Scene 2]