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We’ll none of that: that have I told my love,

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

“The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.”

That is an old device; and it was play’d

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

“The thrice three Muses mourning for the death

Of Learning, late deceas’d in beggary.”

That is some satire, keen and critical,

Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

“A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.”

Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?

That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.

How shall we find the concord of this discord?

Phil.

A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,

Which is as brief as I have known a play;

But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,

Which makes it tedious; for in all the play

There is not one word apt, one player fitted.

And tragical, my noble lord, it is;

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself;

Which when I saw rehears’d, I must confess,

Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears