A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act 4, Scene 2 – Analysis
Scene Profile – At a Glance
- Location: Athens – Quince’s house, the morning of the wedding.
- What Happens: The workmen mourn the loss of Bottom and of their chance to perform. Bottom bursts in, refuses to say what happened to him, and tells them the play has been chosen: get your costumes, meet at the palace.
- Key Characters: Quince, Flute, Snug and Starveling; Bottom.
- Dramatic Function: A short bridge from the wood to the wedding: it returns Bottom to his own world, confirms that Pyramus and Thisbe will be performed, and shows the mechanicals’ plot resolved in step with the lovers’ and the fairies’.
- Famous Quote:
"Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it fell out."
(Bottom, Act 4, Scene 2) - Why It Matters: The shortest scene in the play shows the workmen’s loyalty to Bottom, and Bottom keeping the one secret he has ever had.
Scene Summary
Quince asks whether anyone has sent to Bottom’s house; Starveling says he cannot be heard of and must have been carried off by spirits. Flute points out that without Bottom the play cannot go forward, and Quince agrees: nobody else in Athens can play Pyramus. They praise him – the best wit of any craftsman in the city, the best person, a very paramour for a sweet voice, which Flute corrects to paragon. Snug brings news that the duke is coming from the temple with two or three more couples married, and that if their play had gone ahead they would all have been made men. Flute laments that Bottom has lost sixpence a day for life, since the duke would surely have pensioned him for Pyramus.
Bottom arrives, asking where his lads are. Quince hails the day. Bottom announces that he has wonders to tell and then refuses to tell them, since if he did he would be no true Athenian; all he will say is that the duke has dined. He gives orders: gather the costumes, tie good strings to the beards, put new ribbons on the shoes, meet at the palace, look over the parts, because the short and the long is that their play is preferred. Thisbe must have clean linen; the lion must not cut his nails; nobody must eat onions or garlic, so that their breath is sweet. No more words: away.
Sixpence a Day
The scene is the only one in the play set in Athens between the first act and the last, and it is the workmen’s version of the lovers’ dawn: a loss counted, and then reversed.
Original
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.
(Flute, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Oh dear old Bottom! He’s gone and lost sixpence a day for the rest of his life; he couldn’t have got less than sixpence a day. If the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’d hang myself. He’d have deserved it: sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, or nothing at all.
The mourning is comic and it is real. Flute’s arithmetic – sixpence a day for life, which the duke could not have refused for such a Pyramus – is the tradesman’s measure of what has been lost, and the praise that precedes it is the play’s warmest tribute to Bottom: the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens, the best person, a paramour for a sweet voice. Flute’s correction of paramour to paragon keeps the malapropism going even in grief. The workmen believe Bottom has been transported, and they are right; the audience knows he was translated, and is back. The scene’s small order and chaos is the restoration of a company to its leading man, which matters to them as much as the restoration of a queen to her king matters to the fairies.
Not a Word of Me
Bottom’s return is the play’s last transformation, and the only one he manages himself: the man who wanted to play every part arrives with a story he will not tell.
Original
Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our play is preferred.
(Bottom, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
I’m not saying a word! All I’ll tell you is that the duke has had his dinner. So, get your stuff together, put new strings on your fake beards, new ribbons on your shoes; let’s meet soon at the palace; everyone must have read through their part; because the long and short of it is that our play has been selected to be performed.
He is to discourse wonders and asks not to be asked; he will tell them everything right as it fell out, and then not a word. The reticence is new. Bottom in Act 1 could not be stopped from talking, and here he holds a fairy queen’s bower behind his teeth and gives orders about beards, ribbons, clean linen and onions instead. It is the same discretion he showed in the wood, where he took the fairies as new neighbours and asked no questions, and it is why he survived the night intact. The theme of dreams and reality passes through him and leaves no mark except a ballad he has not yet written. What he does say is the scene’s headline: our play is preferred. The workmen’s plot ends as the lovers’ did, with a summons to the palace, and the lion is told to let his nails grow.
Language and Technique
- Malapropism: “Transported” for carried off, “paramour” for paragon, “discourse wonders”: the wrong word remains the workmen’s signature, and Flute’s correction is wrong too.
- Prose of trade: Sixpence a day, clean linen, strings for beards, ribbons for pumps: the scene’s vocabulary is a craftsman’s inventory, which is how the workmen think about theatre.
- The withheld story: Bottom’s “but ask me not what” and “Not a word of me” are the play’s one refusal to narrate; the audience, who saw the wonders, hears the gap.
- Exclamations: “O most courageous day! O most happy hour!” – Quince greets Bottom in the doubled exclamations of a lover, which is what the scene has quietly made him.
Key Quotes from Act 4, Scene 2
Quote 1
No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens.
(Flute, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
No, he is simply the smartest of all the working men of Athens.
Quote Analysis: Flute on the loss of Bottom: the best wit of any craftsman in Athens. What was flattery in Act 1, when Quince needed to keep him in one part, is simple truth here, and the modern verse keeps the plainness. The company’s leading man has become, in his absence, irreplaceable.
Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
(Bottom, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Where are these lads? Where are these good chaps?
Quote Analysis: Bottom’s entrance, in a line of two questions. Lads, then hearts: the second word is the affection the scene has earned. The modern verse keeps the warmth. Quince’s answer hails the day and the hour.
And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words: away! Go, away!
(Bottom, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
And, most of all, dear actors, don’t eat onions nor garlic, for our breath must smell sweet; and I have no doubt that we will hear them say that is a sweet comedy. No more chatting: let’s go! Let’s go, let’s go!
Quote Analysis: The last of Bottom’s orders, and the play’s last word on what a company owes its audience: sweet breath. The modern verse keeps the onions. The final phrase, a sweet comedy, is what Bottom expects to hear said of Pyramus and Thisbe, and the audience will hear the duke say something kinder.
Key Takeaways
- The company mourns its star: Without Bottom there is no Pyramus and no play; the workmen’s praise of him is the play’s warmest tribute.
- Bottom keeps his secret: The man who could not stop talking will not say a word of the night; the wonders stay with him.
- The play is preferred: Their entertainment has been chosen for the wedding; the mechanicals’ plot resolves in step with the lovers’ and the fairies’.
- A bridge to Act 5: The scene moves the play from wood to palace, and its last orders – beards, ribbons, no onions – prepare the performance to come.
Study Questions and Analysis
Why do the workmen think Bottom has been “transported”?
Because he vanished from the rehearsal in the wood with an ass’s head and has not been home since. Starveling’s word is the folklore word: to be transported was to be carried off by fairies, which is very nearly what happened. The workmen do not know that; they know only that their Pyramus went into a thicket and came out a monster, and that the play cannot go forward without him. Quince’s judgement that nobody in Athens can play the part but Bottom is, by this point, simply true.
The scene is the mechanicals’ equivalent of the lovers’ waking in the previous scene: a loss discovered at dawn and undone before the morning is out. It also does something for Bottom that the play has been building towards. Hazlitt (1817) began his account of the play by saying that Bottom the Weaver was a character that had not had justice done him; this scene does him justice from inside his own world, where he is the best wit and the best person, and where his absence is measured in sixpences a day. The workmen’s plot restores its own order and chaos by getting its leading man back.
Why does Bottom refuse to say what happened to him?
He says that if he told them he would be no true Athenian, which is not a reason so much as a way of not giving one. The audience has just heard him try, alone in the wood, to say what his dream was and fail three times; here, among his friends, he does not try at all. He promises wonders, promises to tell everything right as it fell out, and then tells them the duke has dined and gives orders about costumes.
Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!
(Quince, Act 4, Scene 2)
Shakespeare Retold (Modern Verse)
Bottom! Oh, what a wonderful day! What a happy time this is!
The refusal is in character. Bottom took the fairy world as a pleasant social occasion and asked no questions of it, and his discretion afterwards is the same instinct. It also serves the play. Nobody in Athens learns that the fairies exist – the lovers agree they dreamed, Titania is never told, and Bottom keeps his counsel – so the dreams and reality theme is completed by silence: the night leaves no witness who will speak. The ballad he planned in the wood is never mentioned again, and the wonders stay where they happened.
What does “our play is preferred” mean?
That Pyramus and Thisbe has been chosen. Bottom’s phrase, the short and the long, is his way of summarising: the duke has dined, the wedding is done, and their entertainment is on the list for the evening. In Act 5 Theseus will pick it from Philostrate’s list over the master of revels’ objections, so Bottom’s news is slightly ahead of the facts; but the workmen are summoned to the palace, and the play goes forward.
The orders that follow are a stage manager’s: costumes gathered, beards strung, pumps ribboned, parts looked over, Thisbe in clean linen, the lion’s nails left long for claws, and no onions or garlic so that the actors utter sweet breath. It is a comic inventory and a serious one, since every item is about what an audience will see and smell. The theme of art and theatre in the play runs through the workmen’s care for the surface of their show, and Bottom’s confidence that the court will call it a sweet comedy is the last thing said before the court sees it.
