“Hark!” said I, stepping into the clearing and waving my puppet stick in a grand flourish. “What pathetic creature cries out for mercy to end its consumptive suffering?” The five turned to regard me.
“It is I,” said a tall fellow of perhaps thirty summers like myself. “Snug, the joiner. I play a lion.”
“Who are you?” said a younger fellow, just coming into his beard, who, strangely enough, wore a woman’s veil with his tradesman’s togs.
“I am Pocket of Dog Snogging,” said I, with great pomp. “Called the black fool.”
“He’s tiny,” said a balding fellow on the end.
“I think he is an elf,” said the director of the troupe, a sturdy fellow with a headful of curls going gray. I noted his position because he carried a scroll.
“But it is daytime,” said a third, a curly-haired fellow a few years my senior, dressed as roughly as the others except for a finely woven waistcoat. “The people of the wood are not about in the day.”
“The Puck goes about in the day,” said Snug, who would be a lion.
“Speak there, traveler,” said a fourth fellow, tall, thin, and long of foot, wearing a hat of poorly tanned doeskin so that the earflaps, meant to be tied under the chin, jutted into the air like the ears of a confused hare. “Are you wood folk or town folk?”
“Throw him a sock, Francis,” said the director. “I heard that elfs can’t resist picking up a sock.”
The young bloke in the veil quickly pulled off a shoe and tossed a dirty sock at my feet. “There you go.”
“Not an elf,” said I.
“But he’s so tiny,” said the bald fellow, who was unwittingly close to having his brains scrambled by a sharp blow from a puppet stick.
It is fair, I suppose, to say that I am not a large fellow. In fact, while not actually tiny, I am fetchingly compact of structure. Not twisted of limb nor truncated of torso like some troll, but, in fact, composed with fearful symmetry—like the swiftest of horsemen—the very picture of perfection, if you imagine you are seeing me from farther away, and then there’s a pleasant surprise when I arrive before you expected.
“Pardon my cohort, good sir,” said the fellow in the fine waistcoat. “Clearly you are a gentleman of distinction and skill.” He gestured frantically to the others at my motley and puppet stick. “A player.”
“I am a fool by training,” said I. Under normal circumstances I might have punctuated the announcement of my trade with a backflip or a bit of juggling, but I was still weak with hunger and light-headed from my injury.
“And I am Nick Bottom, the weaver,” said he, explaining the fine waistcoat with a word. “We are players ourselves. A company newly formed to perform an amusement for the duke’s wedding, four days hence.”
“The Mechanicals!” announced the director. They all clicked their heels and bowed.
“So a bit of Greek drama, is it?” said the puppet Jones in a smaller version of my voice. “The old ‘kill your da, shag your mum, and blind yourself before the final curtain’?”
“No,” said Bottom. “We shall perform the most laughable tragedy and comic travesty of Pyramus and Frisby.”
“Thisby,” corrected the fellow with the scroll.
“Pyramus and Thisby,” said Bottom. “Now, each man step forward as I call his name and present dignity and persona dramatic for this master lesbian, who can be identified as thus by his garments and puppet.”
“Actually—” I began, but the players had lined up and Bottom proceeded.
“Peter Quince, the carpenter, step forward.”
The graying fellow I thought the director stepped up with his scroll. “I present the chorus, a narrator and teller of prologues, epilogues, and assorted expositions; also the father of Pyramus.” He bowed.
“Do not bow,” said Bottom. “You have done nothing yet. Now, Snout.”
The tall fellow with the ridiculous doeskin hat came forth. “Tom Snout, tinker. I present Thisby’s mother. Also wall.” He curtsied.
“Don’t curtsy,” said Bottom.
“No?” said Snout, an ersatz bunny ear raised in curiosity.
“Unprofessional,” explained Peter Quince, the director and carpenter.
“Sorry,” said Snout, who curtsied and backed away.
“Wall?” I asked.
Drawing figures in the air, Bottom said, “Pyramus, a brave and manly hero, and Thisby—”
“Most beautiful maid,” said the young one, tittering behind his veil. “I am Francis Flute, bellows mender.” He curtsied.
“Pyramus and Thisby are lovers,” said Bottom. “Most unapproved lovers of two feuding families, whose houses share a wall. Forbidden to see each other, the lovers perpetrate their romance through a cranny in a wall.”
“Presenting wall,” said Stupid Hat, with a curtsy. He held out his fingers in a loop to present the aforementioned cranny in the wall. “Presenting cranny.”
“So the lovers have each other off through a chink in the wall?” I inquired.
“A fanciful romance to be sure,” said Bottom, “but more suited to Snout’s talents than a dragon, which was the other story we had. But the lovers will but whisper and fling soft woo through the chink.”
“Well that won’t do, they’ll need to chip the cranny out a bit wider, and do a bit of balancing on chairs,” said I. “But once done, a dramatic and credible wall bonking will surely make the show.”
“Oh, bravo!” said Peter Quince. And they all clapped politely.
“Oh, good sir,” said Bottom. “I knew as soon as I saw your fool’s motley you would bring skill and grand disaster to our play.”
“Indeed,” said I. “I will lend thee my mastery of stagecraft and verse when my strength returns.” I looked about for any sign of food and spied a pile of rucksacks by a large boulder. “I will need the help of my apprentice, and as we have been traveling, any food and drink you might have.”
“Yes,” said Peter Quince. “Right here.” He waved toward the rucksacks.
“Drool,” I called. “Come out, please, and meet—”
“Hello,” said the dim giant as he trudged out of the brush. The Mechanicals were awed. Stupid Hat gasped at Drool’s sheer taurine enormity. Drool approximated the size of two well-fed men-at-arms stuffed haphazardly into a single skin without leaving room for a full serving of brains.
“Zounds,” said the bald one. “He’s fucking huge.”
“Well observed,” said I.
“Well, why then are you so small?” said the shiny-pated toss-bobbin.
“You are an elf, aren’t you?” said Peter Quince. “Francis, throw him another sock.”
“I don’t have another sock,” said the boy with the veil.
Quince winced. “You only wore one sock?”
“I didn’t know there was going to be a bloody elf test,” said the lad.
“I have a sock,” said Snug the lion, revealing a vacant grin as he held up a tattered woolen sock.
Bottom said, “Snug, why is your sock not in your shoe with your foot?”
“I was afraid I was going to be late. I thought I would put it on when I got here.”
I turned to address my apprentice. “Drool, we have at last found your tribe. Gentlemen, this is Drool, apprentice fool and onetime minister of wank to the lands of England, France, Burgundy, Brittany, Belgium, and sometimes Spain.”
“Charmed,” said Drool, reaching down the front of his canvas sailor’s trousers to give a demonstration.
“Perhaps just a bow, lad,” I instructed.
“Pleased to be of your acquaintance,” said Drool, offering his hand to the bald fellow.
“Robin Starveling,” said baldy as he backed away, hiding his own hand behind his back. “Tailor.”
“Well,” said I. “Now that we are all mates in the service of the stage, why don’t you show us to the food, and while Drool and I refresh ourselves, you gents can run through your lines and I will give keen and critical review? Drool can load a
great battery of gas he can set alight at intermission.”
“I’m not giving up my lunch to another thieving elf,” said Robin Starveling.
“Still not an elf,” said I.
“Aye, can’t trust an elf far as you can throw them,” said Snout (Stupid Hat) the tinker. “Rascals every one.”
“The last one stole my best hat and touched up my wife by the millpond,” said Snug the joiner. “She’s been useless for wifely duties ever since.”
“Begging pardon, sirrah,” said Bottom, doffing his hat. “Some in our troupe have been much abused by one of the wood folk, a jester as well, called Robin Goodfellow.”