EGEUS Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes

And interchanged love-tokens with my child;

Thou hast, by moonlight, at her window sung,

With faining voice, verses of feigning love,

And stolen the impression of her fantasy;

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,

Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats (messengers

Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth),

With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,

Turned her obedience, which is due to me,

To stubborn harshness.        (1.1.28-38)

Tricky role, Egeus, readily trimmed (and so even harder)—here he has to go from nothing to intense pain and anger, in this odd, obsessive little catalogue of parental anxiety, control, fear, and anticipated loss. At least initially, it seems laughable: thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes and interchanged love tokens with my child. You’ve been writing her poems! POEMS! And all those gifts, they might seem trivial (and he’s going to go on to elaborate), but the interchange is the important bit, Hermia’s given him gifts too, and an audience in the 1590s would understand that as contract forming, exactly what a couple would do to create an expectation of marriage, the sort of evidence that could be brought in a court of law. Lysander’s attentions have been reciprocated and that’s what really worries Egeus. Thou hast, by moonlight, at her window sung—a swift recollection of Romeo and Juliet, written and performed in parallel with this play—with faining voice, verses of feigning love. It’s all been a performance, SO ‘romantic’, telling her what she wants to hear—and so stolen the impression of her fantasy. Egeus imagines Hermia’s imagination as soft, impressionable, like wax (such softness associated with youth, and with women)—and it’s Lysander who’s made an impression, stamped himself into her heart. Moonlight, fantasy, theft; those collocations matter.

Then it gets a bit silly, but also more sinister, Egeus has been spying, taking notes, maintaining a list of these gifts, which seem so trivial, bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits, knacks, trifles, all the little, light-weight things that make up a shared history, a relationship—this is EVIDENCE, he cries, trifles light as air… and nosegays—he’s given her flowers!—and sweetmeats (messengers of strong prevailment in unhardened youth)—flowers and chocolate!* who could resist?? not my daughter, she’s too unworldly! With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart—you’ve stolen her love, like a common thief, and yes, cunning does have the suggestion of enchantment, as well as cleverness. I’ve got your number, boy, I think there’s something dodgy going on here, and—even more—you have turned her obedience, which is due to me, to stubborn harshness. She won’t do what I say anymore! She won’t listen! She won’t talk to me! (And I’m worried that she doesn’t love me anymore, is perhaps implicit.)

It’s interesting to compare Egeus with Capulet; he’s far less rounded as a character, but there’s not just fussiness and patriarchal control here, or homosocial bluster, there’s humanity in the pettiness and precision, the paranoia. I think I’ve lost my daughter.

*yes I know this is anachronistic, I’m stretching the point; comfits, suckets, sugar plums, and marchpane wouldn’t quite have the same resonance here