HERMIA         The sun was not so true unto the day

As he to me. Would he have stolen away

From sleeping Hermia? I’ll believe as soon

This whole earth may be bored, and that the moon

May through the centre creep, and so displease

Her brother’s noontide with th’antipodes.

It cannot be but thou hast murdered him.

So should a murderer look: so dead, so grim.         (3.2.50-57)

Lysander just wouldn’t leave me! protests Hermia. The sun was not so true unto the day as he to me. That’s how true he was. IS. (It is, of course, the middle of the night, no sun to be seen.) Would he have stolen away from sleeping Hermia?No! Unthinkable! (Hermia is probably right.) Then she comes up with a mind-bending conceit: I’ll believe as soon this whole earth may be bored—drilled, right through the middle—and that the moon may through the centre creep, a straight line, through to the farthest side, and so displease her brother’s noontide with th’antipodes. Hermia imagines the moon tunnelling her way through to the other side (not necessarily Australia or even New Zealand, alas, as yet unknown to Europeans) popping up to annoy her brother the sun, surprise! just when he’s at his height. And for just a moment, the earth becomes a bead, a pearl, suspended in space on an invisible thread (of sunbeams, moonbeams, starlight?), its axis hollowed out, the moon no longer a celestial body but (temporarily at least) concealed inside. Deeply strange, and wonderful. Lysander leaving me is as likely as THAT.

It cannot be but thou hast murdered him. That’s the ONLY possible explanation, you’ve killed him and done something with his body. After all, so should a murderer look: so dead, so grim. You LOOK like a killer, ghastly, pale. You’re HIDEOUS.