[Exit an Attendant.] Shout within. Wind horns. The lovers all start up.
THESEUS Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past.
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
LYSANDER Pardon, my lord. [The lovers kneel.]
THESEUS I pray you all, stand up.
I know you two are rival enemies.
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy
To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity? (4.1.138-144)
Lots of noise, shouting, horns, and the lovers wake, stand up, confused, shocked. And Theseus gets to be smoothly arch, facetious even: good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past. Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? Heeeeyyy! What’s going on? St Valentine’s Day—when birds were believed to choose their mates—was months ago, have these strange birds only just got together now, in midsummer? (This too can be directed partly at Hippolyta, look at me, I don’t just do dogs, I’m also the cool, witty guy who can be a bit sarcastic, a bit playful, not just The Duke. Look at me bantering with the young ones!) Pardon, my lord! Lysander is the only one who dares speak as, presumably, they all fall to their knees to ask for forgiveness and clemency, as well as to show deference to the duke. I pray you all, stand up. What’s coming next? How much trouble are they in? But Theseus can be continuing the light touch, as well as genuinely asking for information. What’s happened here? I know you two—Lysander and Demetrius—are rival enemies. You’re meant to HATE each other! So how comes this gentle concord in the world, that hatred is so far from jealousy to sleep by hate, and fear no enmity? You don’t look like rivals to me—you’ve all been bedding down together, apparently without a care in the world, not at all worried that one of you might, I don’t know, cut the other’s throat while he was sleeping? Because that was the kind of thing that seemed possible last time I saw you together. (This is even funnier if all the lovers have been snuggled together, rather than paired off.) What IS this?
