LYSANDER     Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena. Enter HELENA. HERMIA         God speed, fair Helena. Whither away? HELENA         Call you me fair? That fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair! Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongue’s sweet air More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.        (1.1.179-185) Keep promise, love, a […]

HERMIA                     My good Lysander, I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus’ doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burned the Carthage queen When the false Trojan under sail was seen, By all the vows that ever men have broke (In number more than ever women spoke), […]

LYSANDER     A good persuasion; therefore hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager, Of great revenue, and she hath no child. From Athens is her house remote seven leagues, And she respects me as her only son. There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee, And to that place the sharp Athenian law Cannot pursue us. If thou lov’st me, then Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night; […]

HERMIA         If then true lovers have been ever crossed, It stands as an edict in destiny. Then let us teach our trial patience Because it is a customary cross, As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.   (1.1.150-155) It sounds a bit as if Hermia’s just giving up, or else she’s slightly high on this idea that it’s […]

LYSANDER     Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold’, The jaws of darkness do devour it […]

LYSANDER     How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast? HERMIA         Belike for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. LYSANDER     Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth; […]

THESEUS        Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love? Demetrius and Egeus, go along. I must employ you in some business Against our nuptial, and confer with you Of something nearly that concerns yourselves. EGEUS With duty and desire we follow you. (Exeunt [all but] Lysander and Hermia.)     (1.1.122-127) Theseus expedites what is effectively a scene change: come, my Hippolyta. I’m in charge here, as you […]

THESEUS        But Demetrius, come, And come, Egeus; you shall go with me. I have some private schooling for you both. For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your father’s will; Or else, the law of Athens yields you up (Which by no means we may extenuate) To death, or to a vow of single life.  (1.1.114-121) Theseus defuses […]

LYSANDER     Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head, Made love to Nedar’s daughter Helena And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes, Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry Upon this spotted and inconstant man. THESEUS        I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; But being over-full of self-affairs, My mind did lose it.   (1.1.106-114) […]

LYSANDER     I am, my lord, as well derived as he, As well possessed; my love is more than his, My fortunes every way as fairly ranked (If not with vantage) as Demetrius’; And (which is more than all these boasts can be) I am belov’d of beauteous Hermia. Why should not I then prosecute my right?           (1.1.99-105) Lysander seems more worried about being […]