A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 1 Scene 1

Now, fair Hippolyta, our wedding day

is coming up fast. Four happy days will bring

a new moon — but how slowly

this old moon fades! She's holding back what I want,

like a stepmother or a widow

slowly draining a young man's inheritance.

Four days will soon sink into night.

Four nights will dream the time away.

And then the moon, like a silver bow

newly drawn in the sky, will look down on the night

of our wedding.

Go, Philostrate,

stir the young people of Athens into celebration.

Wake up the lively, quick spirit of fun.

Send gloom off to funerals —

that pale character isn't wanted at our festivities.

Hippolyta, I courted you with my sword

and won your love by doing you harm. (He conquered her people and took her prisoner. This is the play's idea of a happy couple.)

But I'll marry you in a different key —

with ceremony, spectacle and celebration.

Happiness to Theseus, our famous duke!

Thank you, Egeus. What's your news?

I come here furious, with a complaint

against my own child, my daughter Hermia.

Step forward, Demetrius. — My noble lord,

this man has my permission to marry her.

Step forward, Lysander. — And, gracious duke,

this man has bewitched my child's heart.

You, Lysander — you've given her poems

and swapped love-tokens with my daughter.

You've sung at her window by moonlight

in a faked voice, with verses of faked love,

and stamped your image on her imagination

with bracelets of your hair, rings, trinkets, novelties,

knick-knacks, little gifts, flowers, sweets — all of them messengers

with a powerful hold over inexperienced young people.

You've cunningly stolen my daughter's heart

and turned the obedience she owes me

into stubborn defiance. And, gracious duke,

if she won't agree here in front of Your Grace

to marry Demetrius,

I claim the ancient right of Athens:

that as she's my property, I may dispose of her

either to this gentleman

or to her death, exactly as our law

provides for such a case. (He is asking the state to kill his daughter for choosing the wrong man. The play never quite recovers from this opening.)

What do you say, Hermia? Think carefully, girl.

Your father should be like a god to you —

the man who made your beauty; a man

to whom you're no more than a shape in wax

which he stamped, and which it's in his power

to leave as it is or to deface.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

So is Lysander.

In himself, yes.

But in this matter, lacking your father's approval,

the other man has to count as worthier.

I wish my father could see with my eyes.

Rather, your eyes must look with his judgment.

I beg Your Grace to forgive me.

I don't know what makes me so bold,

or whether it's proper for a modest girl

to argue her case in company like this.

But I beg Your Grace to tell me

the worst that can happen to me

if I refuse to marry Demetrius.

Either execution, or swearing off

the company of men forever.

So question your own desires, Hermia.

Consult your youth, examine your feelings,

and ask whether — if you refuse your father's choice —

you could bear a nun's habit,

shut away forever in a shadowy convent,

living out your life as a childless sister,

chanting thin hymns to the cold, barren moon.

Three times blessed are those who master their desires

enough to make that virgin journey.

But happier on earth is the rose that's distilled into perfume

than the one that withers on its virgin stem,

growing, living and dying alone.

Then I'll grow, live and die that way, my lord,

before I'll hand over the ownership of myself

to this man, whose unwanted authority

my soul refuses to accept.

Take time to think. And by the next new moon —

the day my love and I are joined

in a permanent bond —

on that day, either prepare to die

for disobeying your father,

or to marry Demetrius as he wishes,

or to swear at Diana's altar

to a life of austerity and celibacy forever.

Give in, sweet Hermia. — And Lysander, drop

your cracked claim in favour of my solid right.

You have her father's love, Demetrius.

Let me have Hermia's. Why don't you marry him?

Insolent Lysander! True, he has my love,

and my love will hand over what's mine to him.

And she is mine — and all my rights over her

I hereby transfer to Demetrius.

My lord, I'm as well born as he is,

as wealthy, and I love her more than he does.

My prospects are every bit as good as his —

better, if anything.

And what outweighs all this boasting:

beautiful Hermia loves me.

So why shouldn't I press my claim?

Demetrius — and I'll say it to his face —

courted Nedar's daughter Helena

and won her heart. And the poor girl is besotted,

devotedly besotted, worshipping

this stained and unfaithful man.

I admit I've heard as much,

and meant to speak to Demetrius about it,

but being too taken up with my own business

I forgot. — But, Demetrius, come here.

And Egeus, come with me.

I have some private instruction for you both.

As for you, Hermia — prepare yourself

to fit your wishes to your father's will,

or the law of Athens hands you over —

and we can't soften it in any way —

to death, or to a vow of celibacy.

Come, Hippolyta. — What's wrong, my love? (She has said nothing since the argument began, and says nothing now. Directors have made whole productions out of that silence.)

Demetrius, Egeus — come along.

I need you both for some business

concerning the wedding, and to discuss

something that closely concerns you.

We follow you dutifully and gladly.

What is it, my love? Why is your face so pale?

How is it the roses in it fade so quickly?

Probably for want of rain — which I could easily

supply from the storm in my eyes.

Alas — from everything I've ever read,

everything I've heard in stories or histories,

the course of true love never did run smooth.

Either the lovers were of different rank—

How cruel! Too highborn to be tied to someone low.

Or else badly matched in age—

How spiteful! Too old to be engaged to someone young.

Or else it depended on relatives' choice—

What hell — to choose your love with someone else's eyes!

Or, if the two did freely choose each other,

then war or death or illness besieged it,

making it as brief as a sound,

as quick as a shadow, as short as a dream,

as fleeting as lightning on a coal-black night

which in one flash lights up heaven and earth —

and before you can even say 'Look!'

the jaws of darkness swallow it up.

That's how fast bright things fall into ruin.

If true lovers have always been thwarted,

then it must be a decree of fate.

So let's teach ourselves patience through this trial,

because it's a standard obstacle,

as much a part of love as thoughts and dreams and sighs

and wishes and tears — love's poor attendants.

Good reasoning. So listen to me, Hermia.

I have a widowed aunt, a wealthy woman

with a large income and no children.

Her house is twenty miles from Athens,

and she treats me as her only son.

There, gentle Hermia, I can marry you —

and the harsh Athenian law

can't follow us there. So if you love me,

slip out of your father's house tomorrow night,

and in the wood three miles outside the town —

where I once met you with Helena

to celebrate a May morning —

I'll be waiting for you.

My good Lysander!

I swear to you by Cupid's strongest bow,

by his best golden-tipped arrow,

by the innocence of Venus's doves,

by whatever binds souls and makes love flourish,

and by the fire that burned the queen of Carthage

when she saw the false Trojan sailing away,

by all the promises men have ever broken —

more of them than women have ever made —

at the place you've named,

tomorrow I truly will meet you.

Keep your promise, love. — Look, here comes Helena.

God bless you, fair Helena! Where are you off to?

You call me fair? Take that back.

Demetrius loves your beauty. Oh, lucky beauty!

Your eyes are guiding stars, and your voice's sweet music

is more tuneful to a shepherd than a lark

when the wheat is green and the hawthorn is budding.

Sickness is catching. If only looks were too —

I'd catch yours, Hermia, before I left.

My ear would catch your voice, my eye your eye,

my tongue the sweet music of yours.

If the world were mine — except for Demetrius —

I'd give all the rest to be transformed into you.

Teach me how you look at him, and by what trick

you control the movements of Demetrius's heart.

I frown at him and he loves me anyway.

If only your frowns could teach my smiles that trick!

I curse him and he gives me love.

If only my prayers could produce such affection!

The more I hate him, the more he follows me.

The more I love him, the more he hates me.

His foolishness isn't my fault, Helena.

No — only your beauty's fault. I wish it were mine!

Take comfort — he won't see my face again.

Lysander and I are running away from here.

Before I ever saw Lysander,

Athens seemed like paradise to me.

What powers must my love have,

that he's turned a heaven into a hell!

Helena, we'll tell you our plan.

Tomorrow night, when the moon looks at

her silver face in the watery mirror

and decorates the grass with liquid pearl —

the hour that always hides eloping lovers —

we've arranged to slip out through the gates of Athens.

And in the wood, where you and I so often

used to lie on beds of pale primroses,

pouring out our sweet secrets to each other —

that's where Lysander and I will meet.

And from there we'll turn our backs on Athens

to find new friends and unfamiliar company.

Goodbye, sweet playmate. Pray for us —

and good luck bring you your Demetrius.

Keep your promise, Lysander. We must starve our eyes

of the sight of each other until midnight tomorrow.

I will, my Hermia.

Helena, goodbye.

May Demetrius dote on you as you dote on him!

How much happier some people are than others!

All over Athens I'm considered as beautiful as she is.

But what good is that? Demetrius doesn't think so.

He refuses to know what everyone else knows.

And just as he goes wrong, doting on Hermia's eyes,

so do I, admiring his qualities.

Things cheap and worthless, with nothing to them,

love can transform into beauty and worth.

Love doesn't look with the eyes but with the mind,

and that's why winged Cupid is painted blind.

Love's mind has no trace of judgment either.

Wings and no eyes stand for reckless haste,

and that's why Love is called a child —

because he's so often fooled in his choices.

Just as mischievous boys break promises while playing,

the boy Love breaks his word everywhere.

Before Demetrius ever saw Hermia's eyes

he rained down promises that he was mine alone.

And when that hail felt a little heat from Hermia,

it dissolved, and all those promises melted away.

I'll go and tell him that Hermia is running away.

Then he'll chase her into the wood

tomorrow night — and for this information,

if all I get is a thank-you, it's cost me dearly.

But I mean to make my suffering worth something:

I'll get to see him going there and coming back. (She is betraying her best friend for the chance to watch a man chase someone else. Every character in this play is ridiculous about love, and she knows it and does it anyway.)