A Midsummer Night's Dream

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ACT II SCENE II	Another part of the wood.
	Enter TITANIA, with her train
TITANIA	Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
	Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
	Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
	Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
	To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
	The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
	At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
	Then to your offices and let me rest.
	The Fairies sing
	'You spotted snakes with double tongue,
	Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;	10
	Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
	Come not near our fairy queen.'
	'Philomel, with melody
	Sing in our sweet lullaby;
	Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
	Never harm,
	Nor spell nor charm,
	Come our lovely lady nigh;
	So, good night, with lullaby.'
	'Weaving spiders, come not here;	20
	Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!
	Beetles black, approach not near;
	Worm nor snail, do no offence.
	Philomel, with melody, &c.'
Fairy	Hence, away! now all is well:
	One aloof stand sentinel.
	Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps.
	Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA's eyelids
OBERON	What thou seest when thou dost wake,
	Do it for thy true-love take,
	Love and languish for his sake:
	Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,	30
	Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
	In thy eye that shall appear
	When thou wakest, it is thy dear:
	Wake when some vile thing is near.
	Exit
	Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA
LYSANDER	Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;
	And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:
	We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
	And tarry for the comfort of the day.
HERMIA	Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;
	For I upon this bank will rest my head.	40
LYSANDER	One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
	One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.
HERMIA	Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
	Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.
LYSANDER	O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
	Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
	I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit
	So that but one heart we can make of it;
	Two bosoms interchained with an oath;
	So then two bosoms and a single troth.	50
	Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
	For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
HERMIA	Lysander riddles very prettily:
	Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
	If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
	But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
	Lie further off; in human modesty,
	Such separation as may well be said
	Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
	So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:	60
	Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
LYSANDER	Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I;
	And then end life when I end loyalty!
	Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!
HERMIA	With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!
	They sleep.
	Enter PUCK.
PUCK	Through the forest have I gone.
	But Athenian found I none,
	On whose eyes I might approve
	This flower's force in stirring love.
	Night and silence.--Who is here?	70
	Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
	This is he, my master said,
	Despised the Athenian maid;
	And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
	On the dank and dirty ground.
	Pretty soul! she durst not lie
	Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
	Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
	All the power this charm doth owe.
	When thou wakest, let love forbid	80
	Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
	So awake when I am gone;
	For I must now to Oberon.
	Exit
	Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running.
HELENA	Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
DEMETRIUS	I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
HELENA	O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so.
DEMETRIUS	Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.
	Exit
HELENA	O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
	The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
	Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;	90
	For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
	How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:
	If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.
	No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;
	For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
	Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
	Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.
	What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
	Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
	But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!	100
	Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
	Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.
LYSANDER	Awaking.
	Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
	That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
	Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
	Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
HELENA	Do not say so, Lysander; say not so
	What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
	Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.	110
LYSANDER	Content with Hermia! No; I do repent
	The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
	Not Hermia but Helena I love:
	Who will not change a raven for a dove?
	The will of man is by his reason sway'd;	115
	And reason says you are the worthier maid.
	Things growing are not ripe until their season
	So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
	And touching now the point of human skill,
	Reason becomes the marshal to my will	120
	And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
	Love's stories written in love's richest book.
HELENA	Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
	When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
	Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,	125
	That I did never, no, nor never can,
	Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
	But you must flout my insufficiency?
	Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
	In such disdainful manner me to woo.	130
	But fare you well: perforce I must confess
	I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
	O, that a lady, of one man refused.
	Should of another therefore be abused!
	Exit
LYSANDER	She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there:	135
	And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
	For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
	The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
	Or as tie heresies that men do leave
	Are hated most of those they did deceive,	140
	So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
	Of all be hated, but the most of me!
	And, all my powers, address your love and might
	To honour Helen and to be her knight!
	Exit
HERMIA	Awaking.
	To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!	145
	Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
	Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
	Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
	And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
	Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!	150
	What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
	Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;
	Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
	No? then I well perceive you all not nigh
	Either death or you I'll find immediately.	155
	Exit

Next: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3, Scene 1

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Explanatory Notes for Act 2, Scene 2

From Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer-Night's Dream. Ed. Katharine Lee Bates. Boston: Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn.

"Heere is the queene of Fairye,
With harpe, and pipe, and symphonye,
Dwellynge in this place."— Chaucer's Sir Thopas.

1. roundel. Meaning what? Cf.:—

"To shew your pomp, you'd have your daughters and maids
Dance o'er the fields like faies to church, this frost.
I'll have no rondels, I, in the queen's paths."
Jonson's Tale of a Tub.

"In airie rankes
Tread Roundelayes upon the silver sands."
Browne's Pastorals.

3. cankers. Canker-worms, Cf.:—

"As killing as the canker to the rose."
Milton's Lycidas.

"No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun.
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud."
Sonnets, XXXV. 1-4.

"Once a bat and ever a bat, — a rere-mouse,
And bird of twilight," — Jonson's New Inn.

7. quaint. Meaning what?

9-24. What constitutes the charm of the song? Why is the name Philomel better here than nightingale? What "spell" threatens the Fairy Queen, even while her tiny subjects sing? What are the objects of fairy aversion, and why? What are the most graphic epithets? The latest envoy from fairyland suggests a special reason for the elfin dread of spiders:—

"A spider sewed at night
Without a light
Upon an arc of white.
If ruff it was of dame
Or shroud of gnome,
Himself, himself inform." — Emily Dickinson.

35-65. Notice the grace of the opening quatrain. What alliterations? What expression of peculiar beauty in this first stanza? How does this scene between the lovers compare for poetic charm, with that in Act I? What courtesies are interchanged? What is the meaning of line 46 ?

66-83. What is the musical effect when a fairy takes up the strain? Is Puck naturally a blunderer? What words of his now bring the scene vividly to mind? What would be the form and color of Athenian garments? Where has the word weed in the sense of clothing, been used in this act before? What is the modern survival? Scan verse 73.

88. Fond chase—

"Art thou gone in haste?
I'll not forsake thee;
Runnest thou ne'er so fast,
I'll overtake thee:
Over the dales, over the downs
Through the green meadows,
From the fields through the towns
To the dim shadows.

All along the plain,
To the low fountains,
Up and down again
From the high mountains;
Echo then shall again
Tell her I follow,
And the floods to the woods
Carry my hullo, hullo."
- Webster.

99. Sphery. Meaning what?

108-110. What of the poetic values here? Is there any touch of high poetry in the remainder of the scene?

116. Note the fairy irony of the situation.

119. Meaning what?

123. Is Helena perhaps aware of having fairly exposed herself to mockery?

129. Is Helena sobbing here, or is this resort to repetition a trait of character? What instances of such repetition earlier in the scene? What moods or what characteristics are so hinted?

142. "Sweet love, I see, changing his property.
Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate."
Richard II, III. ii. 135-136.

145-156. How is Hermia's dream appropriate and her action characteristic?

How to cite the explanatory notes:

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. Katharine Lee Bates. Boston: Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn, 1895. Shakespeare Online. 20 Dec. 2009. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/mids_2_2.html >.

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