A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Act 3 Scene 1
Another part of the wood.
Enter TITANIA, with her train
Since there was no set, the peaceful beauty of the setting must be created by the arrangement of the fairies on the stage, and by their song.
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 reremice 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.
Titania's decision to sleep informs the audience that night has fallen, and the scene is filled with reminders about the darkness and the inability of characters to see each other. Since the play was performed outdoors, in the light of the sun, the audience is always able to see the characters, even as they are unable to see one another.
The peaceful lullaby, banishing all ill intent and care, is counterpointed by the arrival of Oberon with the love potion. Titania's "sentinel" seems particularly ineffectual.
The Fairies sing
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
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;
Hence, you long-legged 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 may be sympathetic or enjoyable, but the trope here is a villainous one, recalling poisoners in other plays, such as Lucianus in Hamlet's play-within-a-play.
Titania never exits the stage, though her bower may be recessed or curtained off. Throughout the following action, either the bower or Titania herself remain visible to the audience. Shakespeare accomplishes a similar effect with Juliet's curtained bed in Romeo and Juliet 4.3-4.5.
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,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wak’st, 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 and Lysander's wrangling is gently and playfully worded, but the underlying negotiation can be quite charged. However innocent Lysander's desire to sleep beside her might be, it is loaded with sexual tension.
HERMIA
Be it so, Lysander. Find you out a bed;
For I upon this bank will rest my head.
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 argues that true lovers understand one another, implying that Hermia's hesitation calls her love into question.
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 interchainèd with an oath;
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bedroom me deny;
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
The encounter between Helena and Demetrius in 2.1 adds tension here: Lysander's romantic urging contains a threatening sexuality, and Hermia's insistence on proper behaviour also highlights her own vulnerability.
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.
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 pressed!
They sleep
Enter PUCK
Puck maintains the illusion of darkness, failing to see Titania, and not seeing the lovers until he stumbles upon them.
Puck's mis-identification implies that Lysander and Demetrius are similarly costumed, again suggesting that the two men are somehow interchangeable.
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?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear.
This is he, my master said,
Despisèd 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 wak’st, let love forbid
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.
By this point, the play is heaping with dramatic irony, as all the characters have only limited and partial understanding of the situation in which they find themselves, while the audience is in possession of all the relevant facts.
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,
For she hath blessèd and attractive eyes.
How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears.
If so, my eyes are oftener washed 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!
Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.
Lysander completes Helena's rhyme, suggesting that his waking, and the potion's effect, take place quite rapidly. In production, this moment may be drawn out, as the actor demonstrates falling in love.
Lysander's mention of his sword indicates that both he and Demetrius are armed, lending force to their threats both against each other and against the women.
The raven-dove comparison recycles traditional poetic images, but also reminds us that Helena is described as light-coloured and fair, whereas Hermia is darker of hair or complexion.
LYSANDER
[Awaking]
And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
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.
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 swayed,
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
And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
Love's stories written in love's richest book.
Helena justifiably assumes that Lysander is mocking her, though her offended reaction echoes her interaction with Demetrius in 2.1.
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,
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.
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 argues that having too much of something good can bring on hatred and disgust, and that people loathe vices or habits that they've abandoned, thus explaining and justifying his newfound hatred for Hermia.
LYSANDER
She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there,
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
Or as the heresies that men do leave
Are hated most of those they did deceive,
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's terrifying nightmare about being attacked by a serpent also suggests the sexual undertones and anxieties in the young lovers' relationships.
Convention and style tell us that the lovers will be fine, but the play repeatedly links love and sex with death and war, creating outsized emotions which can be played either for laughs or for genuine pathos, or alternate between the two.
HERMIA
[Awaking]
Help me, Lysander, help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
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!
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.
Exit