A Midsummer Night’s Dream Metaphors and Similes Quotes

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in
Another moon. But, oh, methinks how slow
This old moon wanes. She lingers my desires,
Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. The Duke of Athens Theseus comments to Hippolya about their approaching wedding day in these opening lines of the play. He is impatient for their "nuptial hour" to arrive, complaining that time is passing too slowly. He uses the moon as a metaphor for his frustrated desires. He compares the slowly waning moon to a greedy aging stepmother or widow spending her husband’s fortune before her son can inherit it (examples of similes).

And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Hippolyta is referring to her upcoming wedding in four days time. Using a simile, she likens the waning moon to a silver bow bent into a curve in the sky and looking down on her wedding celebration. Personification is used here also, as Hippolyta visualizes the face of the moon as that of Diana watching her marry Theseus. In Roman mythology Diana was the goddess of the moon and of the hunt and is often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and quiver full of arrows.

Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword
And won thy love doing thee injuries,
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Theseus defeated and conquered Amazon Queen Hippolyta in battle and she is now betrothed to him. The Amazons were a mythical nation of warrior women, who were courageous and independent and the archenemies of the ancient Greeks. But in Theseus’ world it is the men who take charge and women are property and prizes to be won in battle. He uses verbal irony when he says that he won Hippolyta’s love by causing her injury, as hurting someone does not normally endear them to you. Theseus has now been transformed from warrior king and Hippolyta’s enemy to her lover. He employs a musical metaphor when he talks of wooing her with his sword and now wedding her "in another key" – with pomp and festivities and celebration instead of war. There is a subtle foreshadowing in this passage that love in the play has to be fought for and won. The uneasy union of Theseus and Hippolyta, brought about by enslavement, is also foreshadowing of the dispute between Oberon and Titania, their counterparts in the fairy world.

What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid:
To you your father should be as a god,
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. The young Athenian woman Hermia has been told by her father Egeus that she must marry Demetrius. In this passage the Duke Theseus, who is the authority in the city of Athens, upholds her father’s demand. Using a series of similes the Duke tells her that her father is "as a god" to her and she is to him "as a form of wax" to be shaped by him. Theseus is asserting a father’s complete power over his daughter and that she should obey him. As his daughter’s creator Egeus can do what he wishes with her, even "disfigure" her, according to Theseus.

Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Theseus tells Hermia that she should marry Demetrius. He says that those who master their passions and remain virgins are three times blessed. But, using a flower metaphor, he suggests that a woman who is married and deflowered ("the rose distill’d") is happier than one who remains a virgin. The virgin simply grows, lives and withers on the stem.

So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his Lordship, whose unwishèd yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Hermia shows herself to be one of Shakespeare’s strong women as she defies the wishes of her father Egeus and Duke Theseus. They have commanded that she marry Demetrius instead of Lysander. In a powerful expression of women’s autonomy, she declares that she will not give up the ownership of her virginity to her father. Nor will her soul give her father sovereignty to command her to enter an unwanted marriage. Using a metaphor, she compares marriage to Demetrius to an "unwishèd yoke" – a pair of oxen harnessed togeher under the yoke of enforced marriage. She says that she would rather die or become a nun than marry Demetrius.

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.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Lysander asks Hermia why she is so upset. He uses a flower metaphor to compare her pale cheeks to roses which have faded. Hermia, also speaking metaphorically, says that it cannot be for lack of rain because there is a tempest in her eyes. She is upset because she has been told that she must marry Demetrius or become a nun. For she loves Lysander and wants to marry him. The word "tempest" is foreshadowing of Hermia’s strong and fiery personality. One of the strongest female characters in the play, she is someone who follows her heart.

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 up.
So quick bright things come to confusion.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Lysander is discussing true love, whose course, he has decided, "never did run smooth." In this speech about the transience of love, he lists the obstacles that can keep lovers apart, including war and death and sickness. He uses a series of metaphors of striking metaphors to liken the brevity of love to a shadow, dream, and lighting bolt, briefly illuminating the dark night, then suddenly being devoured by the jaws of darkness. The illusory nature of love is mentioned when it is compared it to a dream, and also to a "quick bright thing" that ends in confusion.

Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue’s sweet air
More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Helena uses metaphors to compare Hermia’s eyes to stars that guide ships at night and her tongue to the sweet music of the lark as heard by the shepherd. She is referring to her beautiful friend’s abilities to attract and enchant Demetrius. Her praise of Hermia’s beauty and the manner in which she belittles herself and compares herself unfavorably to her friend seems excessive. This arises from Helena’s insecurities and low self-esteem.

Tomorrow night when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
(A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal),
Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Lysander reveals his elopement plans with Hermia to Helena. He tells of their intention to steal away at night to his aunt’s house outside of Athens. Painting a romantic picture of them escaping from the city by moonlight, he imagines the goddess Phoebe looking down at her reflection in the water and decorating the grass with "liquid pearl" (dew drops). Her "silver visage" will both light and conceal the departure of Lysander and Hermia. This description is an extended metaphor for the moon, as seen through lovers’ eyes.

How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste.
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Helena delivers this moving monologue after Hermia and Lysander leave Athens to elope. She says that love blinds us from seeing the true nature of a person. What we really see is an illusion, for love is all in the head. She uses metaphors to compare love to a blind Cupid and also to a child, who is often deceived in the choices they make. Love has the power to transform people, she believes. It changes a person causing them to act irrationally. Helena is upset by the fact that her beloved Demetrius loves Hermia and not her. Although she is considered by many in Athens to be as beautiful as Hermia, Helena says that Demetrius cannot see this. For her part, Helena admits that Demetrius has "base and vile" qualities, but her blind love for him causes her to admire his qualities and see Demetrius as having "form and dignity" instead. Helen’s words about love not looking with the eyes turn out to be hilariously ironic. For in the end Puck proves the opposite to be true, spraying love potion into the eyes of the lovers who fall in love with the first creature they see! Helena’s monologue also foreshadows the blind love between Titania, Queen of the Fairies, who falls hopelessly for the donkey-headed Nick Bottom.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Helena is saying that love depends on one’s perception of another person. It does not use eyes to see the beloved, but the mind. Therefore love is blind – Cupid is sometimes depicted with a blindfold on. Here the name Cupid, son of Venus and Mars in classical mythology, is a metaphor for love itself. This passage is also foreshadowing of the blind love between the Fairy Queen Titania and the ass-headed Nick Bottom.

For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Helena speaks about Demetrius’ fickleness in love. Before he became attracted to Hermia, Helena reveals that he swore oaths that he belonged only to her. She uses a metaphor to compare his promises to showers of hail. When he looked into Hermia’s beautiful eyes, Helena claims that these promises melted away from the heat of his attraction for Hermia. Helena’s jealousy of Hermia is obvious from her angry words.

I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us. But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you an ‘t were any nightingale.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. In consideration of the ladies’ sensitivities, Bottom gives an assurance that he will temper his roar when playing the part of the lion. Using a simile, promises to make it as gentle as a "sucking dove" – this is most likely a malapropism for "suckling lamb." Bottom also uses verbal irony when he says he will "aggravate my voice." He of course means the opposite, that he will calm his voice. Here "aggravate" is a malapropism for "moderate."

The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 1. The fairy explains to Puck that she works for Titania, Queen of the Fairies. Her job is to collect dewdrops and hang them in every cowslip flower to make the natural world look bright and perfect for the Fairy Queen. The Fairy uses an eloquent metaphor to compare the dewrops to pearls. She refers to the cowslips as the Queen’s "pensioners" or bodyguards.

These are the forgeries of jealousy;
And never, since the middle summer’s spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d our sport.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 1. Titania uses a metaphor when she says that Oberon’s accusation that she is seeing other men is the "forgeries of jealousy." She dismisses his charge as a lie resulting from his jealousy over her keeping the Indian changeling child. Oberon’s behavior hasn’t allowed her and her fairies to carry out their special ring dances since the beginning of midsummer, she says.

Full often hath she gossiped by my side
And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
Marking th’ embarkèd traders on the flood,
When we have laughed to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 1. Titania is remembering the time she used spend with her human friend in India before she died. She uses a metaphor to compare the sails of the ships to the big, pregnant bellies of women. Titania is now caring for her friend’s child.

I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel – spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me. Only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 1. Helena literally throws herself at Demetrius, as she grovels to him and metaphorically calls herself his submissive "spaniel." Her absurd pleadings and willingness to humiliate and degrade herself reek of her desperate love. She says that the more he beats her, the more she will love him.

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 bed-room me deny,
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 2. In his declaration of love to Hermia, Lysander defends his request to sleep beside her as innocent. He uses metaphorical language to describe how their hearts are "knit" into one heart, two bodies "interchainèd" with vows of love. He uses wordplay to argue that it is not wrong for them to "lie" together as he didn’t "lie" when he pledged to marry her.

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.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 2. Lysander is not in his right mind because he is under the spell of a magic love potion. As a result he has dramatically switched his affections from Hermia to Helena. Ironically he tells us that his new love for Helena is governed by reason and intelligence. He uses bird metaphors to compare Hermia to an ugly raven and Helena to a beautiful dove. The passage also provides dramatic irony because the audience knows that Lysander doesn’t really love Helena, but is under a spell. There is foreshadowing here too of the conflict that will occur between best friends Helena and Hermia.

For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings;
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.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 2. Lysander tells why his love for Hermia has turned into such intense hatred. He uses two metaphors in the course of his explanation. One compares his change of heart to an excess of dessert: eating so much of a good thing that it makes one sick to the stomach. The other likens it to men who abandon a belief becoming its strongest critics when it is shown to be false.

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 prey.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 2. Hermia wakes up from a nightmare and calls out for Lysander, to find herself deserted by him. In her terrible dream a serpent devours her heart while Lysander stands by and smiles. The serpent is a metaphor for Lysander’s betrayal and the heart a metaphor for love, as Lyander’s affections switch to Helena. The symbolism of the dream foreshadows Lysander’s newfound love for Helena, as he pursues her, trying to convince her that his affection for her is genuine. The sleeping Hermia’s dream is thus a mirror for reality.

Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 1. Bellows-mender Francis Flute, playing Thisbe, provides some humor and laughs, when he delivers these memorably terrible lines about Pyramus. He uses a simile to compare Pyramus’ color to a red rose, and at the same time says it is lily-white. He calls the meeting place "Ninny’s tomb" (meaning idiot’s tomb) instead of Ninus’ tomb. He refers to Pyramus as a "most lovely Jew" instead of jewel. An irritated Quince immediately corrects Flute: "’Ninus’ tomb,’ man." The story of Pyramus and Thiste takes place in ancient city of Babylon (modern day Iraq). Babylon, according to legend, was founded by King Ninus some 4,000 ago.

My mistress with a monster is in love.
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play
Intended for great Theseus’ nuptial-day.
The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
Forsook his scene and enter’d in a brake
When I did him at this advantage take,
An ass’s nole I fixed on his head:
Anon his Thisbe must be answered,
And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun’s report,
Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;
And, at our stamp, here o’er and o’er one falls;
He murder cries and help from Athens calls.
Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,
Made senseless things begin to do them wrong;
For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.
I led them on in this distracted fear,
And left sweet Pyramus translated there:
When in that moment, so it came to pass,
Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. Fairy King Oberon’s faithful servant Puck reports back to his master on the outcome of Oberon placing the love potion on the sleeping Titania. Puck tells how Oberon’s plan for Titania has worked and she has fallen in love with a monster. Puck explains that he came upon a group of workmen-actors in the forest near Titania and transformed the head of the one playing Pyramus into that of an ass. He uses similes to describe how the other workmen ran when they saw him, like wild geese that spot a hunter, or a flock of jackdaws flying at the sound of a gunshot. Titania then woke up "and straightaway loved an ass," the mischievous Puck says with obvious glee.
    • 1
    • 2
Close