A Midsummer Night’s Dream Quotes

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.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me, then
Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night,
And in the wood a league without the town
(Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May),
There will I stay for thee.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Lysander hatches a plan for his and Hermia’s escape to his aunt’s house away from Athens, where they can marry and the laws of Athens don’t apply. He tells her that if she loves him she should steal away from her father’s house and meet him in the woods the following night, so that they may elope. The mention of a place where Helena and Hermia used to spend time foreshadows Helena’s return to this spot in the next Act, where she will awaken the bewitched Lysander, who falls in love with Helena instead of Hermia. It also foreshadows Hermia’s plans to replace Helena in the enchanted Lysander’s affections.

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),
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Hermia is very strong, extremely brave and willing to fight for love. She pledges to run away with Lysander, even though it is a decision that could threaten her life. She is prepared to take great risks to be with the one she loves, Lysander. Shakespeare pokes a bit of fun at men’s unreliability in their love promises, when he says that men break a lot more vows than women. "By all the vows that ever men have broke." Hermia says in her pledge to rendezvous with Lysander.

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.

Before the time I did Lysander see
Seem’d Athens as a paradise to me.
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell
That he hath turned a heaven unto a hell!

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Hermia’s love for Lysander has, in her own words, had some devastating results for her.
What was once heaven to her – her home city of Athens – has been transformed into a hell. Her father’s decision that she must marry Demetrius and not Lysander, which carries the full weight of Athenian law, has made the city an unfriendly place for her. With society and the law not in support of her union with Lysander, they have had to make a decision to flee the city.

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.

And in the wood where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Hermia reveals to Helena her plan to run away with Lysander. Their meeting place, she informs her friend, is a spot in the woods where she and Helena used to spend time together. This foreshadows Helena’s return in Act 2 to this place, where she will awaken the enchanted Lysander, who falls in love with Helena instead of Hermia. It also foreshadows Hermia’s bid to replace Helena in the bewitched Lysander’s affections.

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 will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her. And, for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1. Helena decides to tell Demetrius that Hermia and Lysander are planning to run away together the next night. She knows that Demetrius will pursue Hermia and that she is betraying her friend’s trust. But Helena is hoping that Demetrius will be grateful to her for telling him and that she can win back his love.

QUINCE: Is all our company here?
BOTTOM: You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.
QUINCE: Here is the scroll of every man’s name which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. Carpenter Peter Quince is writer and director of the play that the six Mechanicals (craftsmen) of Athens will perform for Duke Theseus’ wedding. He has called them to a meeting in his house to discuss the play-within-a-play. If Quince is the bumbling ringmaster in their delightfully silly circus of a production, then weaver Nick Bottom is the star attraction. In his first sentence in the play we are introduced to the first of his many malapropisms and language slip-ups. He says "scrip" instead of "script" and when he suggests calling the players "generally" he means "individually."

QUINCE: Marry, our play is, the most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.
BOTTOM: A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. Nick Bottom calls the Mechanicals’ play a very good piece of work and a happy one for a wedding night. The self-important and ridiculous weaver is full of it and doesn’t know what he is talking about much of the time. Far from being "merry," the play is a tragedy about the death of two lovers. Bottom has a tendency to take over and act like he is the expert, note how he cannot help but give directions to the director, who will have his hands full trying to keep Bottom in line. The play’s director Peter Quince for his part is guilty of butchering the language, calling the play a "lamentable comedy." He presumably meant to say it was a lamentable tragedy. But he turns out to be ironically right without knowing it. For the version of the Pyramus and Thisbe story we get to see turns out to be lamentably bad, poorly acted and hilariously comic. It is also ironic that the craftsmen choose a play about a pair of ill-fated lovers for such a happy occasion as a wedding.

BOTTOM: What is Pyramus – a lover or a tyrant?
QUINCE: A lover that kills himself most gallant for love.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. As Quince assigns the role of Pyramus to Bottom, he explains that Pyramus is a lover who kills himself for love. It is ironic that a lover should take his life for love. Pyramus actually kills himself out of grief for his "dead" love Thisbe. But the irony is that Thisbe is not actually dead, and when she finds Pyramus dead she kills herself. There is also irony in the Mechanicals’ choice of such a tragic play for Duke Theseus’ marriage.

That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms. I will condole in some measure. To the rest – Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in to make all split.
The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates.
And Phoebus’ car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
This was lofty! – Now name the rest of the players. – This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein. A lover is more condoling.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. Nick Bottom is the classic comic fool and the star of the Mechanicals’ play. It’s a play so bad that it’s good, with acting so ridiculous that it’s hilarious, and an audience of nobles who find it exceedingly funny and entertaining. We get a flavor of the amusing nonsense to come in this speech from Bottom. He says that role he would like to play is a tyrant or Ercles, a mispronunciation of Hercules, who is not even in the play. He goes on to deliver a childish, rhyming monologue with nonsensical images about rocks that rage and shocks that shiver. Then he tells us it is "lofty" art. The audience laughs at the ridiculous Bottom, rather than with him.

QUINCE: Flute, you must take Thisbe on you.
FLUTE: What is Thisbe? – a wand’ring knight?
QUINCE: It is the lady that Pyramus must love.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. In the play that the Athenian craftsmen are to perform in celebration of Duke Theseus’ wedding, director Quince gives the part of Thisbe to bellows-maker Francis Flute. Flute is happy to play such a manly role when he thinks Thisbe is a wandering knight. But he is disappointed and unhappy when he discovers that Thisebe is instead a woman in love.
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