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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

How happy some o'er other some can be Th...

Overview

Character
Gender
Female
Playing Age
Young Adult, Adult
Style
Comedic
Act/Scene
Act 1, Scene 1
Time & Place
A public street or private chamber in ancient Athens, late at night following a tense, life-altering royal decree.
Length
Medium
Time Period
Classical
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Youth (Y)/General Audiences (G)

Context

Text

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, folding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement 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.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured every where:
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd 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.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow 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.

Shakespeare, William, A Midsummer Night's Dream, ed. R.A. Foakes, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

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