Midsummer Flashcards
(32 cards)
Hermia: Godspeed fair Helena! Whither away?
Call you me fair? That fair again unsay. Demetrius loves you fair: O happy fair! O! Teach me how you look; and with what art you sway the motions of Demetrius’ heart!
Hermia: I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
Hermia: I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
O, that my prayers could such affection move!
Hermia: The more I hate, the more he follows me.
The more I love, the more he hateth me.
Hermia: His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!
Lysander: I will, my Hermia. Helena, adieu: As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
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; For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne, He’d 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 be 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.
Demetrius: …Thou told’st me they were stolen unto this wood. Hence, get the gone, and follow me no more.
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; But yet you draw not iron, for my heart Is true as steel, leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you.
Demetrius: …Or rather, do I not in plainest truth Tell you, I do not nor I cannot love you?
And even for that do I love you the more. I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Demetrius: Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit, For I am sick when I do look on you.
And I am sick when I look not on you.
Demetrius: …And the ill counsel of a desert place With the rich worth of your virginity.
Your virtue is my privilege: for that It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood pack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world.
Demetrius: I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Demetrius: Let me go: Or, if thou follow me, do not believe But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
Fie, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: We cannot fight for love, as men do; We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo. I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well
Puck: …For now I must to Oberon. (Puck exits. Demetrius and Helena enter, running.)
Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius
Demetrius: I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
Demetrius: Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go.
O, I am out of breath in this fond chase! The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. 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: …Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
Do not say so, Lysander, say not so. Wilt though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though? Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.
Lysander: …The will of a man is by his reason sway’d And reason says you are the worthier maid.
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? O, that a lady of one man refused, should of another therefore be abus’d.
Oberon: Will cause Demetrius to awake. (Lysander and Helena enter.)
These vows are Hermia’s: will you give her o’er?
Lysander: I had no judgement when to her I swore.
Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o’er.
Demetrius: Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow! O, let me kiss This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
O spite! O hell! I see you are all bent To set me against me for your own merriment: If you were civil and knew courtesy, You would not do me thus much injury. Can you not hate me, as I know you do, But you must join in souls to mock me too?
Hermia: You speak not as you think: it cannot be.
Lo, she is one of this confederacy! Now I perceive they have conjoin’d all three
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me. Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid! Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us, — O, is it all forgot?
Hermia: I am amazed at your passionate words. I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me.
Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn, To follow me and praise my eyes and face? And made your other love, Demetrius, Who even but now did spurn me with his foot, To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare, Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this To her he hates?
Hermia: I understand not what you mean by this.
Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks, Make mouths upon me when I turn my back; If you have any pity, grace, or manners, You would not make me such an argument. But fare ye well: ‘tis partly my own fault; Which death or absence soon shall remedy.
Lysander: Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse: My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!
O excellent!
