"The more I love him, the more he hateth me!"
Hermia still sighing for Lysander says:
"Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seemed Athens as a paradise to me;
O then, what graces in my love do dwell
That he hath turned a heaven unto hell."
Helena soliloquizes regarding the inconsistency of Demetrius since he saw Hermia:
"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And, therefore, is winged cupid painted blind;
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."
A number of rude workingmen of Athens propose to give an impromptu play in the Duke's palace in honor of his wedding.
It is a burlesque on all plays, and being so very crude and bad, is good by contrast!
Pyramus and Thisby are the prince and princess, who die for love.
Bottom is to play the big blower in the improvised drama and the Jackass among the fairies. He says:
"I could play a part to tear a cat in, to make all
split"—
"Tho raging rocks,
With shivering shocks,
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phœbus' car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish fates!"