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Hermia

Midsummer's Night Dream

Video: Lo! She is one of this confederacy

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From Peter Hall’s film (January 30, 1968) of A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring Michael Jayston, Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, and David Warner.

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Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace

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Theseus
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in
Another moon. But, O, 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.
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 1

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How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?

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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.

Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 130

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Connected Notes:
The Architecture of Sonnet and Song

Godspeed, fair Helena. Whither away?

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Hermia
Godspeed, fair Helena. Whither away?
Helena
Call you me “fair”? That “fair” again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
Your eyes are lodestars and your tongue’s sweet air
More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

O happy fair!
Your eyes are lodestars and your tongue’s sweet air
More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear
When wheat is green,
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Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 183

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Dark night, that from the eye his function takes

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Hermia, to Lysander
Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.
Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 2
Line 181

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Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn

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Helena
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? And wherefore doth Lysander
Deny your love (so rich within his soul)
And tender me,
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 2
Line 227

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What? Should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?

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Lysander
What? Should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.
Hermia
What, can you do me greater harm than hate?
Hate me? Wherefore? O me, what news, my love?
Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 2
Line 283

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O weary night, O long and tedious night

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Helena
O weary night, O long and tedious night,
 Abate thy hours! Shine, comforts, from the east,
That I may back to Athens by daylight
 From these that my poor company detest.
And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye,
Steal me awhile from mine own company.
 She lies down and sleeps.

And sleep,
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 2
Line 460

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My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth

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Demetrius
My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood,
And I in fury hither followed them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.

And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
Mine own and not mine own.

But, my good lord, I wot not by what power
(But by some power it is) my love to Hermia,
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Source:
Act 4
Scene 1
Line 167

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