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Double Cherries and Drops of Water
In A Midsummer's Night Dream, Helena's expression of love as a union that makes a couple one inseparable being —
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem
echoes Adriana's speech in Comedy of Errors —
How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it
That thou art then estrangèd from thyself?
“Thyself” I call it, being strange to me,
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear self's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyself from me!
For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
And take unmingled thence that drop again
Without addition or diminishing,
As take from me thyself and not me too.
Both women express this concept of love using different metaphors — a double cherry conjoined on a single stem for two girlhood friends, and two drops of water combined as one for a wife and husband. And both express this union with the word incorporate.
Source(s):
Comedy of Errors, Midsummer Night's Dream
Character(s):Adriana, Helena
Themes:Companionship, Friendship
Figures of Speech:Metaphor, Simile
Related Quote(s)
Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown
Read the QuoteComedy of Errors
Source Type:
Plays
Spoken by:
Adriana
Themes:
Adultery, Infidelity, Love, Water
Figures of Speech: