A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Two-hander · Tragicomedy
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream · William Shakespeare
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A Midsummer Nights’ Dream
Published by scriptsandsketches.com
In a forest near Athens, Hermia confronts Helena over love and betrayal, leading to a heated exchange filled with emotion and wit.
Duologue
Characters: HERMIA, HELENA
(A wood near Athens, where HERMIA runs to elope with Lysander against her father's wishes.)
HERMIA:
Orne! (To HELENA) You juggler! You canker-blossom! You thief of love! What, have you come by night And stol'n my love's heart from him?
HELENA:
Fine, i'faith! Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, no touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear Impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie, you counterfeit! You puppet you!
HERMIA:
'Puppet'! Why so? Ay, that way goes the game! Now I perceive that she hath made compare Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height; And with her personage, her tall personage, her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him. And are you grown so high in his esteem because I am so dwarfish and so low? How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak: How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes
HELENA:
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me. I was never curst; I have no gift at all in shrewishness; I am a right maid for my cowardice; let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, because she is something lower than myself, that I can match her.
HERMIA:
'Lower'? Hark, again!
HELENA:
Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. I evermore did love you, Hermia, Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you, save that, in love unto Demetrius, I told him of your stealth unto this wood. He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him; But he hath chid me hence, and threaten'd me to strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too: And now, so you will let me quiet go, to Athens will I bear my folly back, and follow you no further. Let me go: you see how simple and how fond I am.
HERMIA:
Why, get you gone! Who is't that hinders you?
HELENA:
A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
HERMIA:
What! with Lysander?
HELENA:
With Demetrius. O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd; she was a vixen when she went to school, and though she be but little, she is fierce.
HERMIA:
‘Little’ again? Nothing but 'low' and 'little'? Why will you suffer her to flout me thus? Let me come to her! You, mistress, as I this coil is long of you. Nay, go not back.
HELENA:
I will not trust you, I, nor longer stay in your curst company. Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray: My legs are longer though, to run away. (Exit)
HERMIA:
I am am az' d, and know not what to say. (Exit)
