Summary: Act I, scene i
The course of true love never did run
smooth. . . .
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At his palace, Theseus, duke of Athens, and Hippolyta,
his fiancée, discuss their wedding, to be held in four days, under
the new moon. Impatient for the event and in a celebratory mood,
Theseus orders Philostrate, his Master of the Revels, to “stir up
the Athenian youth to merriments” and devise entertainments with
which the couple might pass the time until their wedding (I.i.12).
Philostrate takes his leave, and Theseus promises Hippolyta that
though he wooed her with his sword (Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons,
presumably met Theseus in combat), he will wed her “with pomp, with
triumph, and with revelling”—with a grand celebration to begin at
once and last until the wedding (I.i.19).
Egeus, a citizen of Athens, strides into the room, followed
by his daughter Hermia and the Athenian youths Lysander and Demetrius. Egeus
has come to see Theseus with a complaint against his daughter: although
Egeus has promised her in marriage to Demetrius, who loves her,
Lysander has won Hermia’s heart, and Hermia refuses to obey her
father and marry Demetrius. Egeus demands that the law punish Hermia
if she fails to comply with his demands. Theseus speaks to Hermia
sharply, telling her to expect to be sent to a nunnery or put to
death. Lysander interrupts, accusing Demetrius of being fickle in
love, saying that he was once engaged to Hermia’s friend Helena
but abandoned her after he met Hermia. Theseus admits that he has
heard this story, and he takes Egeus and Demetrius aside to discuss
it. Before they go, he orders Hermia to take the time remaining
before his marriage to Hippolyta to make up her mind. Theseus, Hippolyta,
Egeus, and Demetrius depart, leaving Hermia alone with Lysander.
Hermia and Lysander discuss the trials that must be faced
by those who are in love: “The course of true love never did run smooth,”
Lysander says (I.i.134).
He proposes a plan: he has an aunt, wealthy and childless, who lives
seven leagues from Athens and who dotes on Lysander like a son.
At her house, Hermia and Lysander can be married—and, because the
manor is outside of Athens, they would be free from Athenian law.
Hermia is overjoyed, and they agree to travel to the house the following
night.
Helena, Hermia’s friend whom Demetrius jilted, enters
the room, lovesick and deeply melancholy because Demetrius no longer loves
her. Hermia and Lysander confide their plan to her and wish her
luck with Demetrius. They depart to prepare for the following night’s
journey. Helena remarks to herself that she envies them their happiness.
She thinks up a plan: if she tells Demetrius of the elopement that
Lysander and Hermia are planning, he will be bound to follow them
to the woods to try to stop them; if she then follows him into the
woods, she might have a chance to win back his love.
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Act I, scene i →
Analysis
From the outset, Shakespeare subtly portrays the lovers
as a group out of balance, a motif that creates tension throughout
the play. For the sake of symmetry, the audience wants the four
lovers to form two couples; instead, both men love Hermia, leaving
Helena out of the equation. The women are thus in nonparallel situations,
adding to the sense of structural imbalance. By establishing the
fact that Demetrius once loved Helena, Shakespeare suggests the
possibility of a harmonious resolution to this love tangle: if Demetrius
could only be made to love Helena again, then all would be well.
By the end of the play, the fairies’ intervention effects just such
an outcome, and all does become well, though it
is worth noting that the restoration of Demetrius’s love for Helena
is the result of magic rather than a natural reawakening of his
feelings.
The genre of comedy surrounding the Athenian lovers is
farce, in which the humor stems from exaggerated characters trying
to find their way out of ludicrous situations. Shakespeare portrays
the lovers as overly serious, as each is deeply and earnestly preoccupied with
his or her own feelings: Helena is anxious about her looks, reacting
awkwardly when Lysander calls her “fair”; Hermia later becomes self-conscious
about her short stature; Demetrius is willing to see Hermia executed
to prevent her from marrying another man; and Lysander seems to
have cast himself as the hero of a great love story in his own mind
(III.ii.188, III.ii.247).
Hermia is stubborn and quarrelsome, while Helena lacks self-confidence
and believes that other people mock her. The airy world of the fairies
and the absurd predicaments in which the lovers find themselves
once in the forest make light of the lovers’ grave concerns.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with
the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
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