No Fear Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 2, Scene 2, Page 6
Original Text |
Modern Text |
|
| 90 95 |
Things growing are not ripe until their season.
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason.
And touching now the point of human skill,
Reason becomes the marshal to my will
And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
Love’s stories written in love’s richest
book.
|
Fruits and vegetables don’t ripen until the
right season of the year. Likewise, I’m young, and my
sense of reason has just ripened. I can finally see the light. My
logic has more control over my desires than it used to, and
it’s telling me to look into your eyes, where I see every
love story ever told.
|
|
100 105 |
HELENA
Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is ’t not enough, is ’t not enough, young
man,
That I did never, no, nor never can,
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?
Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
In such disdainful manner me to woo.
But fare you well. Perforce I must confess
I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
Oh, that a lady of one man refused
Should of another therefore be abused!
|
HELENA
Why does everyone always make fun of me? What have I done to
deserve this kind of treatment from you? Is it not enough, is it not
enough, young man, that I’ll never be pretty enough to
get a kind look from Demetrius? Do you have to harp on my
inadequacy? My God, it’s wrong for you to woo me in such
a cruel, disdainful way. But goodbye. I have to tell you, I thought
you were a much kinder person than this. Oh, how awful that a lady
who’s been rejected by one man should therefore be
treated horribly by another one!
|
Exit HELENA
|
HELENA exits. |
|
|
110 115 |
LYSANDER
She sees not Hermia.—Hermia, sleep thou there.
And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
For as a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
Or as the heresies that men do leave
Are hated most of those they did deceive,
So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
Of all be hated, but the most of me.—
And all my powers, address your love and might
To honor Helen and to be her knight.
|
LYSANDER
She doesn’t see Hermia—Hermia, keep
sleeping, and don’t come near me ever again! Eating too
many sweets makes people sick to their stomachs, and people always
hate the mistakes they made in the past worse than anyone else hates
those mistakes. Hermia, you’re the sweet I’ve
had too much of, and the mistake I used to make, so I hate you more
than anyone else does.—I’ll use all my talents
and efforts to serve Helen and bring her honor.
|
Exit LYSANDER
|
LYSANDER exits. |
