nostr:npub1pt6l3a97fvywrxdlr7j0q8j2klwntng35c40cuhj2xmsxmz696uqfr6mf6 ACT III opens with some funny moments as the performers think of disclaimers to put before their play, like saying the lion isn't really a lion or that the person playing the role of pyramus doesn't actually die, to avoid scaring the ladies. they settle on the lion speaking and politely introducing himself as the man playing him before making a million other changes. lions actually used to live in greece even after the classical period ended... anyway i have a feeling the play they're writing is going to suck

>The moon, methinks, looks with a wat’ry eye,

And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,

Lamenting some enforced chastity.

what a beautiful characterization and association, once again.

>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,

so hermia and helena were very close, now drifted apart by circumstances of love

>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?

"i love you!"

"who put you up to this?"

>Away, you Ethiop!

>Be certain, nothing truer, ’tis no jest

That I do hate thee and love Helena.

in this play hate is presented as the opposite of love; if you don't actively love someone you must hate them. in reality the opposite of love is indifference, and in fact love necessarily carries much hate within itself, and the two are inextricable.

>“Little” again? Nothing but “low” and “little”?

Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?

Let me come to her.

not often you see some teasing on physical attributes like height, at least not conducted like it is here among the two women.

>And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger,

At whose approach, ghosts wand’ring here and

there

Troop home to churchyards. Damnèd spirits all,

That in crossways and floods have burial,

night is a magical time. it came to mind here that reading a play has an advantage over seeing one performed. when you go to see one the set-designers are responsible for creating the places where the play takes place, but reading it you can imagine it detached from any physical stage, any hall, any audience. the actors aren't actors, they simply are the characters, and portray themselves; grassy fields and castles and towns, you can imagine these places that could never perfectly be recreated on a stage in your own head.

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