A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1, Scene 1 Willow Geer Version

A Midsummer Night’s Dream.         Act 1, Scene 1.        Helena

(This text is featured in our interview with Willow Geer, Melora Marshall and Ellen Geer)

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1. How happy some o’er other some can be!
2  Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
3  But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
4  He will not know what all but he do know:
5  And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
6  So I, admiring of his qualities:
7  Things base and vile, folding no quantity,
8  Love can transpose to form and dignity:
9  Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
10  And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:
11  For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
12  He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
13  And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
14  So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
15  I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
16  Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
17  Pursue her; and for this intelligence
18  If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
19  But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
20  To have his sight thither and back again.