“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander, articulating one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ’s most important themes—that of the difficulty of love (I.i.134).
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander, articulating one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ’s most important themes—that of the difficulty of love (I.i.134).
As Lysander tells Hermia, the course of true love never did run true. Often swift, short, and brief, love is besieged by class differences, by age differences, by war, by death, and by sickness. Helena's love is plagued by a different demon: indifference.
The first concept presented of love is its powerlessness, represented by the “true” lovers. Lysander and Hermia are the only characters in the play who are really in love. Yet their love is forbidden, by Hermia’s father and Duke Theseus.
This proverb comes from the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare.
LysanderEtymology. A quote from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 1 Scene 1, said by Lysander to Hermia.
Lysander says this quote to show that his love towards Hermia is stronger that Demetrius'. He says the quote “The course of true love never did run smooth” (A Midsummer Night's Dream I.i.:137) to Hermia because he wants her to know that any relationship will have its ups and downs, a relationship cannot be perfect.
The course of true love never did run smooth; But either it was different in blood— Hermia: O cross!
Who says “The course of true love never did run smooth?” Lysander speaks this line in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. It appears in Act I, Scene 1 and can be found in line 136. He is referring to his relationship with Hermia, which is encountering a series of obstacles.
What does Lysander say about the path to true love? "The course of true love never did run smooth." Lysander (I, i) It's a course with many curves, many obstacles and things you can't prevent. Some things will be disappointments, some things will be good surprises.
With Hermia he depicts forbidden love—love that persists despite certain hardship. With Helena he depicts unrequited love, or love that is one-sided and not returned. However, we can say with certainty that both Helena and Hermia represent steadfast love—love that that persists despite the actions of others.
To what do Lysander and Hermia agree? Lysander and Hermia agree that they will leave for Lysander's aunt's house. What hope does Helena have by telling Demetrius of Lysander and Hermia's flight? By telling him this, she hopes that she will gain his trust.
She loves Lysander. When Hermia is given the choice of marriage to Demetrius, life without men, or death, she picks none of the above. Instead, she and Lysander hatch a plan to elope and be free of Athenian law and free to be with each other.
Reality, law and order. In the exchange that follows between Lysander and Hermia, what do they say impedes "the course of true love?" The class system, age, friends, sickness, death.
Though they obviously love each other, Oberon, King of the Fairies, and his wife, Queen Titania, have a rocky relationship. They're not faithful to each other, and their fighting has even been affecting the weather. What really breaks the couple up is the Changeling Boy, a young Indian boy that Titania is caring for.
Helena is a young woman in Athens. She is in love with Demetrius but he is not in love with her. Instead, he loves her best friend Hermia. As a way of convincing Demetrius to love her, Helena tells him about Hermia's plan to run away with Lysander and together they go into the forest to find her.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Death or spending her life in a nunnery comprise Hermia's choices. Lysander joins the argument, arguing that he is Demetrius' equal in everything and is, indeed, more constant in his affection than Demetrius, who was recently in love with Helena.
For Lysander and Hermia, love is problematic because of her father's desire for her to marry Demetrius. The law is on his side. All of the relationships in the play, but this one in particular, emphasize the conflict of love and imagination with reason and law.
Egeus is angry because his daughter refuses to marry Demetrius, the man of his choice, but is instead in love with Lysander. Egeus accuses Lysander of bewitching his daughter and stealing her love by underhanded means. Agreeing with Egeus, Theseus declares that it is a daughter's duty to obey her father.
Lysander reminds Hermia that the course of true love has never run smoothly, so they must view their difficulties as typical for lovers. He has a plan for eluding Athenian law: The two lovers will run away from Athens and live with his childless widow aunt to whom he has always been a surrogate son. Living with her, they will be outside of Athenian jurisdiction so that Hermia can avoid Theseus' death sentence and can marry. Having few other options, Hermia is enthusiastic about Lysander's idea and declares her undying love for him.
In line 3, Theseus connects his wedding to the changes in the moon by assuring Hippolyta that their marriage will occur in four happy days, with the arrival of a new moon. Here Theseus characterizes the moon as a "step-dame" keeping her heir waiting for her death so that he can claim his inheritance. Theseus wants the moon to hurry ...
Helena's meditations reveal love as arbitrary and, in fact, blind: The childish, blindfolded Cupid, a constantly repeated image in this dream, playfully transforms the vile into something pure and dignified. Even when love is mutual, it is often hampered by family disapproval.
Fortunately, Theseus is less willing than Egeus is to condemn Hermia to death or to celibacy. In this play, which celebrates love, magic, and sexuality, the choice of a single life is, perhaps, worse than death.
Power vs. Love. The first concept presented of love is its powerlessness, represented by the “true” lovers. Lysander and Hermia are the only characters in the play who are really in love. Yet their love is forbidden, by Hermia’s father and Duke Theseus. Hermia’s father Egeus speaks of Lysander’s love as witchcraft, saying of Lysander, ...
Shakespeare’s concepts of love are represented by the powerless young lovers, the meddling fairies and their magical love, and forced love as opposed to chosen love. These points undermine the argument that this play is a typical love story and fortify the case that Shakespeare intended to demonstrate the powers that triumph over love.
Next is the example of Oberon and Titania, whose separation from each other results in the world becoming barren. Titania exclaims, “The spring, the summer / The childing autumn, angry winter, change / Their wonted liveries, and the mazéd world / By their increase, now knows not which is which.” These lines make it clear that these two must be joined in consideration not of love but of the fertility and health of the world.
Weakness of Love. The second idea, the weakness of love, comes in the form of fairy magic. The four young lovers and an imbecilic actor are entangled in a love game, puppet-mastered by Oberon and Puck. The fairies’ meddling causes both Lysander and Demetrius, who were fighting over Hermia, to fall for Helena.
Ultimately, Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" suggests that believing only in love, creating bonds based on a fleeting notion rather than on lasting principles such as fertility (offspring) and power (security), is to be “enamored of an ass.”. Burgess, Adam.
The subplots in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" demonstrate Shakespeare’s dissatisfaction with the idea of love as a supreme power and his belief that power and fertility are the prime factors in deciding a union.
The Bard holds that lust, power, and fertility trump romantic love. Adam Burgess, Ph.D. is a university professor, literary reviewer, and expert in American and classical literature and criticism. "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," written in 1600, has been called one of William Shakespeare’s greatest love plays. It has been interpreted as ...
When the lovers are discovered in the morning by a hunting Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus, all is put to rights. Demetrius claims that a metaphorical 'sickness' made him love Hermia, but in health, his love has returned to Helena.
While not the only protagonist of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena is one of its most talkative characters.
In the scene's climax, she and Hermia nearly come to blows while the two men set out to kill one another to prove who is more worthy of Helena's affections.
Her ardor catches the attention of Oberon, who commands that Puck enchant Demetrius so that he will fall back in love with Helena. When Puck mistakenly enchants a sleeping Lysander instead, Lysander wakes and falls instantly in love with Helena. He pursues a shocked and hurt Helena, deserting a sleeping Hermia.
In the hopes that she will gain back some of his respect, Helena tells Demetrius of Hermia and Lysander's plans and, the next night, they follow the escaping lovers into the forest. Though Demetrius is deliberately cruel towards her, Helena remains intent in her devotion.
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander, articulating one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ’s most important themes—that of the difficulty of love (I.i.134). Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the troubles of romance, and though the play involves a number of romantic elements, it is not truly a love story; it distances the audience from the emotions of the characters in order to poke fun at the torments and afflictions that those in love suffer. The tone of the play is so lighthearted that the audience never doubts that things will end happily, and it is therefore free to enjoy the comedy without being caught up in the tension of an uncertain outcome.
Somewhat similarly, in the relationship between Titania and Oberon, an imbalance arises out of the fact that Oberon’s coveting of Titania’s Indian boy outweighs his love for her. Later, Titania’s passion for the ass-headed Bottom represents an imbalance of appearance and nature: Titania is beautiful and graceful, ...
As we learn in Act II, King Oberon and Queen Titania both have eyes for their counterparts in the human realm, Theseus and Hippolyta. Titania accuses Oberon of stealing away with “the bouncing Amazon” (II.i.).
The 55 Shakespeare love quotes below are taken from his plays only – if we’d looked into Shakespeare’s sonnets or poems we could easily have doubled the list of Shakespeare quotes about love (and may yet do just that!).
‘If music be the food of love, play on’ . (Twelfth Night – Act 1, Scene 1) 2. ‘There’s beggary in love that can be reckoned’.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play about love. All of its action—from the escapades of Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena in the forest, to the argument between Oberon and Titania, to the play about two lovelorn youths that Bottom and his friends perform at Duke Theseus's marriage to Hippolyta—are motivated by love.
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
You would not use a gentle lady so; To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts, When I am sure you hate me with your hearts. You both are rivals, and love Hermia; And now both rivals, to mock Helena: A trim exploit, a manly enterprise, To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes. With your derision! none of noble sort.
But A Midsummer Night's Dream is not a romance, in which the audience gets caught up in a passionate love affair between two characters. It's a comedy, and because it's clear from the outset that it's a comedy and that all will turn out happily, rather than try to overcome the audience with the exquisite and overwhelming passion of love, ...
Maybe when you were married or in a long relationship, you didn’t really felt like your mate was your equal partner. Maybe one of you dominated the relationship, throwing everything off kilter. But with this guy, you really get the sense of equality.
One of the signs of true love is simply seeing a future together and talking about it. You’re not just fantasizing about walking down the aisle to marry him, you can picture the small stuff too. You can see taking ski vacations at Mammoth. Him cheering your son on during a soccer game. Selling your house when the kids leave and moving into a small condo by the beach.
If it’s your boyfriend, that’s a good sign of true love. When you love someone, you want to share news (good and bad) with them.
When you’re truly in love, you are willing to expose your heart to potential pain. Love is trusting that this person will not break your heart.
One of the signs of true love is recognizing that neither of you has to be perfect, but you can inspire one another to be better.
You give to him because you love him, not to get something in return. You’re at a bookstore and you see a book that your guy would love, so you buy it for him. You don’t do this so he can reimburse you for the book, or so you can rack up “points” with him. You don’t even care about him returning the favor.
Love should never, ever feel forced. I know women who wanted so desperately to be in love that they tried to maneuver a not-right relationship into love.