and there must be no
bungling.

The stage is divided horizontally between the roof and floor, the
upper part concealed from the audience, while the lower section
represents the interior of a royal palace at Athens. Three soundings
of the cornet announce the opening of the play with its stately
dialogue, in which Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of
the Amazons, anticipate their approaching nuptials. Egeus enters with
his daughter Hermia to bring complaint to the Duke that she will not
marry Demetrius, the husband he has selected for her, but is bewitched
with love for Lysander. The Duke reasons with Hermia; but the maiden
is still obdurate and demands to know the worst that may befall if
she refuses to wed Demetrius. The Duke pronounces sentence:--

"Either to die the death, or to abjure
Forever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires.
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon,
Thrice blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness."

[Illustration: Queen Elizabeth listening to the Play]

The tributes to the "maiden pilgrimage" and "single blessedness" win
from the Queen's countenance a glow which age has had no power to
diminish. The highway to favour with the Virgin Queen, as every
courtier and every writer knows, lies through praises of her voluntary
state of celibacy.

Thus threatened, Hermia is urged by Lysander to a clandestine
marriage:--

"If thou lov'st me then,
Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night,
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee."

[Illustration:

"In the wood, a league without the town To do
observance to a morn of May."
]

Hermia, hearing these words, feels her heart leap with joy. She tries
to answer soberly, in the same measure used by her lover; but as her
words become impassioned she breaks into rhyme.

My good Lysander!