What Say I?- Hermia’s Dissent
If it were not for my own qualities in this feminine station, that I might peacefully enjoy a love of my own consent. Oh, how gracious that would be, to be free of the ego of men and accountable only to my own body, not theirs. Funny enough, I have seen no lambs slain at altars of my father, nor any prayers to his good will, and yet, Duke Theseus proclaims he is to be my God. My father does agree, and my life persists only to his will. It is not my choice whether to live or to die, but the ancient law of Athens ne’er accounted for the conscience of another girl to be wise. Athena, hear my tale. “What say you, Hermia?” he asks me, as if all choice were a liberty of mine. I am given but three: to be Demetrius’s bride, to sing chaste hymnals to Diana among the stars, or to meet black fate at the fields of Asphodel. I will choose none. I will choose Lysander.
What say I? What say I? I am not to be made a victim, nor a note in another’s definition. I am not yours, father, and I will never be his. Stolen away into these woods, have Lysander and I, to mark our own legend. I was asked to “relent, sweet Hermia,” but shallow indifference would not be true love, Demetrius. That lurch of poignant first impression and worthy admiration is from Lysander alone. If there’d been nary a chance to escape at all, in priestly vow to the cold moon, I would preserve my passion for him until sweet death. He says to me, “O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence! Love takes the meaning in love’s conference. I mean that my heart unto yours is knit, so that but one heart we can make of it.” Even by such pretty words, I am most joyfully ruined, and my heart could not spurn such feeling as my words do.
I mean to be an honest woman. Even as my senses cry and hands twitch so, at least I can refrain until our union sets us free. I will not give my soul’s sovereignty until at least in earnest right I am wed to Lysander. Only I wish same could be said for my sweet friend, Helena. Wronged Helena, you deserve greater than this facetious fool. For such a time, he only had eyes for her in that true passion, such as mine, only to be squandered instead for my father’s purse. Nay, the only cause for Demetrius’s pursuit of me were that when she was in my company, Father saw him near and devised such a deal between them. And what of Helena? Poor Helena, left to sudden scorn and heartbreak, Nedar’s kind daughter left to ruin, and I to fend myself from her former fraudulent lover. Would Eros dote on you, would I bring you with us, away from hateful Athens, after all the counsel that we two have shared in our sisters’ vows, the great hours that we have spent. Come my marriage to Lysander this morrow, that we may come back for thee and save you, good friend.
Oh, but now my thoughts draw to a fade; there sleeps my love across from me under spell of skylark and shadow, and so should I do the same. Away, away into my dream of certain gladness. In the cover of purple night, shall I succumb to dreams of you, Lysander, and to our scroll. As for you, friend Helena, may the gods bless you with better fortune and release you from disconsolate bondage. And at last, Athena Nike, your virtue is to my glory, and I thank you for such wise constitution from thee. The old ways are lost; lives should not be governed by ancient contract, nor by the insecure persistence of a callous, feckless fool. What say I, father? Hell to that.