A Midsummer Night's Dream · Act 1, Scene 1
Helena monologue from A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Play
- William Shakespeare
- Women
- Playing age Teens–30s
- About 0:45
- Classical · verse
Helena’s monologue from the play A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (Act 1, Scene 1). A classical piece for women with a playing age of teens–30s, running about 0:45.
The full speech. Read it out loud twice before you start working it.
Helena’s monologue
Call you me fair? that fair again unsay..
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.
Public domain text.
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About A Midsummer Night's Dream
- The play is set in Athens and an enchanted wood ruled by the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania.
- A group of workmen known as the Mechanicals rehearse and perform the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe.
All 12 monologues from A Midsummer Night's Dream All 135 William Shakespeare monologues
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