A Midsummer Night's Dream

THERE was a law in the city of Athens which gave to its citizens the power of compelling their daughters to marry whomsoever they pleased; for upon a daughter's refusing to marry the man her father had chosen to be her husband,the father was empowered by this law to cause her to be put to death;

but as fathers do not often desire the death of their own daughters,even though they do happen to prove a little refractory, this law was seldom or never put in execution, though perhaps the young ladies of that city were not unfrequently threatened by their parents with the terrors of it.

There was one instance,however,of an old man,whose name was Egeus, who actually did come before Theseus (at that time the reigning Duke of Athens),to complain that his daughter Hermia,whom he had commanded to marry Demetrius, a young man of a noble Athenian family,refused to obey him,because she loved another young Athenian,named Lysander.

Egeus demanded justice of Theseus, and desired that this cruel law might be put in force against his daughter.

Hermia pleaded in excuse for her disobedience that Demetrius had formerly professed love for her dear friend Helena,and that Helena loved Demetrius to distraction;but this honorable reason, which Hermia gave for not obeying her father's command,moved not the stern Egeus.

Theseus,though a great and merciful prince, had no power to alter the laws of his country; therefore he could only give Hermia four days to consider of it: and at the end of that time,if she still refused to marry Demetrius,she was to be put to death.

When Hermia was dismissed from the presence of the duke, she went to her lover Lysander and told him the peril she was in, and that she must either give him up and marry Demetrius or lose her life in four days.

Lysander was in great affliction at hearing these evil tidings;but, recollecting that he had an aunt who lived at some distance from Athens, and that at the place where she lived the cruel law could not be put in force against Hermia (this law not extending beyond the boundaries of the city),he proposed to Hermia that she should steal out of her father's house that night, and go with him to his aunt's house,where he would marry her.

"I will meet you,"said Lysander,"in the wood a few miles without the city; in that delightful wood where we have so often walked with Helena in the pleasant month of May".