In Midsummer Nights Dream, in Act III Scene II Line 296, Hermia calls Helena a Juggler. Which is basically calling her a lier and a trickster. Which in those days was a serious insult.
In Midsummer Night's Dream, in Act III Scene II line 295, Helena calls Hermia a puppet. This means she is easily controlled and is easy. It is also calling her small and fragile. This is an insult to her character and her size. A puppet is very flimsy and controlled by someone else's hand.
In Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III Scene II line 311, Hermia responds to Helena's insult of calling her a puppet by replying that Helena is just a painted maypole which is basically saying that she thinks Helena is a plain object who puts on a lot of makeup to make herself more appealing and that she has nothing to offer to either Lysander or Demetrius. And she ended with saying she is tall enough to reach Helena's eyes and rip them out.
In Midsummer Night's Dream, Act. IV Scene I lines 38-39, Bottom accidentally insults himself. Titania makes a sexual innuendo towards his genitalia by saying "I have a venturous fairy that shall seek... and fetch thee new nuts." Bottom doesn't understand the sexual hint hidden in the words that Titania says to him, and takes them as a offer for food to eat. Bottom said that he would rather have peas. This is an insult to the size of his genitalia. He basically is saying he would rather have smaller nuts the size of peas. Without knowing, Bottom insults himself showing his dumbness and inability to understand sexual innuendos such as the particular one Titania used on him above. This again is another insult to himself, because he is making himself look extremely dumb.
In Act 1, Scene 1, Lysander says to Demetrius “You have her father’s love, Demetrius. Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.” Hermia has just reached her decision that she will become a nun, since she is in love with Lysander, but her father, Egeus, insists she marries Demetrius. Lysander is mocking the fact that Egeus prefers Demetrius over himself by asking if he would like to marry Egeus instead of Hermia. Lysander is also implying that Demetrius is simply chasing after Hermia to please her father.
In act. 3 scene 2, page97 lines 197. Helena says "Lo she is one of this confederacy"! This is an insult to Hermia and Helena is basicly saying "Oh my gosh now she's part of this group to make fun of me too"! Helena thinks that her friend Hermia is ganing up on her to say that she is ugly and can't find a man to love her. This is an insult because Hermia is being called a bully.
In Act. 3, Sc. 2, lines 274-275, Lysander says to Hermia "Thy love? Out tawny Tartar, out! Out loathéd med'cine! O, hated potion, hence!" which is basically a shower of insults to her. Hermia is utterly confused because she doesn't understand why Lysander is acting this way. Lysander insults her because she keeps insisting that they are lovers when Lysander now believes he loves Helena. In modern times the lines would go like this: "I'm not your lover! Get out of here, you're trash. I hate you!"
In Act 3 Scene 2 lines 226-227, Lysander responds to Demetrius and says, “Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.” Lysander is basically saying that Demetrius has no backbone, or the courage to follow through with his threats. He is calling Demetrius weak willed. This is one of the many insults present in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
In Act 2, Scene 1, lines 218-219. Demetrius tells Helena, "Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; For I am sick when I do look on thee." Helena was chasing after Demetrius and he was telling her that when someone looks at you, they feel sick. In modern day we say stuff like, you make onions cry. But mostly people do still say I am sick when I look at you!
"This is the silliest stuff that I have ever heard!" (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 203) Hippolyta is talking to Theseus about how the Mechanic's play doesn't make any sense. She means to say that what she is watching is ridiculous and doesn't make any sense. Theseus argues back that if she was a good audience member she would be able to use her imagination to make the actors better, which is also ridiculous.
In Act 3 sc. 2 lines 310-313 Hermia insults Helena by saying, How low am I, thou pained maypole? Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. In the above lines Helena made fun of Hermia's height. So Hermia responds with how low am I? I am tall enough to scratch you (Helena) in the eyes.
Helena calls Hermia a puppet in Act III Scene II Line 303. This is taken to mean someone who just does what other people tell them to do. It could also mean someone who doesn't have much of a personality, because she calls her counterfeit right before. A modern term used to say this phrase would be if you called someone a follower, someone who never took the lead or voiced their own opinion. To be called a puppet was a great insult back then.
In Act 3 Scene 2 lines 345-349, Lysander lashes out toward to the former object of his love, playing cards once again on Hermia's small stature, which seems to be a sort of a running gag in this scene. He calls Hermia, who he once sought to elope with, a "dwarf, minimus of hind'ring knotgrass made, bead, and acorn" until Demetrius cuts him off with sharp rebuke. The insults of dwarf, bead, and acorn all refer to her small stature, as all are things of small size. The second insult, "minimus of hind'ring knotgrass made", is a bit more interesting. It refers to artificial dwarves, made my Comprachicos (groups in folklore associated with stunting a child's growth), who were often made of ingredients that included knotgrass. The conception is known to Shakespeare, who used it as one of the many insults Lysander weighs on Hermia in order to defend his current love, Helena.
In Act 2 Scene 2 line 92, Demetrius said "I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me so" when Helena asks for him to stay with her. He is basically saying in the "modern" translation "Look, don't follow me any more!" Also, in Act 2 Scene 2, Lysander said in regard to having Helena instead of Hermia that "who would not change a raven for a dove", basically saying that Helena is like a beautifiul dove while Hermia is like a raven, which is an insult to Hermia's beauty.
In act III scene 2, Hermia calls Helena a "juggler" which in modern day sense translates to a person of lies and tricks. We wouldn't think of this as that serious of an insult now a days but back then this was a foul insult. Now days the words many people regularly use are much worse but it was different back then. In act III scene 2 hermia aslo refers to Helena as being to short which Helena takes much offense to.
In Act 3 Scene 2 lines 340-342, Helena says "O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd. She was a vixen when she went to school, and though she be but little, she is fierce. Helena is talking about Hermia here. The modern translation of this would basically be Helena saying that Hermia is a spiteful or quarrelsome woman that is very judgmental..
In Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3 Scene 2 lines 432-437, Robin says, "Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, And wilt not come? Come, recreant! Come, thou child! I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defiled That draws a sword on thee." Robin uses the words recreant and defiled. The modern translation of recreant would be wimp or coward. The modern translation of defiled is similar, but when Robin says, "He is defiled That draws a sword on thee," he's saying that anyone who would fight Demetrius is a coward for fighting someone so useless.
In Act 3 Scene 2 line 303, Helena yells at Hermia saying,"Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!" Helena yells at Helena saying this when they were in the woods arguing. Helena is practically calling Hermia a fake dumb blond.
In Act 3 Scene 2 lines 300-304 we see Helena and Hermia begin the most hostile part of their argument. We see Helena send a thrashing number of insults to Helena. One that stands out to me is when Hermia calls Helena "you counterfeit ..." This line in modern terms could be interpreted as Helena calling Hermia a fake. Or it could mean that she isn't nice or maiden like. Helena thinks this because she believes both men falling in love with her is a scorn of some sort, and is blaming Hermia to be the reason behind all of it.
In Act 3 Scene 2, (lines 312-313), Hermia, angry at Helena for "stealing" Lysnader's heart, says "Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes." Basically, Herima says that even though she is short, she is capable of many things, including fighting for the love of her life. She says that her being short has nothing to do with her abilities, and that when she wants to, she can keep fighting for what she wants.
In Act III, scene 1, line 76, Puck says: 'What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here[?]'. In modern English, this would be the equivalent of saying 'What are these poor hippies doing here?'. Back in Shakespearean times, 'homespun' referred to the clothes that a person wore, stating that the clothes they were wearing was homemade, which by itself was insulting because it insinuated that the homespun person was too poor to buy clothes. But Shakespeare, being the drama queen (king?) the he was, had to include that the clothes were not only homespun, but hempen too, meaning they were made out of hemp. So by saying that one line, Puck was insulting them for being of a low social class.
There are many insults thrown about in A midsummer’s Night Dream. In Act 3 Scene 2 line 346 Lysander, who is annoyed with Hermia, says ,” get gone, you dwarf, you minimus, of hind’ring knotgrass made, you bead, you acorn-“. By saying this Lysander is making fun of one of Hermia’s insecurities , which is her height. In his insult he calls her a dwarf, and acorn, a bead, knotgrass, and minimus. Knotgrass is a weed that stunts the growth of flowers, and something that is minimus is anything that is small. By saying this Lysander is basically saying, “Go away you annoying short person!”.
"Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!" This line is said by Helena in act 3 scene 2 line 303 directed towards Hermia. I feel that if you translated this to modern day english Helena would be trying to tell Hermia that she is a faker, poser, or rebel and that she can be controlled by men so easily it is just like she is a puppet on strings and whatever a man makes her do she will do it without a quarrel. Thats what I think this line is when translated to modern day English.
Act 3 scene 2 lines 269-271 "Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose, Or i will shake thee from me like a serpent" Lysander says this to Hermia. He means that she is hanging on to him and that she is like a burr in his shoes that just gets annoying and you want to pick it off. Lysander says this after he has the magic love potion put on his eyes so he no longer loves Hermia but loves Helena now. He also threatens to kick here off like a snake so this means that he will completely throw her away and run away.
There are many insults used in Midsummer Night's Dream. For example, Hermia calls Helena a "Painted maypole" when they are fighting in Act 3 Scene 2. This pretty much means that she told Helena that she is nothing more than a log with makeup and that she doesn't have much of a brain.
In Midsummer Nights Dream, in Act III Scene II Line 296, Hermia calls Helena a Juggler. Which is basically calling her a lier and a trickster. Which in those days was a serious insult.
ReplyDeleteIn Midsummer Night's Dream, in Act III Scene II line 295, Helena calls Hermia a puppet. This means she is easily controlled and is easy. It is also calling her small and fragile. This is an insult to her character and her size. A puppet is very flimsy and controlled by someone else's hand.
ReplyDeleteIn Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III Scene II line 311, Hermia responds to Helena's insult of calling her a puppet by replying that Helena is just a painted maypole which is basically saying that she thinks Helena is a plain object who puts on a lot of makeup to make herself more appealing and that she has nothing to offer to either Lysander or Demetrius. And she ended with saying she is tall enough to reach Helena's eyes and rip them out.
ReplyDeleteIn Midsummer Night's Dream, Act. IV Scene I lines 38-39, Bottom accidentally insults himself. Titania makes a sexual innuendo towards his genitalia by saying "I have a venturous fairy that shall seek... and fetch thee new nuts." Bottom doesn't understand the sexual hint hidden in the words that Titania says to him, and takes them as a offer for food to eat. Bottom said that he would rather have peas. This is an insult to the size of his genitalia. He basically is saying he would rather have smaller nuts the size of peas. Without knowing, Bottom insults himself showing his dumbness and inability to understand sexual innuendos such as the particular one Titania used on him above. This again is another insult to himself, because he is making himself look extremely dumb.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 1, Scene 1, Lysander says to Demetrius “You have her father’s love, Demetrius. Let me have Hermia’s. Do you marry him.” Hermia has just reached her decision that she will become a nun, since she is in love with Lysander, but her father, Egeus, insists she marries Demetrius. Lysander is mocking the fact that Egeus prefers Demetrius over himself by asking if he would like to marry Egeus instead of Hermia. Lysander is also implying that Demetrius is simply chasing after Hermia to please her father.
ReplyDeleteIn act. 3 scene 2, page97 lines 197. Helena says "Lo she is one of this confederacy"! This is an insult to Hermia and Helena is basicly saying "Oh my gosh now she's part of this group to make fun of me too"! Helena thinks that her friend Hermia is ganing up on her to say that she is ugly and can't find a man to love her. This is an insult because Hermia is being called a bully.
ReplyDeleteIn Act. 3, Sc. 2, lines 274-275, Lysander says to Hermia "Thy love? Out tawny Tartar, out! Out loathéd med'cine! O, hated potion, hence!" which is basically a shower of insults to her. Hermia is utterly confused because she doesn't understand why Lysander is acting this way. Lysander insults her because she keeps insisting that they are lovers when Lysander now believes he loves Helena. In modern times the lines would go like this: "I'm not your lover! Get out of here, you're trash. I hate you!"
ReplyDeleteIn Act 3 Scene 2 lines 226-227, Lysander responds to Demetrius and says, “Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.” Lysander is basically saying that Demetrius has no backbone, or the courage to follow through with his threats. He is calling Demetrius weak willed. This is one of the many insults present in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 2, Scene 1, lines 218-219. Demetrius tells Helena, "Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; For I am sick when I do look on thee." Helena was chasing after Demetrius and he was telling her that when someone looks at you, they feel sick. In modern day we say stuff like, you make onions cry. But mostly people do still say I am sick when I look at you!
ReplyDelete"This is the silliest stuff that I have ever heard!" (Act 5, Scene 1, Line 203) Hippolyta is talking to Theseus about how the Mechanic's play doesn't make any sense. She means to say that what she is watching is ridiculous and doesn't make any sense. Theseus argues back that if she was a good audience member she would be able to use her imagination to make the actors better, which is also ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 3 sc. 2 lines 310-313 Hermia insults Helena by saying, How low am I, thou pained maypole? Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. In the above lines Helena made fun of Hermia's height. So Hermia responds with how low am I? I am tall enough to scratch you (Helena) in the eyes.
ReplyDeleteHelena calls Hermia a puppet in Act III Scene II Line 303. This is taken to mean someone who just does what other people tell them to do. It could also mean someone who doesn't have much of a personality, because she calls her counterfeit right before. A modern term used to say this phrase would be if you called someone a follower, someone who never took the lead or voiced their own opinion. To be called a puppet was a great insult back then.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 3 Scene 2 lines 345-349, Lysander lashes out toward to the former object of his love, playing cards once again on Hermia's small stature, which seems to be a sort of a running gag in this scene. He calls Hermia, who he once sought to elope with, a "dwarf, minimus of hind'ring knotgrass made, bead, and acorn" until Demetrius cuts him off with sharp rebuke. The insults of dwarf, bead, and acorn all refer to her small stature, as all are things of small size. The second insult, "minimus of hind'ring knotgrass made", is a bit more interesting. It refers to artificial dwarves, made my Comprachicos (groups in folklore associated with stunting a child's growth), who were often made of ingredients that included knotgrass. The conception is known to Shakespeare, who used it as one of the many insults Lysander weighs on Hermia in order to defend his current love, Helena.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 2 Scene 2 line 92, Demetrius said "I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me so" when Helena asks for him to stay with her. He is basically saying in the "modern" translation "Look, don't follow me any more!" Also, in Act 2 Scene 2, Lysander said in regard to having Helena instead of Hermia that "who would not change a raven for a dove", basically saying that Helena is like a beautifiul dove while Hermia is like a raven, which is an insult to Hermia's beauty.
ReplyDeleteIn act III scene 2, Hermia calls Helena a "juggler" which in modern day sense translates to a person of lies and tricks. We wouldn't think of this as that serious of an insult now a days but back then this was a foul insult. Now days the words many people regularly use are much worse but it was different back then. In act III scene 2 hermia aslo refers to Helena as being to short which Helena takes much offense to.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 3 Scene 2 lines 340-342, Helena says "O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd. She was a vixen when she went to school, and though she be but little, she is fierce. Helena is talking about Hermia here. The modern translation of this would basically be Helena saying that Hermia is a spiteful or quarrelsome woman that is very judgmental..
ReplyDeleteIn Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3 Scene 2 lines 432-437, Robin says, "Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, And wilt not come? Come, recreant! Come, thou child! I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defiled That draws a sword on thee." Robin uses the words recreant and defiled. The modern translation of recreant would be wimp or coward. The modern translation of defiled is similar, but when Robin says, "He is defiled That draws a sword on thee," he's saying that anyone who would fight Demetrius is a coward for fighting someone so useless.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 3 Scene 2 line 303, Helena yells at Hermia saying,"Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!" Helena yells at Helena saying this when they were in the woods arguing. Helena is practically calling Hermia a fake dumb blond.
ReplyDeleteIn Act 3 Scene 2 lines 300-304 we see Helena and Hermia begin the most hostile part of their argument. We see Helena send a thrashing number of insults to Helena. One that stands out to me is when Hermia calls Helena "you counterfeit ..." This line in modern terms could be interpreted as Helena calling Hermia a fake. Or it could mean that she isn't nice or maiden like. Helena thinks this because she believes both men falling in love with her is a scorn of some sort, and is blaming Hermia to be the reason behind all of it.
ReplyDeleteHermia calls Helena a "cankerblossom" (3.2.296), which could basically either translate into "You anoying pest!" or "You love breaker!"
ReplyDeleteIn Act 3 Scene 2, (lines 312-313), Hermia, angry at Helena for "stealing" Lysnader's heart, says
ReplyDelete"Speak! How low am I? I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes." Basically, Herima says that even though she is short, she is capable of many things, including fighting for the love of her life. She says that her being short has nothing to do with her abilities, and that when she wants to, she can keep fighting for what she wants.
In Act III, scene 1, line 76, Puck says: 'What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here[?]'. In modern English, this would be the equivalent of saying 'What are these poor hippies doing here?'. Back in Shakespearean times, 'homespun' referred to the clothes that a person wore, stating that the clothes they were wearing was homemade, which by itself was insulting because it insinuated that the homespun person was too poor to buy clothes. But Shakespeare, being the drama queen (king?) the he was, had to include that the clothes were not only homespun, but hempen too, meaning they were made out of hemp. So by saying that one line, Puck was insulting them for being of a low social class.
ReplyDeleteThere are many insults thrown about in A midsummer’s Night Dream. In Act 3 Scene 2 line 346 Lysander, who is annoyed with Hermia, says ,” get gone, you dwarf, you minimus, of hind’ring knotgrass made, you bead, you acorn-“. By saying this Lysander is making fun of one of Hermia’s insecurities , which is her height. In his insult he calls her a dwarf, and acorn, a bead, knotgrass, and minimus. Knotgrass is a weed that stunts the growth of flowers, and something that is minimus is anything that is small. By saying this Lysander is basically saying, “Go away you annoying short person!”.
ReplyDelete"Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!" This line is said by Helena in act 3 scene 2 line 303 directed towards Hermia. I feel that if you translated this to modern day english Helena would be trying to tell Hermia that she is a faker, poser, or rebel and that she can be controlled by men so easily it is just like she is a puppet on strings and whatever a man makes her do she will do it without a quarrel. Thats what I think this line is when translated to modern day English.
ReplyDeleteAct 3 scene 2 lines 269-271 "Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose, Or i will shake thee from me like a serpent" Lysander says this to Hermia. He means that she is hanging on to him and that she is like a burr in his shoes that just gets annoying and you want to pick it off. Lysander says this after he has the magic love potion put on his eyes so he no longer loves Hermia but loves Helena now. He also threatens to kick here off like a snake so this means that he will completely throw her away and run away.
ReplyDeleteThere are many insults used in Midsummer Night's Dream. For example, Hermia calls Helena a "Painted maypole" when they are fighting in Act 3 Scene 2. This pretty much means that she told Helena that she is nothing more than a log with makeup and that she doesn't have much of a brain.
ReplyDeletethanks so much man, really appreciate it
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