Duke Theseus of Athens was to marry Hippolyta in four days. He complained that the four days were crawling. Just then an old man named Egeus came into the palace with two young men and a daughter.
The daughter was Hermia, and the young men were Lysander and Demetrius. Egeus had already settled that she would marry Demetrius. Hermia had refused, saying she loved Lysander instead. So the old man stood before the Duke and produced an old Athenian law.
Under that law, a father whose daughter refused his choice of husband could have her put to death. It sounds like a law nobody could mean, and yet Egeus meant it. He was not saying wild things in a temper. He believed he was doing right.
Look With Your Father’s Judgment
Theseus told Hermia to think of her father as a god. He was the one who shaped her beauty, said the Duke, and so he might unmake it. Hermia did not step back. She answered with a single line.
“I would my father look’d but with my eyes.” (Act 1, Scene 1)
The Duke’s reply turned her sentence around and handed it back. Her eyes, he said, must look with her father’s judgment. The words were nearly the same. All the weight sat on his side.
Theseus gave her three days and laid out three paths. Marry the man her father chose, die under the law, or live out her life as a nun. Then he went off to see to his own wedding. To the people left standing there, not one of the three looked like a life.
They Decide to Leave at Night
Once they were alone, Lysander brought out a plan. An aunt of his lived a little way outside Athens and loved him like a son. The Athenian law did not reach that house, so they could marry there.
They agreed to meet the next night in the wood beyond the city. Hermia swore by the bow and the arrow and by everything people swear on. Once they were among the trees, they believed, neither her father nor the Duke could reach them.
Then Helena came in. She was Hermia’s oldest friend, and she loved Demetrius, who never looked at her. The two of them told Helena the whole plan. Sharing a secret was what friendship meant to them.
What Helena Did
Alone, Helena did a strange piece of arithmetic. She was not thinking that with Hermia gone, Demetrius might turn to her. What she wanted was smaller than that. If she told him the plan, might he not say thank you, just once?
So Helena found Demetrius and told him the two were running to the wood that night. Instead of thanking her he ran straight for the trees. Helena went after him.
That is how four people entered the same wood that night. Two running away, one going to stop them, and one following the one who was going to stop them. All four believed they knew what they were doing.
The Wood Has Other Laws
The wood was not the city. A father’s law, a Duke’s ruling, a deadline of three days: none of them held between the trees. In Athens the most frightening thing was a rule the grown-ups had written down. Not here.
And that night the wood held more than people. A fairy king and queen were deep in a quarrel, and their quarrel had thrown the seasons out of order. The king had a servant who would do whatever he was told, and enjoyed the doing. In that servant’s hands was a juice that made whoever it touched fall in love.
The four knew none of this. They walked in believing that who they loved was theirs to decide.
Today, Whose Eyes Do We Look With
What Hermia asked her father for was not permission to marry. It was to be looked at, once, with her own eyes. The Duke answered that she should look with her father’s, and behind that answer stood a law.
We stand in the same gap often enough. Some things are obvious through our own eyes and dangerous through the eyes of the adults around us. And sometimes we trusted only our own eyes and later found the adults had been right. This story does not tell us which side wins.
It does show one thing plainly. When someone hands down a decision without explaining it, the other person is left with nothing to choose but flight.