Scene 4.1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is full of things that are easily changed, such as love. Demetrius, upon awaking in the forest, has changed his mind about his love of Hermia, and chosen Helena—“My love to Hermia/ Melted as the snow, seems to me now/ As the remembrance of an idle gaud…” (4.1. 162-164) It illustrates how quickly his love is gone and replaced. Demetrius’ fickle love is also demonstrated by the following lines: “The object and the pleasure of mine eye/ Is Only Helena. To her, my lord,/ Was I betrothed ere I saw Hermia.” (4.1. 167-169) To paraphrase, he was engaged to Helena before he saw Hermia, upon which point his love changed. Yet an interesting point in Demetrius’ speech is thus: “But like in sickness did I loathe this food;/ But as in health come to my natural taste.” Demetrius makes the connection between food and love when speaking of both Hermia and Helena. We, as the outside reader, know that Helena and Demetrius are supposed to be together. When Demetrius refers to the love of Hermia as a sickness, he is describing the wrong love. In this play, the wrong love is symbolized by something horrible; Demetrius’ wrong love is signified by a sickness, and earlier in the scene, we see the same thing with Queen Titania. “My Oberon, what visions have I seen!/ Methought I was enamoured of an ass/…/How came these things to pass?/ O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!” (4.1. 72-75) Titania’s wrong love is Bottom, translated into an ass. It almost seems like Titania expresses incredulity at the very thought that she could have fallen in love with an ass, one of nature’s ugliest creatures, and obviously the wrong love for her. Hippolyta expresses her woe at the wrong love differently. Being the captured Amazon queen, unwilling to wed, she mourns for her old home and its way of life: “I was with ...
