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Call You Me Fair?

A comedy monologue from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. About 1 min.

Helena begs her best friend Hermia to teach her how to win Demetrius.

Helena
late teens to 20s. A lovesick young woman envious of her best friend

  1. Hermia has just greeted her as “fair Helena.”

  2. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.

  3. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!

  4. Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue’s sweet air

  5. More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,

  6. When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

  7. Sickness is catching.

  8. O were favour so, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go.

  9. My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,

  10. My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.

  11. Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,

  12. The rest I’d give to be to you translated.

  13. O, teach me how you look, and with what art

  14. You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart!

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Public domain, William Shakespeare, 1595. Text from Project Gutenberg #1514.

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