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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 3Scene 1
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“a bush of thorns and a lantern”
Imagery
Act 3,
Scene 1
Lines 43-57

An explanation of Quince’s reference to “a bush of thorns and a lantern” in Act 3, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Quince

Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things:
that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber, for you
know Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.

Snug

Doth the moon shine that night we play our
play?

Bottom

A calendar, a calendar — look in the almanac,
find out moonshine, find out moonshine.
[Enter Robin, invisible]

Quince

[Consulting an almanac] Yes, it doth shine that
night.

Bottom

Why, then may you leave a casement of the great
chamber window where we play open, and the moon
may shine in at the casement.

Quince

Ay, or else one must come in with a bush of
thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or
to present the person of Moonshine. Then there is

The lantern represents the moon's light, while the bush of thorns comes from a legend that the figure we see in the moon is the biblical character Cain who, because he murdered his brother Abel, was condemned to forever circle the earth carrying a bundle of thorns.

Cain Slaying Abel, Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1608-1609