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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 3Scene 2
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"death-counterfeitng sleep"
Imagery
Act 3,
Scene 2
Lines 355-378

An explanation of the sleep imagery in Act 3, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Oberon

Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.
Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
The starry welkin cover thou anon
With drooping fog as black as Acheron,
And lead these testy rivals so astray
As one come not within another's way.
Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong,
And sometime rail thou like Demetrius.
And from each other look thou lead them thus
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye,
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property:
To take from thence all error with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
With league whose date till death shall never end.
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy,
And then I will her charmèd eye release
From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.

Sleep is pictured as a heavy, insect-like spirit crawling over the Athenians’ eyebrows to press down their eyelids. It has bat-like wings because bats only come out at night.