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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 3Scene 2
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"maypole"
Cultural Context
Act 3,
Scene 2
Lines 289-299

An explanation of the reference to a “maypole” in Act 3, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Helena

Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!

Hermia

Puppet? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures. She hath urged her height.
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.
And are you grown so high in his esteem
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak,
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

In Medieval England, people celebrated the arrival of spring with a public holiday on May 1st. One of the festivities consisted of erecting a maypole with colorful ribbons attached to its top. Children danced around the pole holding the ends of these ribbons, covering the pole in colorful stripes.