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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 5Scene 1
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Meter
Language
Act 5,
Scene 1
Lines 266-275

An explanation of the changing meter in Bottom’s speech in Act 5, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Bottom (as Pyramus)

Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams.
I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright;
For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams
I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight.
[Seeing Thisbe's bloody cloak on the ground]
But stay! O spite!
But mark, poor night,
What dreadful dole is here?
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck, O dear!

Pyramus begins this speech in the normal iambic pentameter of ten syllable lines, but after he sees Thisbe’s bloody coat, his heightened anxiety is reflected by a shift to shorter lines using mostly single syllable words.