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“so low”
Cultural Context
Act 3,
Scene 2
Lines 295-296

An explanation of Hermia’s use of “low” in Act 3, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Hermia

And are you grown so high in his esteem
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?

All four of the Athenian lovers are from the upper class, the nobility, but even within the nobility there were gradations of social rankings. Hermia's use of the word "low," just like her use of the words "stature" and "personage," has an ambiguous double meaning. She could mean that she is shorter than Helena, or alternatively that her family is of a lower social rank than that of Helena.