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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 1Scene 2
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"aggravate my voice"
Humor
Act 1,
Scene 2
Lines 63-75

An explanation of the humor in the phrase “aggravate my voice” in Act 1, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Bottom

Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do
any man's heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will
make the Duke say “Let him roar again, let him roar
again.”

Quince

An you should do it too terribly you would fright
the Duchess and the ladies that they would shriek, and
that were enough to hang us all.

All

That would hang us, every mother's son.

Bottom

I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies
out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but
to hang us, but I will aggravate my voice so that I will
roar you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar you
an 'twere any nightingale.

Bottom meant to say that he would moderate (lessen) his voice, not aggravate (worsen) it; and his symbol of gentleness, a sucking dove, is a mishmash of a sitting dove (a dove sitting on her eggs) and a sucking lamb (a lamb nursing at its mother's teat).