Act 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream moves into the enchanted wood, where the fairy king and queen quarrel over a child, Oberon sends Puck for a magic flower, and a single mistake turns Lysander’s love for Hermia into love for Helena.
This summary takes Act 2 scene by scene. Each scene covers what happens, the key lines, and why it matters for the rest of the play. For the whole story, see our full guide to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For what came before, see our Act 1 summary, and for everyone who appears here, see our guide to the A Midsummer Night’s Dream characters.
At a Glance
Here is Act 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in brief.
Act 2, Scene 1: The Fairy Quarrel
In the wood near Athens, a fairy who serves Titania meets Puck, who serves Oberon.
The fairy warns that the king and queen are about to meet, and that Oberon is furious: Titania has a lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king, and will not give him up. Then the fairy recognizes Puck as “that shrewd and knavish sprite / Call’d Robin Goodfellow,” who plays tricks on country people. Puck proudly agrees: “I am that merry wanderer of the night.” He likes to neigh like a young mare to fool a horse, or hide in an old woman’s drink and make her spill it down her neck.
“Ill Met by Moonlight”
Oberon and Titania arrive with their followers. “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,” he greets her. “What, jealous Oberon!” she answers. Each accuses the other of loving a mortal: she says he has come to bless the wedding of his old love Hippolyta, and he says she loved Theseus.
Titania then describes what their quarrel has done to the world. “The seasons alter,” frost falls on summer roses, and the bewildered world no longer knows which season is which. She knows who is to blame: these evils come “From our debate, from our dissension; / We are their parents and original.” Oberon answers that she can end it by giving him the boy. She refuses. The boy’s mother was her devoted follower, who died giving birth to him, “And for her sake I will not part with him.” She leaves, and Oberon swears she will not leave the wood until he has punished her.
The Magic Flower
Oberon tells Puck a story. He once saw Cupid take aim at “a fair vestal throned by the west,” but the arrow missed and fell on a little white flower, which turned purple “with love’s wound.” Maidens call it “love-in-idleness.” Its juice, laid on sleeping eyelids, makes the sleeper “madly dote / Upon the next live creature that it sees.” Puck is to fetch it at once. “I’ll put a girdle round about the earth / In forty minutes,” he promises. Oberon will use it on Titania, and make her love some beast until she gives up the boy.
Demetrius and Helena
Invisible, Oberon watches Demetrius storm through the wood, searching for Hermia and Lysander, with Helena following him. “I love thee not, therefore pursue me not,” he tells her. She will not stop: “I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, / The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.” He threatens to run and hide and leave her “to the mercy of wild beasts.” Helena sees how the old stories have been turned upside down: “Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase.” Women, she knows, are not supposed to pursue: “We cannot fight for love, as men may do; / We should be woo’d and were not made to woo.” But she follows him anyway: “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, / To die upon the hand I love so well.”
Oberon takes her side. “Fare thee well, nymph,” he says after her: before Demetrius leaves the wood, “Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.” When Puck returns with the flower, Oberon describes the bank where Titania sleeps, “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,” and gives Puck some of the juice with an order. A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a scornful young man. Puck must anoint his eyes when the lady will be the first thing he sees, and he will know the man “By the Athenian garments he hath on.”
Act 2, Scene 2: The Wrong Athenian
Titania’s fairies sing her to sleep with a lullaby: “You spotted snakes with double tongue, / Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.” Then they leave one fairy on guard.
Oberon slips past and squeezes the flower on her eyelids: “What thou seest when thou dost wake, / Do it for thy true-love take.” Be it a wildcat, a bear, or a boar, she will love it. His last wish is the cruelest: “Wake when some vile thing is near.”
Lysander and Hermia arrive, tired and lost. Lysander admits he has forgotten the way, and they decide to rest until morning. He lies down close to her, but Hermia asks him, for modesty’s sake, to “Lie further off yet, do not lie so near,” and he moves away. They fall asleep a little apart.
Puck finds them. He sees a young man in Athenian clothes, lying apart from a sleeping girl, and draws the obvious conclusion: this must be the scornful Athenian, and the “pretty soul” did not dare lie near “this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.” He anoints Lysander’s eyes and hurries back to Oberon.
Lysander Wakes
Demetrius runs past with Helena behind him. “Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius,” she begs, but he leaves her. Exhausted and alone, she feels ugly and unwanted: “I am as ugly as a bear.” Then she finds Lysander on the ground and wakes him.
The first thing Lysander sees is Helena. “And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake,” he cries. He no longer loves Hermia at all: “Who will not change a raven for a dove?” And he insists that his feelings are perfectly rational: “The will of man is by his reason sway’d; / And reason says you are the worthier maid.” Helena is sure he is mocking her, and runs off, hurt. Lysander leaves the sleeping Hermia behind and follows.
Hermia wakes from a nightmare, calling for Lysander to help her. There is no answer. Frightened, she sets off alone into the dark to find him.
A Closer Reading: The Chase Reversed
Helena’s line “Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase” describes her own humiliation, and by the end of the act the magic has made it come true in a way she never wanted.
In the old myth, the god Apollo chases the nymph Daphne, who escapes him only by turning into a laurel tree. Helena flips the story: here the woman chases and the man runs. She knows how unnatural her world thinks this is. “We cannot fight for love, as men may do; / We should be woo’d and were not made to woo.” In Scene 1, she is the one pursuing, and Demetrius is the one fleeing, even threatening to leave her to the wild beasts.
Oberon hears her and promises to put the story back the right way round: “Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.” The man will pursue, and the woman will run. And within one scene, that is exactly what happens, with one error. The man now chasing Helena is Lysander, not Demetrius. She runs, and he follows. The chase has been restored to its traditional form, and it is worse for her than before: she thinks she is being mocked.
Meanwhile, the one woman in the play who never chased anyone, Hermia, is left alone in the dark, calling for a lover who has run off after someone else. The act ends with the roles of the four lovers completely reshuffled. The magic that was meant to solve one problem has made two more, and Oberon’s kind intention has become the play’s great confusion. Our guide to the themes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream looks at power and control in love through the whole play.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Act 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, answered briefly.
What Happens in Act 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
Oberon and Titania quarrel over an Indian boy, and Oberon sends Puck for a magic flower whose juice makes people fall in love with the next creature they see. Oberon enchants Titania and tells Puck to enchant a scornful Athenian man. Puck enchants Lysander by mistake, and he falls in love with Helena, abandoning Hermia.
Why Are Oberon and Titania Fighting?
Oberon wants the little Indian boy Titania is raising to be his attendant. Titania refuses because the boy’s mother, her devoted follower, died giving birth to him, and she is raising him for her sake.
What Is Love-in-Idleness?
The magic flower at the center of the play. According to Oberon, it was a white flower turned purple when Cupid’s arrow fell on it. Its juice, put on a sleeper’s eyelids, makes them dote on the first living creature they see when they wake.
Why Does Puck Enchant the Wrong Man?
Oberon tells him he will recognize the man by his Athenian clothes. Lysander is also wearing Athenian clothes, and because he is sleeping apart from Hermia, Puck assumes he is the scornful young man Oberon described.
What Does “Ill Met by Moonlight” Mean?
It is Oberon’s greeting to Titania: this is an unlucky or unwelcome meeting. It announces their quarrel before either of them explains it.
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