Original: Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
Modern: Help me, Lysander, help me! Do everything you can

Original: To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Modern: To pull this slithering snake off my chest!

Original: Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
Modern: Oh my God, have mercy! What a terrible dream that was!

Original: Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
Modern: Lysander, look how I’m shaking with fear:

Original: Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
Modern: I dreamed that a snake ate my heart,

Original: And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
Modern: And you just sat there smiling while it fed on me.

Original: Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!
Modern: Lysander! What, you’ve moved away? Lysander! My lord!

Original: What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
Modern: What, you can’t hear me? You’re gone? No sound, no answer?

Original: Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;
Modern: Oh no, where are you? Speak up if you can hear me;

Original: Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
Modern: Please speak, for the sake of our love! I’m almost fainting with fear.

Original: No? then I well perceive you all not nigh
Modern: No? Then I can clearly see that none of you are nearby

Original: Either death or you I’ll find immediately.
Modern: I’ll find either death or you right away.

In Act II, Scene 2 of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Titania and her fairy attendants enter a grove near Athens where they prepare to rest for the night. The fairy queen instructs her followers to sing her to sleep while keeping watch for various creatures and pests that might disturb her slumber. After Titania falls asleep surrounded by her fairy court, Oberon approaches and squeezes the juice of the magical love-in-idleness flower onto her eyelids, casting the spell that will make her fall in love with the first creature she sees upon waking.

Meanwhile, Lysander and Hermia, fleeing from Athens and Egeus’s harsh decree, arrive exhausted in the same part of the forest. Lysander suggests they rest for the night, proposing they sleep close together, but Hermia insists on propriety and asks him to lie at a distance from her. As the young lovers sleep apart from one another, Puck enters searching for the Athenian youth Oberon described - the one who rejected the woman who pursued him. Mistaking Lysander for Demetrius due to his Athenian clothes and his separation from Hermia, Puck applies the love potion to Lysander’s eyes. When Demetrius later runs through the forest pursued by Helena, she discovers the sleeping Lysander and wakes him, causing him to immediately fall in love with her due to the magic, much to Helena’s confusion and distress.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream follows multiple interconnected plots that unfold over the course of a single midsummer night in Athens and the nearby enchanted forest. The play opens with Duke Theseus of Athens preparing to marry Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Meanwhile, Egeus brings his daughter Hermia before Theseus, demanding she marry Demetrius according to his wishes. Hermia refuses because she loves Lysander, and Theseus gives her until his wedding day to decide between marrying Demetrius, becoming a nun, or facing death. Hermia and Lysander plan to elope by meeting in the forest, and they confide in Hermia’s friend Helena, who is desperately in love with Demetrius despite his rejection of her.

In the forest, the fairy king Oberon and queen Titania are feuding over custody of a changeling boy. Oberon instructs his mischievous servant Puck to fetch a magical flower whose juice, when applied to sleeping eyes, makes the person fall in love with the first creature they see upon waking. Oberon plans to use this on Titania to humiliate her into giving up the boy, and he also orders Puck to help Helena by making Demetrius fall in love with her. However, Puck mistakenly applies the juice to Lysander’s eyes instead, causing him to fall in love with Helena when he awakens. Meanwhile, a group of Athenian craftsmen rehearsing a play in the forest becomes entangled in the magical chaos when Puck transforms their leader Bottom’s head into that of a donkey, and the enchanted Titania falls in love with him.

The romantic confusion deepens when Oberon discovers Puck’s error and applies the love juice to Demetrius’s eyes as well, causing both young men to pursue Helena, who believes they are mocking her. Hermia becomes confused and angry when Lysander rejects her for Helena. Oberon orders Puck to separate the four lovers and fix the situation. After obtaining the changeling boy from the distracted Titania, Oberon releases her from the spell and restores Bottom to his normal form. Puck leads the exhausted lovers through the forest until they fall asleep, then applies an antidote to Lysander’s eyes so he will love Hermia again upon waking. Theseus discovers the four lovers in the forest the next morning, and since Demetrius now truly loves Helena, the duke overrules Egeus and declares a triple wedding. The play concludes with the three couples’ wedding celebration, where the craftsmen perform their comically inept play, followed by the fairies blessing the palace and its inhabitants.