Hymns in the Dark
By charliegirl2
A/N: This was originally an assignment for a Shakespeare class I took; students were to pick three descriptive passages from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and write about the images each called up. This evolved into a one-shot about Hermia, about six months after being sent to a nunnery for refusing to marry Demetrius.
"Chanting hymns to the cold, fruitless moon"
Hermia struggled up from the altar of Artemis, where she had knelt for the past half-hour, quietly offering prayers and sacrifices to the goddess. The marble mosaic had been hard under her knees, and now Hermia tried not to limp as she walked slowly around to the temple garden, carrying incense.
The garden path and walls were also made of marble and were palest silver in the light of the moon. The colors of the flowers and leaves, trees and trailing vines had faded with the dusk and were now dull, though dew was already beginning to collect on them, and it reflected a little silver moonlight.
Hermia sighed. This was one of her dullest duties; she had to go out at every full moon and chant prayers for three hours in the darkness. Little was there to distract her from the same words repeated over and over again: Artemis, O Mighty Goddess of the moon, bless the men that go to hunt; bless the children who wander, lost and alone; let your heavenly light shine on Athens for ever and ever. Your servant humbly asks you this.
Hermia set down her tray of incense on a low wall, beneath which the ground sloped sharply away. Fires burned orange in bronze braziers set atop poles. Hermia selected a long stick from the bundle of incense and placed one end into the brazier on the left. Turning her eyes heavenward and trying not to breathe too much of the heady smoke now wafting from overhead, Hermia began softly to chant the prayer of full moon. As the notes from her lips floated upwards and dissolved into the sky, she stared unwaveringly at Artemis' moon, and let her mind wander.
To her dismay, her wandering mind pounced upon the thought of Lysander. She had loved him enough to give up what little freedom she had had as a lady of Athens and spend the rest of her life in a nunnery. Not three months after she had begun her duties, Hermia had received the news that Lysander had married another. She had seen him from behind her black veil at the last festival of the moon, talking happily with other nobles, with his wife, silent but smiling, at his side. She was beautiful- golden curls hung to her waist and her body was perfectly proportioned. Hermia's mother had always told her to bite down on something when she was angry to avoid screaming and alarming others, but she had been holding nothing at the festival, so her fingers received the brunt of her fury. The deep cuts had been there for many weeks, reminding her of Lysander every time she looked at them.
Hermia took deep breaths, willing herself to stop the tears welling up behind her eyes. She focused on the moon. It had always comforted her before; she knew it would always be there.
After a minute of glaring tearfully at the shining orb, Hermia had not been reassured or comforted. The orb in the sky was just as round and silver-gray and hard as it had always been, and this time, that failed to help her. In fact, it frightened her somewhat to think that she was praying to a cold, immovable stone, one that she now suspected didn't particularly care for humans.
Hampered by this new feeling that all of her duties as a nun were futile, Hermia gathered up her breath and began chanting again. Now she looked at everything but the moon: the winking diamond stars, the few wisps of smoky cloud she could see, the deep velvety black sky, the orange sparks flying up from the braziers with popping sounds, and the shimmering haze of the incense smoke.
Hermia removed the remains of the incense from the brazier, flung them out over the wall and watched them touch the ground, barely disturbing the soil. She put out the fires in the braziers, so that the moon and the stars were the only sources of light in the garden, and turned to go inside to her chambers and sleep.
At the door, Hermia turned back and looked at the moon once more, to see if she had not been thinking clearly before. The orb glared back at her, still disdainful. Hermia whipped about, swept across the cool main temple, and collapsed onto the pallet in her chambers, drowning her worry in sleep.
A/N: Please review with your thoughts. Constructive criticism is gladly welcomed. Thank you!