The thematic emphasis on transformation and magic is intensified by the key images of the play, in particular, the recurring references to the moon. Like the moon, which constantly metamorphoses, shedding its old self for something new, the lovers will go through several phases before returning, refreshed and slightly altered, to themselves in Act V. Cyclical, constantly transforming itself in the night sky, the moon is an apt image for the dreamy, moonlit scenes of the play in which characters are constantly transformed. In her three phases — the new, virginal moon of the goddess Diana; the full, pregnant moon of the goddess Luna; and the dark, aging moon of Hecate — the moon is linked with all of the various moods of the play.
In line 3, Theseus connects his wedding to the changes in the moon by assuring Hippolyta that their marriage will occur in four happy days, with the arrival of a new moon. Here Theseus characterizes the moon as a "step-dame" keeping her heir waiting for her death so that he can claim his inheritance. Theseus wants the moon to hurry to her death so he can begin enjoying his "inheritance": marriage to Hippolyta. Hippolyta also associates the moon with love and marriage, declaring it will be "like to a silver bow/ New bent in heaven" (9–10) on the day of their wedding. From stepmother, the moon is transformed in the course of a few lines into the image of fruitful union contained in the "silver bow," an implicit reference to Cupid's arrow, which draws men and women together. Later in the scene, the moon transforms once again, moving into her role as Diana, the chaste goddess of the hunt. Theseus vows that if Hermia does not marry Demetrius as her father wishes, she will live a barren life, "[c]hanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon" (73). Theseus says Hermia has until the next new moon to make her decision, so the new moon becomes both a symbol of his happy union with Hippolyta and of Hermia's potential withered life as a nun (or even a corpse), if she does not comply with her father's whim.
