'If We Shadows Accept Offended' is the opening line of Puck's closing speech from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nighttime'south Dream. In summary, the speech sees Puck (likewise known as Robin Goodfellow) seeking forgiveness from the audience if the fairies (including Puck himself) have 'offended' any of the audience with their antics.

Before we take a closer look at the language and significant of Puck's speech, hither's a reminder of the words:

If we shadows have offended,
Think simply this, and all is mended—
That you take only slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do non reprehend.
If yous pardon, we volition mend.
And, every bit I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearnèd luck
Now to 'scape the ophidian'south tongue,
Nosotros will make amends ere long.
Else the Puck a liar call.
Then good night unto you all.
Give me your hands if nosotros be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

The best way to provide an assay of Puck's speech is probably to go through information technology, a section at a time, and summarise and paraphrase its significant. So, here goes:

If we shadows have offended,
Remember merely this, and all is mended—
That yous have only slumbered here
While these visions did announced.

In other words: 'If these fairies making mischief on the stage have offended whatever of you, so I suggest looking at it this style: what y'all have just watched is nothing but a dream, which you accept witnessed while you slept here.'

Note that Puck'southward speech is in tetrameter (four feet per line, rather than five every bit in the usual pentameter lines Shakespeare more oftentimes uses) and written using trochaic metre rather than the more than usual iambic (i.east. 'Tummy-ti' rather than 'ti-TUM'). Trochaic metre is more normally associated with song, and tetrameter (strictly, it'due south trochaic tetrameter catalectic, since the last syllable of each line is missed off: 'catalectic' means 'leaving off') gives the lines a sing-song quality.

The simplicity of the rhyming couplets reinforces this. Information technology'southward about as if Puck is lulling usa to sleep – or out of it, perhaps more accurately, since he's challenge that we have been comatose and are now waking up at the cease of the operation.

And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,

In other words, 'This low-cal and petty story we have presented earlier you had no more power than a dream.' A Midsummer Dark'south Dream is a play full of magic and the supernatural, equally the very being of Puck himself – a sprite or fairy – attests, every bit does the presence of a number of other characters, including Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies.

There'southward potentially something mischievous (or, if you prefer, puckish) almost Puck's merits that the play is 'no more yielding than a dream': dreams can be extraordinarily powerful and vivid when we feel them, and although they are not existent, they tin can leave their marking on our minds.

Gentles, exercise not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend.

To paraphrase: 'Ladies and gentlemen, practise not arraign me or go annoyed with me: if you are willing to forgive usa, we will make everything all right over again.'

And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearnèd luck
Now to 'scape the serpent'south tongue,
We volition brand amends ere long.

Puck now tells the audience that he means what he says, equally he is honest. If the audience are more than generous towards Puck and his fellows than they deserve, and concord not to kiss at the actors on the stage (like a snake), then he promises they will make up for the poor play soon.

Else the Puck a liar call.
So good night unto you lot all.
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

Puck concludes his oral communication past maxim, substantially: 'If we don't go far upwards to you, y'all can call me a liar. So, good nighttime everyone. Show your appreciation by clapping your hands, and I, Robin Goodfellow, will make it upwards to you in return for your adulation.'

The diarist Samuel Pepys wasn't a fan of Shakespeare'southward A Midsummer Nighttime'south Dream. Seeing a operation of the play in 1662, he wrote in his diary that it was 'the almost insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life' (though he adds that he liked the dancing, as well equally the 'handsome women' he saw, 'which was all my pleasure'). Despite Pepys' lack of enthusiasm (for the play itself, anyway), A Midsummer Night'due south Dream remains one of Shakespeare'south most enduringly pop comedies.

And then there's an chemical element of false modesty to Puck'due south (and Shakespeare'south) polite asking for forgiveness from their audition, for having inflicted a potentially offensive spectacle upon them. Finally, as well, at that place is probably an element of self-awareness: 'shadows' in 'If we shadows have offended' may principally refer to the fairies in the play, those blusterous spirits and shadowy creatures who are then fundamental to A Midsummer Nighttime's Dream alongside the homo participants; but 'shadows' was besides ofttimes used for actors in the theatre as well.

Indeed, in i of Shakespeare's sonnets, Sonnet 53, Shakespeare had potentially punned on this meaning of 'shadows':

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of foreign shadows on you lot tend?
Since every one hath, every 1, i shade,
And you merely one, can every shadow lend …

We have analysed this sonnet in more detail here. For Oscar Wilde in 'The Portrait of Mr Westward. H.', this poem was part of the show that the addressee (and muse) for Shakespeare'due south sonnets was a boy actor named Willie Hughes. Although that theory is not widely believed by scholars and critics, the idea of theatre as a identify of 'shadows' – forms which are not real, yet reverberate the realities of love and desire, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream – is one with which Shakespeare was clearly familiar.