OBERON TITANIA OBERON TITANIA
OBERON
TITANIA
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. What, jealous Oberon?—Fairies, skip hence. I have forsworn his bed and company. Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord? Then I must be thy lady; but I know When thou hast stol’n away from fairyland And in the shape of Corin sat all day, Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here Come from the farthest step of India? But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskined mistress and your warrior love, To Theseus must be wedded, and you come To give their bed joy and prosperity? How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night From Perigouna whom he ravished, And make him with fair Aegles break his faith, With Ariadne and Antiopa? These are the forgeries of jealousy, And never since the middle summer's spring Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By pavèd fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beachèd margin of the sea To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, As in revenge, have sucked up from the sea Contagious fogs which, falling in the land, Have every pelting river made so proud That they have overborne their continents. The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard. The fold stands empty in the drownèd field, And crows are fatted with the murrion flock. The nine men's morris is filld up with mud, And the quaint mazes in the wanton green For lack of tread are undistinguishable: The human mortals want their winter here; No night is now with hymn or carol blest: Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound: And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
OBERON
TITANIA
OBERON TITANIA
OBERON TITANIA
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which: And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original. Do you amend it then; it lies in you: Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy, To be my henchman. Set your heart at rest: The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a votaress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side, And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood, When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait Following, -- her womb then rich with my young squire, -Would imitate, and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And for her sake do I rear up her boy, And for her sake I will not part with him. How long within this wood intend you stay? Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. If you will patiently dance in our round And see our moonlight revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away! We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exit TITANIA with her train]
OBERON
PUCK OBERON
Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury. My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music. I remember. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
PUCK
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league. I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.
[Exit] OBERON
Having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. The next thing then she waking looks upon, Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, She shall pursue it with the soul of love: And ere I take this charm from off her sight, As I can take it with another herb, I'll make her render up her page to me. But who comes here? I am invisible; And I will overhear their conference.
Commentary 2.1.60-188 Introduction : Situation in the play. Dramatic relevance. After court scenes and artisans : the last set of characters, the fairies. Last locus : fairyland and wood. Fairies in the Elizabethan world. Here a mixture of classical (Titania, name given by Ovid to Diana) and pagan (Oberon, Huon de Burdeux). Dangerous. Same themes as we have already encountered in Act I : love thwarted. Male-female opposition. Internal construction. Three parts. Disruption of natural system. Evocation of the past. Oberon's plan. 1. Am not I thou lord?/ Then I must be thy lady. (63-64) Male-female opposition. Unwilling submission of woman to man. Use of modal must. Echo scenes. Puck and Fairy (Puck has announced the dispute). Oberon and Titania. Lysander and Hermia etc. Structural echoes. Husband and wife dispute : a locus classicus of comedy or farce. Here things are more serious : consequences go well beyond the household situation. Taunts : antagonism. Titania's taunts : 62, 70-73 Titania's evocation of all-female happiness 125-138 Taunts at something man cannot enjoy and riches of merchants vs riches of child 125-138 Male daytime rule overturned. Female / Moon. New perspectives on both Theseus and Hippolyta 68-80 (cf. doubling-up) Titania appears to have the upper hand, and certainly has the last word in the exchanges. Titania and moon as sources of disruption : 118, 103. 2. This distemperature. (106) Links between natural world and fairies : cosmic disorder. Mirror between royal male-female dissension and cosmic disorder : weather in particular, leading to death, famine etc. 115-117 Dates and seasons confused. (Winter, summer, spring, autumn etc.) Topical references. Disorder in England. References to recent poor harvests, rain etc. (plague of 1593-4 and bad summers of 1595-6) 88-96 References to Queen Elizabeth I 157-165 Ambiguous references : a female, associated with the moon and Diana, in charge, without an heir or a husband… (Cf. Patterson, Montrose or Hackett Ch 2.) Mazes and confused identities. The changeling. Nine men's morris and mazes 98-100 a frequent image in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 113. Cf. also Hermia's use of amazed, Lysander's amazedly, or the Theseus myth (72).
Seasons exchange their liveries 107-114 : the moon no longer appears to be waning : losing one's way and losing one's identity. Prefigures love-juice and confusion in the wood 171-173. The way out of this situation is in another confused identity : the changeling boy. A mortal boy normally stolen when a baby (cf. beginning of Hofman film) for a fairy child. Also a fickle person (woman in particular) or a shape-changer. Here a changer, but also a symbol of ex-change : a mediating value between man and woman. 3. Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound. (168) The changeling and the shape-changers. Literal shape-changing : Changeling boy. 120 Oberon and Titania 65-68; 72-80. Puck earlier 32-53 Lovers later 171-173 Metamorphoses of language. Titania's speech : systematic personification (prosopopée) 88-115 Boat speech 129-135. A transformation between pregnant woman and boat with merchandise. Oberon's reference to Ovid (Pyramus and Thisbe) and change in colour 165-169 Rites of passage. Flower as a symbol of loss of virginity 165-169. Flower and deflowering. The loss of virginity present even in the source of desire (love-juice). Metonymical link : cause and consequence. Loss refused or regretted by Hippolyta. Chastity enforced by Titania. Opposition Lysander-Hermia soon to come. A symbol of the play which ends "Lovers, to bed" 5.1.355. Other passages : childhood (mother) → youth (father) (changeling) Conclusion. Introduction of fairies, of the dispute, continuation male-female theme with the only married couple of the play. The time is out of joint, thanks to the male-female opposition and preeminence of female element. The love-juice, source of the confusion of the middle of the play, introduced. Note that this love-juice, and the attendant metamorphoses of lovers and Bottom are also the solution to the initial problems of the play. The way out of the maze.
Commentary 2.1.60-188 Introduction : Situation in the play. Dramatic relevance. Internal construction. 1. Am not I thou lord?/ Then I must be thy lady. (63-64) Echo scenes. Taunts : antagonism. Male daytime rule overturned. Female / Moon. 2. This distemperature. (106) Links between natural world and fairies : cosmic disorder. Topical references. Mazes and confused identities. The changeling. 3. Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound. (168) The changeling and the shape-changers. Metamorphoses of language. Rites of passage. Conclusion.
