TITANIA         The nine men’s morris is filled 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.           (2.1.98-105)

It’s not just the mud and the rain, it’s the unrelenting grimness, the loss of all the nice things, the normal things, the little things. The nine men’s morris is filled up with mud—no pub games for you—and the quaint mazes in the wanton green, for lack of tread, are undistinguishable. Too wet even to go outside, to do the ordinary, traditional things, to walk the mazes mown in the meadow. It’s as if the land is reverting to something primal, not necessarily hostile, but indifferent. And the people? Some of their frustrations and sufferings have already been aired, but there’s more, and now a sense of utter exhaustion. The human mortals want their winter here; it’s a relentless autumn, foggy and damp: oh for a crisp, clear day, and a long night by the fireside, cosy and cheerful. But no night is now with hymn or carol blest. (Not even a case of always winter and never Christmas; there’s no such thing as due seasons anymore, apparently.) Therefore the moon, the governess of floods—associated with Titania, as it happens, although that’s not moot here, it seems—pale in her anger, washes all the air, that rheumatic diseases do abound. Damp, damp, damp, you feel it in your bones, in your joints; no chance of getting anything dry, the fire’s smoking, your eyes are watering, nose running, and you’ve got a cough that just won’t go away.