OBERON         Yet marked 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 showed thee once.

The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids 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.

PUCK  I’ll put a girdle round about the earth

In forty minutes.        (2.1.165-176)

I saw where the arrow landed, though! says Oberon. I did! Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell: it fell upon a little western flower, tiny, delicate, before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound; its purity is streaked now, with purple/crimson, yes, alright it’s been DEFLOWERED, subtlety not the strong point here. (Perhaps we might think of it more as a love-bite??) And maidens call it love-in-idleness: it’s a pansy, hearts-ease, its little face now bloodied, its soft heart pierced. Fetch me that flower, yes, that flower, the herb I showed thee once: remember? I have a PLAN: the juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, will make or man or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees. It’s LOVE JUICE and it causes MAD INFATUATION, without any regard to species. Great stuff! So, fetch me this herb, and be thou here again ere the Leviathan can swim a league. Quick as you can, do it faster than, er, a sea monster can swim a reasonable distance. (And thus the sea, so intimately, sensually evoked by both Titania and Oberon, recedes into myth and vastness.) Puck’s up for it: I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes, aye aye, I’ll circumnavigate the globe in no time at all! Fairies are FAST, especially when there’s mischief (as yet unspecified) to be done.