[OBERON advances.]
OBERON         [Squeezes the flower on Titania’s eyelids.]

What thou seest when thou dost wake,

Do it for thy true love take;

Love and languish for his sake.

Be it ounce or cat or bear,

Pard, or boar with bristled hair

In thy eye that shall appear

When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.

Wake when some vile thing is near. [Exit.] (2.2.31-38)

Like the fairies before him, at least some of the time, Oberon doesn’t speak in iambic pentameter, but rather in tetrameter, with four stresses per line; it’s a charm, an incantation, to accompany his action with the magic flower. What thou seest when thou dost wake, do it for thy true love take. (Yet another reminder for the audience of the action of this magic herb.) Fall in love with the first thing you see on waking! Agonisingly! Love and languish for his sake! Be it ounce or cat or bear, pard, or boar with bristled hair—Oberon isn’t thinking about creepy crawlies but about much larger, wild animals, a lynx, a wild cat, a bear, even a leopard or a wild boar (all of these are hairy, bristly, fierce; no lions, though, nothing potentially noble or especially toothy?). But, whatever in thy eye shall appear when thou wak’st, it is thy dear. Whatever it is, you’re going to fall for it, and fall hard. A final vicious repetition: wake when some vile thing is near. Make it NASTY; Oberon is angry and hurting. And the triplet rhyme in the last three lines winds up the charm…