TITANIA         Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.

Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes.

Feed him with apricots and dewberries,

With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries.

The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,

And for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs

And light them at the fiery glow-worms’ eyes,

To have my love to bed and to arise;

And pluck the wings from painted butterflies

To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.

Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.   (3.1.158-168)

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman, Titania instructs—gentleman! courteous! but also kind. (So much of this sounds like an indulgent, slightly stern mother speaking to potentially unruly children.) Treat him well, and be on your best behaviour. Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes: you can do your dancing! (There’s a mental image of children desperate to show this new grown-up friend their playground, their dens, to run and skip.) Feed him with apricots and dewberries, with purple grapes, green figs and mulberries—the fruit are luxurious, sensual, JUICY, a picture of ripeness, roundness, scent and taste. (The grapes and figs are more exotic, the colour making them linger a little longer in the mind’s eye; the mulberries are familiarly English, although Shakespeare hadn’t yet planted his mulberry tree in Stratford—but for some in the audience they’d wittily recall the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, at the end of which, the mulberry’s originally white berries are dyed purple.) Then Titania becomes more whimsical, and smaller in scale (the fairies are TINY): the honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, those wee yellow bike panniers that they carry on their furry legs, and for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs and light them at the fiery glow-worms’ eyes, to have my love to bed and to arise. Too headily sensual, and too weird to decode in the moment, probably, but is Titania indeed suggesting that her fairies should pull the legs off bumble-bees to make nightlights, lit with glow-worm fire? (Or maybe just harvest the wax?? Hmmm, Titania is not above ruthlessness.) Bottom is to be lulled to sleep—and gently woken—with the best of bespoke fairylights. Then, then, pluck the wings from painted butterflies to fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. Not nice, Titania, but it’s making magic, tiny fluttering brightness and colour; not even the moon shall wake him. So nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. Do your best bowing, be polite! Play nicely!