OBERON         Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.

Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;

The starry welkin cover thou anon

With drooping fog as black as Acheron,

And lead these testy rivals so astray

As one come not within another’s way.

Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,

Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong,

And sometime rail thou like Demetrius,

And from each other look thou lead them thus

Till o’er their brows, death-counterfeiting, sleep

With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.        (3.2.354-365)

Oberon has a plan—involving a lot of energetic work for Puck—which he outlines in a speech of strange, sinister enchantment. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight. Yes? they’re off to beat the crap out of each other, idiot boys. So we’ve got to act quickly: hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night: hurry, make it extra-dark, the starry welkin cover thou anon with drooping fog as black as Acheron. You’re going to obscure the stars, the sky with heavy, hellish mist, and lead these testy rivals so astray as one come not within another’s way. Your job is to keep them apart, lost, but separately. If they can’t find each other in the darkness, they can’t fight. Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue—imitate him—then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong—so, insult Demetrius in Lysander’s voice—and sometime rail thou like Demetrius, the opposite, yes, I can see you’ve grasped the plan. (This is actually the sort of thing Puck likes, a bit of theatre, some creative rudeness, running around—perhaps not that so much—and shouting in the dark. Making chaos.) And from each other look thou lead them thus—keep them apart, yes, that’s the crucial thing—till o’er their brows, death-counterfeiting, sleep with leaden legs and batty wings doth creep. Tire them out, yes, like a couple of over-excited toddlers (indeed)—but there’s that extraordinary image of sleep not just as an imitation of death, but as something at once heavy and slow, lead-limbed (they won’t be able to go a step further) and monstrous, with the wings of a bat, silent, sightless, and dark, darker than night. Oberon is, here, very much the fairy king; he is not a benign enchanter, and Puck, for all his protestations, must do his bidding.