TITANIA What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
BOTTOM I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and the bones.
(Music: tongs, rural music.)
TITANIA Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
BOTTOM Truly, a peck of provender. I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
TITANIA I have a venturous fairy, that shall seek
The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
BOTTOM I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But I pray you, let none of your people stir me. I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. (4.1.27-38)
Titania is determined to show Bottom a good time in as many ways as possible, and this sequence is often much extended with music and other business: what, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love? I have a reasonable good ear in music, Bottom agrees, love a TUNE. Let’s have the tongs and the bones. The point is that this is not fairy music, this is basic percussion, although I love the idea that Bottom is an old raver with a penchant for repetitive beats. So there’s music, and pleasure, and fairy revels, of whatever kind a production cares to supply (opportunities here for the fairies, who have so few lines, to shine a bit)—and then Titania, recalling her duties as a hostess, offers refreshments: or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat. Are you hungry? I can get you anything you fancy, anything at all! (Titania’s offers and invitations are all in perfect blank verse; Bottom replies in prose.) Truly, a peck of provender, Bottom replies, oooo, lovely, could fancy a bite, absolutely, famished, now I come to think of it. I could munch your good dry oats. Or, oh yes, methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow. Not just oats: hay! lovely hay, a big bundle of it, you can’t beat some nice hay! This seems disappointingly prosaic for Titania: but I have a venturous fairy, that shall seek the squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts. Would that be nice, a bit more refined? (Also, fairies are TINY, again, they can raid a squirrel’s nest but would disappear under a haybale.) Alas no, Bottom is not one of your gourmet donkeys, nothing fancy for him. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. Can’t beat dried peas after a night out with the tongs and the bones! But—sorry, lass, not to turn down any of your generous hospitality—I pray you, let none of your people stir me. I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. Do you mind if I have a nap for a bit? Can’t seem to keep my eyes open! So if your little chaps could just back off a bit?
