Faculty of English

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 […]

OBERON         That very time I saw (but thou couldst not) Flying between the cold moon and the earth Cupid, all armed. A certain aim he took At a fair vestal, thronèd by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on In maiden meditation, fancy free.    […]

OBERON         Well, go thy way. Thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury. My gentle puck, come hither. Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid’s music. PUCK                          I remember.   […]

TITANIA         But she, being mortal, of that boy did die, And for her sake do I rear up her boy; And for her sake, I will not part with him. OBERON         How long within this wood intend you stay? TITANIA         Perchance till after Theseus’ wedding day. If you will patiently dance in our round And see our moonlight revels, go with […]

TITANIA         His mother was a votaress of my order; And in the spiced Indian air by night, Full often hath she gossiped by my side, And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands Marking th’embarked traders on the flood, When we have laughed to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind, Which she with pretty and with swimming gait Following (her womb then rich […]

TITANIA         And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension: We are their parents and original. OBERON         Do you amend it then; it lies in you. Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy To be my henchman. TITANIA                     Set your heart at rest. The fairy land buys not the child of me.      (2.1.115-122) Titania concludes […]

TITANIA         And thorough this distemperature, we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter change Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which. (2.1.106-114) And thorough this distemperature—because everything […]

TITANIA         The nine men’s morris is filled up with mud, And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack of tread, are undistinguishable. The human mortals want their winter here; No night is now with hymn or carol blest. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air That rheumatic diseases do abound.           (2.1.98-105) It’s not just the mud and the rain, it’s the unrelenting grimness, the loss of all the nice […]

TITANIA         Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, As in revenge have sucked up from the sea Contagious fogs, which, falling in the land, Hath every pelting river made so proud That they have overborne their continents. The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard. The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted […]

TITANIA         These are the forgeries of jealousy; And never, since the middle summer’s spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margin of the sea To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.          (2.1.81-87) These—these accusations—are the forgeries of jealousy! Titania is magnificent, whether or not she’s styling it out—how very dare you—when in […]