A Midsummer Night's Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

is often a fine line between the two. Comedy is created through Bottom’s interruptions as he asks to be allowed to play all the parts and demonstrates how good he would be at each. Humor is also created through language—punning, bawdy, and Bottom’s malapropisms. The practicalities and politics of staging are touched upon, as they discuss costumes, the fact that Flute does not wish to play a woman since he has “a beard coming,” and how they must not incur the displeasure of their noble audience by frightening the ladies as “that were enough to hang us all.” They agree to meetthe next night in the wood to rehearse “by moonlight,” so as to be private.
ACT 2 SCENE 1
    The final group of characters, the fairies, are introduced, and their world is evoked through both natural imagery, suggesting the nighttime and woodland, and mythical and expansive language, suggesting a world not subject to the same limitations as the mortal one. Despite the beauty and enchantment they conjure, there is also a potentially chaotic, darker element to their world, contrasting with the restrained and ordered court.
    Lines 1–60: Robin Goodfellow (the Puck) and the Fairy establish their roles in the mortal world—either creating the natural environment by tasks such as placing dew as “a pearl in every cowslip’s ear,” or mischievously interfering with domestic life—“knavish” Robin “frights the maidens” or will “Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm.” They signal the approach of Oberon and Titania and establish that the king and queen of the fairies are currently arguing over ownership of a “changeling” Indian boy that Titania has as her attendant.
    Lines 61–147: Titania goes to leave, but Oberon orders her to “Tarry,” asking “am not I thy Lord?,” showing a similar patriarchal authority to Theseus in the mortal court and emphasizing the parallels between these two characters. Titania describes how their quarrel has impacted on the mortal world, showing the darker side of the fairies, as the land is covered with “Contagious fogs” and the corn “Hath rotted.” Oberon argues that Titania could end their quarrel and thus mortal suffering by giving him the little Indian boy, but Titania refuses. Oberon declines Titania’s invitation to dance in the fairy round. She leaves.
    Lines 148–191: Using imagery that evokes the limitless and enchanted world of the fairies and reinforces the sexual and hunting themes that recur in the play, Oberon describes to Robin a time when he saw Cupid aim an arrow at “a fair vestal,” but hit a flower instead,turning it “purple with love’s wound.” He sends Robin to collect this flower, the juice from which will make the person on whose “sleeping eyelids” it has been placed fall in love with the first creature they see on waking. Once alone, Oberon reveals his intention to apply the juice to Titania’s eyes and watch her fall in love with the first thing she looks at, “Be it on lion, bear, or wolf or bull.” He will make her “render up her page” before he will remove the spell. Hearing Helena and Demetrius approach, he declares “I am invisible”—reinforcing his magical nature, but also drawing attention to theater and dramatic irony as he, too, becomes an “audience,” invisibly observing the action.
    Lines 192–273: Demetrius is angered by the difficulty in finding his way, claiming that it makes him “wood” (mad or frantic), emphasizing the disorder associated with this setting. He tries to stop Helena following him, telling her that he does not love her and warning that she is risking “the rich worth” of her virginity by entering the woods with him. Helena acknowledges his power over her by describing herself as his “spaniel,” that he may