ROBIN

How are you, spirit? Where are you going?

FAIRY

Over hill, over valley, through bush, through thorn, over park, over fenced-in pastures, through water, through fire. I wander everywhere faster than the moon revolves around the Earth. I serve the fairy queen, decorating the grass with dew. The tall cowslip flowers are her bodyguards: the spots you see on their gold coats are rubies, fairy gifts. Their sweet smells come from those spots. Now I must go find some dewdrops, and hang a pearl of dew in every cowslip flower. Farewell, you silly unsophisticated spirit. I must go. The queen and her elves will be here soon.

ROBIN

The king is having a party here tonight. Be careful that the queen doesn’t come within his sight, because King Oberon is beyond angry. She stole an charming boy from an Indian king to be her servant. She’s never kidnapped such an adorable human child, and Oberon is jealous. He wants the child to be a knight within his own retinue, to wander with him through the wild forests. But the queen refuses to give up the beloved boy. Instead she crowns the boy’s head with flowers and treasures him. Now Oberon and Titania refuse to meet each other, whether in the forest or the fields, by the clear water of a stream, or beneath the stars. They just argue, so that all their elves get frightened and sneak off to hide in acorns.

FAIRY

Either I’m completely mistaken, or else you’re that mischievous and naughty spirit named Robin Goodfellow. Aren’t you the one who plays pranks on the maidens in the village, skimming the cream off the milk; clogging up the flour mill so they can't grind grain into flour; and making housewives breathless by keeping their milk from turning into butter no matter how much they churn? Don't you stop beer from foaming, and lead people out at night the wrong way while you laugh at them? But those who call you “Hobgoblin,” or “sweet Puck"— you do their work for them and make sure they have good luck. Aren't you him?

ROBIN

You are correct. I am the mischievous wanderer of the night. I joke to Oberon and make him smile. Sometimes I’ll trick a fat, well-fed horse by neighing as if I'm a young filly. Sometimes I hide at the bottom of an old gossipy woman’s cup in the form of a crab apple. When she drinks, I bob against her lips so that she spills the beer on her old wrinkly neck. Sometimes an old woman telling a sad story will mistake me for a three-legged stool and try to sit on me. Then I slip out from underneath her butt and she falls down, crying, “I'm sitting cross-legged like a tailor!” Then she starts to cough, and everyone around holds their bellies and laughs. Their laughter grows, and they sneeze, and I swear none of them has ever wasted an hour in greater fun. But make room, fairy! Here comes Oberon.

FAIRY

And here’s my queen. I wish he’d go away!

OBERON

I'm not glad to see you this night, proud Titania.

TITANIA

What, are you jealous, Oberon? Fairies, let’s leave this place. I’ve sworn I’ll never sleep with him or be near him again.

OBERON

Wait, you impulsive and willful creature. Am I not your lord and husband?

TITANIA

If you were, then I would have to be your lady and wife, to whom you are faithful. But I know that you snuck away from Fairyland disguised as a shepherd, and spent all day playing music and reciting love poems to an infatuated shepherdess. Why have you come here, all the way from the furthest mountains of India? Because, of course, that bouncing Amazon Hippolyta—your half-boot-wearing mistress and warrior lover—is getting married to Theseus, and you’ve come to bless their wedding bed with joy and prosperity.

OBERON

How can you shamelessly make insinuations about my relationship with Hippolyta, when you know that I know about your love for Theseus? Didn't you entice him through the glimmering night away from Perigouna, whom he had just abducted and raped? And didn't you make him be unfaithful to Aegles, Ariadne, and Antiopa?

TITANIA

These are lies that emerge from your jealousy. Not once, since the beginning of midsummer—whether on a hill, in a valley, a forest, or a meadow, by a pebbly spring or rushing brook, or on a beach next to the ocean—have my fairies and I been able to meet and perform our ring dances to honor the whistling wind without you showing up with your shouting to interrupt our fun. Because of that, the winds have gotten angry at our lack of response to their calls. In revenge the winds have made nasty fogs rise up from the sea, and make rain fall upon the land so that rivers have grown so large they flood the land around them. All the work done by farmers' and their oxen has been ruined, and the corn has rotted before it could grow ripe. Animal pens stand empty in flooded fields, and the crows are fat from eating the bodies of sheep and cattle killed by disease. The village greens where men play games together are filled with mud, and the maze-like paths people have made through the high-grown grass have faded away because no one walks on them. The humans have not gotten the winter they should have, and the nights to not receive the blessings of the hymns or carols of that season. As a result the moon, who controls the tides, is pale with anger, and moistens the air so that colds and flu spread everywhere. Because of this disturbance in the normal natural order, the seasons have changed: bitter frosts descend upon red roses. And Old Man Winter wears an icy crown decorated with sweet summer flower buds, like some kind of cruel prank. The spring, summer, fruitful autumn, and angry winter have all changed out of their normal clothes, and now the confused world can't tell one from the other. And all of these bad outcomes are the result of our argument. We are the cause of this.

OBERON

So fix it, then. You have the power to do that. Why would Titania want to argue with her Oberon? All I’m asking for is to have that little human boy to be my attendant.

TITANIA

Calm your little heart. I wouldn't trade the child for all of Fairyland. His mother was one of my priestesses, and we often used to gossip together in the spiced night air in India, or sit on the beach by the ocean watching merchant ships sail by on the water. We'd laugh when we saw the wind fill up the sails, as if that amorous wind had made them pregnant and big-bellied. She would imitate the ships—she was pregnant at the time with the little boy—and she would pretend to sail over the land to get me little presents, and then come back carrying gifts like she was a trading ship returning from a voyage, rich with cargo. But she was a mortal, and she died giving birth to the boy. For her sake I will not give him up.

OBERON

How long do you plan to stay in this forest?

TITANIA

Perhaps until after Theseus’ wedding day. If you will join us in our circle dance and moonlight celebrations without causing trouble, then come with us. If not, stay away from me, and I’ll avoid your lands.

OBERON

Give me that boy and I’ll come with you.

TITANIA

Not for your entire fairy kingdom. Fairies, let’s go! We’re going to have a real fight if I stay any longer.

OBERON

Well, then go on your way. You won’t leave this grove until I’ve made you suffer for this insult.

[To ROBIN GOODFELLOW] My noble Puck, come here. Do you remember that time when I was sitting on a cliff and heard a mermaid riding on a dolphin’s back sing with such a sweet and harmonious voice that the rough waters of the ocean grew calm, and some stars shot out of the sky in order to hear her sing?

ROBIN

I remember.

OBERON

On that night, I saw Cupid (even though you couldn't); Cupid with all his arrows, flying from the cold moon to the earth. He aimed at a beautiful virgin who sat upon a throne in the western end of the world, and he shot his love arrow hard enough to pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But I saw young Cupid’s fiery arrow weakened by the virginal beams of the watery moon, and so the royal virgin was unaffected by the arrow, and so continued on with her virginal thoughts, without a care. But I noticed where Cupid’s arrow fell. It fell on a little western flower, which used to be as white as milk but turned purple when it was wounded by the arrow of love. Young women call that flower “love-in-idleness." Bring me that flower. I showed the plant to you once. If the juice of that flower is dropped on the eyelids of a sleeping person, that man or woman will then fall madly in love with the next living creature he or she sees. Bring me this plant, and return here before Leviathan can swim three miles.

ROBIN

I'll circle the world in forty minutes.

OBERON

Once I get this juice, I’ll spy on Titania until she falls asleep and then drop some of it on her eyes. The first thing she sees when she wakes up—whether it's a lion, bear, wolf, bull, monkey, or an ape—she'll fall deeply and madly in love with. And before I remove the spell from her eyes—which I can do by using another plant—I’ll make her give that little boy to me. But who’s that coming this way? I've made myself invisible and listen in on their conversation.

DEMETRIUS

I don’t love you, so stop following me. Where are Lysander and beautiful Hermia? I want to kill Lysander, but Hermia kills me with her beauty. You told me they snuck into this forest. And here I am, going crazy in the middle of the woods because I cannot find my Hermia. Go away, get out of here, and stop following me.

HELENA

You attract me to you, you heartless magnet! But you must not attract iron, because my heart is as true as steel. If you give up your power to attract me, then I won’t have any power to follow you.

DEMETRIUS

Do I invite you to follow me? Do I speak to you kindly? Instead, don’t I tell you as clearly and plainly as possible that that I do not and cannot love you?

HELENA

And for that I love you even more. I’m your little dog. And, Demetrius, the more you beat me, the more I’ll love you. Treat me like a dog—kick me, hit me, ignore me, try to lose me. Just allow me to follow you, even though I'm not good enough for you. Is there a worse position I could ask to be held in your heart than to be treated as you would treat a dog? And yet I would consider it a place of honor.

DEMETRIUS

Don’t tempt me to hate you any more than I already do. It makes me sick just to look at you.

HELENA

And I am sick when I'm not looking at you.

DEMETRIUS

You shouldn't risk your reputation or your virginity by leaving the city and putting yourself into the hands of someone who doesn’t love you in the middle of the night in a deserted place, what with all the bad ideas that occur to people in deserted places.

HELENA

Your goodness will protect me. And, anyway, the beauty of your face shines, so it doesn't seem like nighttime to me. Besides, the forest doesn’t seem deserted, because for me you are the entire world. So how can anyone say I’m alone, when the whole world is here to look at me?

DEMETRIUS

I’ll run away from you and hide in the bushes, and leave you to the mercy of wild animals.

HELENA

Not even the wildest animal is as vicious as you. Run whenever you want to. The old story of the lustful god Apollo chasing the virginal nymph Daphne will be flipped: Apollo will run, and Daphne will pursue him. The dove will chase the griffin. The gentle deer will race to catch the tiger. Speed is useless when the cowardly person is chasing the brave one.

DEMETRIUS

I’m not going to wait around listening to your arguments. Let me go by myself. Or if you follow me, understand that I’ll do bad things to you in the forest.

HELENA

Well, you've already done bad things to me in the church, in the town, and in the fields. Curse you, Demetrius! Your bad behavior is an insult to all women. We can't fight for love as men can. We should be pursued. We weren’t made to be the pursuer.

I’ll follow you and turn this hell of mine into a heaven, by ensuring that I am killed by the one I love so much.

OBERON

Goodbye, nymph. Before he leaves this forest, you’ll be running from him and he'll be chasing after your love.

ROBIN

Yes, here it is.

Do you have the flower? Welcome, traveler.

OBERON

Please, give it to me.[He takes the flower from ROBIN.] I know a hill where wild thyme blooms, and oxlips and violets grow. It’s covered with a canopy of luscious honeysuckle, sweet musk-roses, and sweetbrier. Titania sometimes sleeps there at night among the flowers, soothed to sleep by dances and delights. In that place snakes shed their skin, producing clothes just large enough to wrap a fairy in. There I’ll wet her eyes with the juice of this flower, and fill her with pathetic fantasies.[He gives ROBIN part of the flower] You take some of it and search the forest: there's a sweet Athenian lady who is in love with a young man who does not want her. Put some juice on his eyes, and do it in a way that ensures that the lady will be the next thing he sees. You’ll recognize the man by the Athenian clothes he's wearing. Be careful when you do it, so that when it's done he loves her more than she loves him. Then meet me before the rooster’s first crow at dawn.

ROBIN

Don't worry, my lord. As your servant, I'll follow your orders.