A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

LONG, long ago, a band of warlike maidens, called Amazons, lived in the far East. They were so fond of war and hunting that they even sometimes battled with their neighbors, the Greeks. In one such engagement, Hippolyta, their chief, was captured by the famous Grecian hero Theseus, who took her with him on his return to Greece, and made her his queen.

Their wedding festivities lasted many days, and Theseus tried, in every way, to amuse his bride, so that she might be happy in her new home. his master of revels to

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth, -

telling Hippolyta :

I wooed thee with my sword,

And won thy love, doing thee injuries;

But I will wed thee in another key,

He bade

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

While Theseus was thus planning merry sports, he was interrupted by an aged father, who complained that his daughter Hermia refused to marry the man whom he had selected for her, and insisted upon choosing a husband for herself. So Egeus, the father, begged

Theseus to interfere and compel Hermia to obey his will in the matter.

It may seem strange to you that a father should make such a request of a king; but in the olden times kings often chose husbands for the daughters of their subject lords. Besides, there was a law in Athens requiring young women either to accept the husbands chosen by their fathers, or to remain all their lives unmarried, serving as priestesses in the temple of Diana. In case that a girl was so obstinate as to refuse to do either, then she must die.

Theseus told Hermia that he would give her four days to decide, saying:

Upon that day either prepare to die
For disobedience to your father's will,
Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would;
Or on Diana's altar to protest

For aye austerity and single life.

Hermia and her lover, Lysander, were in despair when they heard this harsh judgment pronounced, until Lysander bethought himself that they might elude the severe Athenian law by going to the house of his aunt, who resided some miles out of Athens, and there be married. To this plan Hermia agreed and they parted, promising to meet on the following night in a wood a short distance from the city.

Now this wood was a favorite haunt of the fairies, and on the very night on which the lovers were to meet there, Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of fairy

land, with their trains of elves and sprites, were to hold a midsummer revel in the enchanted grove.

Titania and Oberon had quarrelled for a very foolish reason, and their silly quarrel had frighted all fairyland, so that, as the mischief-loving fairy Puck said: —

Now they never meet in grove or green,

By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square,1 that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

So it happened that on this beautiful midsummer night, Oberon crossly greeted Titania, saying:

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,

and asked her:

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 us;

If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.

So saying, Titania moved proudly away, followed by her fairy train.

Oberon was determined to be revenged upon his haughty queen, so he called his willing little servant, Puck, and told him to go search for a little flower, once milk-white, but which had been stained purple by the blood that dropped upon it from a wound made by an arrow shot by Cupid, the god of love. This little purplestained flower we call the pansy; but Oberon called it love-in-idleness.

1 quarrel.

Said Oberon:

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 here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes,

which was Puck's way of saying that a fairy can be here, and there, and everywhere, as quick as one can think.

Puck found the wished-for flower, and speedily returned with it to his jealous master, who then told how he intended to vent his spite upon the fairy queen.

OBERON. Hast thou the flower there?

PUCK. Ay, there it is.

OBERON.

I pray thee give it me.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometimes of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
Having once this juice,

I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,

And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.

The next thing then she waking looks upon,

Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,

On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,

She shall pursue it with the soul of love.

And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.