drawing by marguerita
all characters copyrights by marguerita bornstein
Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania,
were in the forest outside Athens.
Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until after she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding.
Oberon and Titania are estranged
because Titania refuses to give her
Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his
"knight" or "henchman,"
since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshippers.
Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience,
so he calls for the mischievous Puck
(also called Hobgoblin and Robin Goodfellow)
to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called
"love-in-idleness", which when applied to
a person's eyelids while sleeping makes the victim
fall in love with the first living thing seen upon awakening.
He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower so
that he can make Titania fall in love with
the first thing she sees when waking from sleep,
which he is sure will be an animal of the forest.
Oberon's main intent is to distract her long enough
to take the page-boy by force.
True, the object of her affection may be –
not to put too fine a point on it — an ass.
what really counts isn’t whom one loves
but how one loves.
Titania, as you may know, is the queen
of the fairies in Shakespeare’s comedy of love
run riot in the woods of Athens,
the lady who is bewitched into
falling hard for Bottom,
the guy with the donkey’s head.
It’s usually a part played with distinctly
un-regal, uncomfortable, undulating lust..
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