Tales from Shakespeare | Page 8

Titania cross her Oberon? Give me your little
changeling boy to be my page.'
Set your heart at rest,' answered the queen; 'your whole fairy kingdom
buys not the boy of me.' She then left her lord in great anger. 'Well, go
your way,' said Oberon 'before the morning dawns I will torment you
for this injury.'
Oberon then sent for Puck, his chief favourite and privy counsellor.
Puck (or as he was sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd
and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighbouring
villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk,
sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and
while he was dancing his fantastic shape in the churn, in vain the
dairymaid would labour to change her cream into butter: nor had the

village swains any better success; whenever Puck chose to play his
freaks in the brewing copper, the ale was sure to be spoiled. When a
few good neighbours were met to drink some comfortable ale together,
Puck would jump into the bowl of ale in the likeness of a roasted crab,
and when some old goody was going to drink he would bob against her
lips, and spill the ale over her withered chin; and presently after, when
the same old dame was gravely seating herself to tell her neighbours a
sad and melancholy story, Puck would slip her three-legged stool from
under her, and down toppled the poor old woman, and then the old
gossips would hold their sides and laugh at her, and swear they never
wasted a merrier hour.
'Come hither, Puck,' said Oberon to this little merry wanderer of the
night; 'fetch me the flower which maids call Lore in Idleness; the juice
of that little purple flower laid on the eyelids of those who sleep, will
make them, when they awake, dote on the first thing they see. Some of
the juice of that flower I will drop on the eyelids of my Titania when
she is asleep; and the first thing she looks upon when she opens her
eyes she will fall in love with, even though it be a lion or a bear, a
meddling monkey, or a busy ape; and before I will take this charm from
off her sight, which I can do with another charm I know of, I will make
her give me that boy to be my page.'
Puck, who loved mischief to his heart, was highly diverted with this
intended frolic of his master, and ran to seek the flower; and while
Oberon was waiting the return of Puck, he observed Demetrius and
Helena enter the wood: he overheard Demetrius reproaching Helena for
following him, and after many unkind words on his part, and gentle
expostulations from Helena, reminding him of his former love and
professions of true faith to her, he left her (as he said) to the mercy of
the wild beasts, and she ran after him as swiftly as she could.
The fairy king, who was always friendly to true lovers, felt great
compassion for Helena; and perhaps, as Lysander said they used to
walk by moonlight in this pleasant wood, Oberon might have seen
Helena in those happy times when she was beloved by Demetrius.
However that might be, when Puck returned with the little purple

flower, Oberon said to his favourite: 'Take a part of this flower; there
has been a sweet Athenian lady here, who is in love with a disdainful
youth; if you find him sleeping, drop some of the love-juice in his eyes,
but contrive to do it when she is near him, that the first thing he sees
when he awakes may be this despised lady. You will know the man by
the Athenian garments which he wears.' Puck promised to manage this
matter very dexterously: and then Oberon went, unperceived by Titania,
to her bower, where she was reparing to go to rest. Her fairy bower was
a bank, where grew wild thyme, cowslips, and sweet violets, under a
canopy of wood-bine, musk-roses, and eglantine. There Titania always
slept some part of the night; her coverlet the enamelled skin of a snake,
which, though a small mantle, was wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
He found Titania giving orders to her fairies, how they were to employ
themselves while she slept. 'Some of you,' said her majesty, 'must kill
cankers in the musk-rose buds, and some wage war with the bats for
their leathern wings, to make my small elves coats; and some of you
keep watch that the clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, come not near
me: but first sing me to sleep.' Then they began to sing this song:
'You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be