Tales from Shakespeare | Page 9

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 preparing 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 not
seen; Newts and blind-worms do no wrong Come not near our Fairy
Queen. Philomel, with melody, Sing in our sweet lullaby, Lulla, lulla,
lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm, nor spell, nor charm, Come
our lovely lady nigh; So good night with lullaby."
When the fairies had sung their queen asleep with this pretty lullaby,
they left her to perform the important services she had enjoined them.
Oberon then softly drew near his Titania, and dropped some of the
love-juice on her eyelids, saying,--
"What thou seest when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true-love take."
But to return to Hermia, who made her escape out of her father's house
that night, to avoid the death she was doomed to for refusing to marry
Demetrius. When she entered the wood, she found her dear Lysander
waiting for her, to conduct her to his aunt's house; but before they had
passed half through the wood, Hermia was so much fatigued, that
Lysander, who was very careful of this dear lady, who had proved her
affection for him even by hazarding her life for his sake, persuaded her
to rest till morning on a bank of soft moss, and lying down himself on
the ground at some little distance, they soon fell fast asleep. Here they
were found by Puck, who, seeing a handsome young man asleep, and
perceiving that his clothes were made in the Athenian fashion, and that
a pretty lady was sleeping near him, concluded that this must be the
Athenian maid and her disdainful lover whom Oberon had sent him to
seek; and he naturally enough conjectured that, as they were alone
together, she must be the first thing he would see when he awoke; so,
without more ado, he proceeded to pour some of the juice of the little
purple flower into his eyes. But it so fell out, that Helena came that way,
and, instead of Hermia, was the first object Lysander beheld when he
opened his eyes; and strange to relate, so powerful was the love-charm,
all his love for Hermia vanished away, and Lysander fell in love with
Helena.
Had he first seen Hermia when he awoke, the blunder Puck committed

would have been of no consequence, for he could not love that faithful
lady too well; but for poor Lysander to be forced by a fairy love-charm
to forget his own true Hermia, and to run after another lady, and leave
Hermia asleep quite alone in a wood at midnight, was a sad chance
indeed.
Thus this misfortune happened. Helena, as has