Titania

Play

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Summary

Titania is the Queen of the Fairies and Oberon's estranged consort. Her refusal to surrender the Indian changeling boy to Oberon has caused a cosmic domestic quarrel that disrupts the seasons. When Puck applies Oberon's love-potion to her eyes, she wakes to adore the transformed Bottom — ass-headed and all — with extravagant tenderness. This humiliation is the price Oberon exacts for the changeling. Her enchanted love for Bottom, while comic, is also strangely beautiful; and her description of the seasonal chaos caused by her quarrel with Oberon is the play's most sublime nature poetry.

Notable Quotations

"These are the forgeries of jealousy: / And never, since the middle summer's spring, / Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead... / But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport." *(II.i)*

"Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, / While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, / And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head." *(IV.i)*

Cross-references

• A Midsummer Night's Dream — the play
• Comedies — genre
• character_oberon — her husband and adversary
• character_puck — who enchants her on Oberon's orders
• character_bottom — the transformed weaver she is enchanted to love