Berowne's 133

(Also for Three-Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "H" is for "Happy.")

I’d be surprised if I was the only blogger who was inspired by the above prompt to think of Will Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
But there’s a problem.
The play is so well known it’s hard to say something about it that hasn’t been said before - and maybe too often. So I thought I’d just mention a few of the lesser-known facts about this delightful work. Let’s start with this:
In the play it’s a night like a dream and everything’s a bit crazy. Large numbers of fairies come out and do their fairy thing.
(Does that happen rarely? No, fairy often.)
It's my duty to point out that Will Shakespeare’s fairyland isn’t like any other. In his plays the gossamer types can be evil.
Will was influenced by the prevailing belief of the English peasants. When something bad happened, you had something, or someone, to blame it on.
If you have a perfectly healthy baby and the next morning it’s sickly, one of them dam’ fairies had come and switched them, took the healthy kid and left a “changeling.”

In addition, the King and the Queen of the fairies – Oberon and Titania – are awesomely powerful. When they’re squabbling, bad weather hits the entire land. Imagine fairies, especially the King and Queen of ‘em, each accusing the other of having had carnival knowledge of other beings.
I don’t know how closely Shakespeare studied his Freud, but there’s no denying that an important element of the play, the wood outside Athens, is the land of the id, the home of the unconscious and uncontrollable impulse.
I think it’s safe to say Will’s Boss, Queen Liz the One, was in attendance at the play’s first performance. Why? Because he goes out of his way to pay her a soothing compliment in the lines he wrote for the occasion.
You see, Oberon mentions that there is one individual who is above all the erotic banter and hanky-panky that goes on: without naming her, he is referring to Queen Elizabeth herself.
It seems Cupid took a shot at her, but to no avail.
Oberon: “A certain aim he took at a fair vestal, throned by the west, and loos’d his love shaft smartly from his bow, as it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But the imperial votr’ess passed on, in maiden meditation, fancy-free.”
In other words, Elizabeth is above such stuff; she’s busy creating the British Empire.
Perhaps the most famous single scene from this play has the beauteous Queen Titania falling madly in love with humble Nick Bottom, a weaver.

Nick isn’t much to look at in the best of times. But as I’m sure you know, he has been cursed (as who among us has not?) In his case, the curse is that he has been turned into a jassack.

Doesn’t matter; she still is enraptured by him:
Titania: “Come sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk-roses in thy sleek, smooth head And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.”
Too bad, like so many summer romances, l’affaire Titania-Bottom doesn’t last long.
Well, actually, since it’s now the beginning of September, it may be a bit late for a play about mid-summer. (The actual time in the play seems to be some time in May.) But for Will S, time didn't seem to matter.
Basically, it's a happy play. As a producer you can put it on these days as a work of exotic moonshine, a theatrical trifle. Or you can study it seriously – as I have certainly not done in this post - and come to realize that it is a complex and exacting work of art.
(Also submitted to Sunday Scribblings)

[For ABC Wednesday, Magpie 56, Writer's Island and Sunday Scribblings]
“H” is for “Head Over Heels”
Think of a beautiful woman, perhaps the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.
She falls in love with a guy who has the head, a big head, of a farm animal.
And she falls head over heels.
That’s the story of Queen Titania and Bottom the Weaver.
You remember him – he’s the chap in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” who has his head turned into that of a jassack. :-)

Nick Bottom – who knew he had a first name? – is a simple workman, with the emphasis on “simple.”
He and his fellow working stiffs are planning to put on a play for the Duke’s wedding day; if the presentation is successful each performer will be in line to receive sixpence a day for the rest of their lives. (Which would be pretty much like winning the national lottery as far as they’re concerned, so they’re all taking this production of theirs very seriously.)
But Puck, a crafty, not to mention cunning, little character with magical powers, a prankster par excellence, decides to have a little fun with them.
He does the deed with Bottom’s head and leaves him in the forest.

Along comes the spectacularly beautiful Titania, Queen of the Fairies. She is what Shakespeare would have described as a “looker,” if he had thought of it. :-) Check out those gossamer wings.
She has herself been enchanted by a love potion made from the juice of a rare flower – and you know how powerful that stuff can be – administered by her jealous husband, who has rigged things up so that she will fall for the first individual she sees after waking up.
He says: “Wake when some vile thing is near.”
The vile thing turns out to be our friend Bottom.

The Queen falls head over, to risk repeating myself, heels for this guy; they make a handsome couple. :-)
Titania orders her minions to treat him well:
"Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries;
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies."
And it's a tribute to Bottom that he can adapt to any situation; he takes all of this in stride -- he’s enjoying every minute.
Later, when he’s back to his true self, he tries to describe that adventure. He figures it must have been a dream:
“I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say! The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, what my dream was!”
But now of course he’s aware they must all rehearse the play to be ready for the Duke’s wedding day.

(I knew, with a bit of luck, I’d be able to work this week’s Magpie prompt in here somewhere. :-))
Bottom: “Most important, fellow actors, eat no garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath, and I don’t doubt everyone will say, it is a sweet comedy!”