by Craig Harris
November 10, 1992


Oberon, Titania, and Bottom?
An essay on A Mid Summer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare


Hippolyta's nightlife role as Titania is stage-managed by
Theseus-Oberon, who gets his will by magical means. if his own
imperial gaze has proved ineffectual, he will capture Titania's
gaze and refocus it with an aimlessness that would have
gratified Cupid:

The next thing then she waking looks upon,
Be it lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
Or meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.

This prepares the way not only for an arousal of 'animal love'
in Titania but for its consummation in her bower. The supposed
ravishment of Bottom would have to happen offstage, primarily
because that is the only place it could have happened.
Titania's bower is not the same as the flower-canopied bank
'where the wild thyme blows' and where according to Oberon,
'sleeps Titania sometime in the night'. If it were the same,
then it is especially easy to believe that no sexual act occurs
between the Queen and the Ass. If such an act should occur, it
must be believed that her bower is really in fairyland, which is
distant from the wood, and that it is there where Bottom is
taken and there where he is ravished.

As for the theater, a Titania-jumping Bottom, or a
Bottom-jumping Titania, is hardly what Shakespeare could have
meant for his manor-house production, certainly not for court
performances, and not even for a show at the Shoreditch
Theater. All of Shakespeare's (and other playwright's in his
time) sex scenes must have occurred offstage.

Any bedding of Bottom would have to be hidden not only from
the Elizabethan audience but from Oberon as well. The fairy
king, who was twice said to be 'jealous' of Titania, would never
be willing to gain a squire at the expense of acquiring horns,
especially when his rival is an ass. Puck says, 'And jealous
Oberon would have the child' and Titania says, ''These are the
forgeries of jealousy'. Of course Oberon could not have known
Titania would dote on an ass. What he had in mind was 'ounce, or
cat, or bear, / Pard, or boar with bristled hair'. The
creatures he cites, are all ferocious and would be most likely
to repel sexual overtures. His charm calls for Titania not to
enjoy her new love, but to 'love and languish for his sake' or,
as he said earlier, to 'pursue it with the soul of love' . On
learning that Titania 'waked and straightway loved as ass',
Oberon says 'This falls out better than I could devise'. It is
surprising that Oberon would choose to be present then (as the
stage direction at the opening of Act 4 Scene 1 implies: 'Enter
Titania, and Bottom, and Fairies; and Oberon behind them') and
that afterward, looking upon the sleeping couple, he could
merely observe to Puck, 'Seest thou this sweet sight?'. Either
we don't understand, or fairy kings regard such manners very
differently from Shakespearean husbands would, most of whom
would express some anxiety about their wives' fidelity and none
of whom would believe that the way to teach a wife obedience is
to encourage her to unfaithful.

Another deterrent to the ravishing of Bottom, is Bottom
himself, to whom I will get back to in a moment. Let me first
note, that part of the problem lies in Shakespeare's having
composed something of an anamorphic picture of Titania's bower.
Amorphism, is a visual device well known and much used by
Renaissance painters. It is a perspectival technique designed
to present one image if viewed from directly in front of the
painting, and another if viewed from an angle. Take for
instance Titania's words as she gathers Bottom and herself for,
for whatever she is gathering them for:

Come wait upon him; lead him to my bower.

The moon methinks looks with a watery eye;
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
Lamenting some enforced chastity.
Tie up my lover's tongue, bring him silently.

A straight-on look at the phrase 'enforced chastity' gives an
image of chastity forced or violated, in which case the
watery-eyed moon must be Diana, goddess of virginity, who quite
properly weeps on such unhappy occasions. Indeed, her watery
eye, reflected in the eyes of every little flower, spreads a
sex-censuring gaze throughout nature. Hardly the kind of gaze,
or the kind of goddess, Titania would want to invoke if she had
carnal desires for Bottom. Also, it would be hard to imagine
the goddess Diana and every little flower dripping with grief at
the thought of Bottom giving up his chastity; the speech would
make better sense of Bottom were hauling Titania off to his
barn, not she leading him dumbly to her bower. Still if we
choose a Titania so determined to ravish Bottom that she can
ignore the moon's weepy protests, than her 'Tie up my lover's
tongue, bring him silently' would be the same as saying 'Enough
talk, let's get down to business'.

So the straight-on meaning of 'enforced chastity' must be
'chastity forced'. Looked at distrustfully, it means the
opposite, 'chastity compelled', the kind Hermia would show if
she were to get herself to a nunnery. Perhaps it is the kind
that she does briefly show when out of reverence to 'human
modesty' she asks Lysander to sleep apart from her. This
reading would invoke a different kind of moon, one that grows
teary-eyed when chastity is preserved. Certainly not the prudish
Diana, but instead the more amorous Selene, who fell in love
with Endymion and inspires the lunacy of country boys and girls
in the bowers on the eve of May and at Midsummer Night. By this
token the weepy flowers would be 'Cupid's flowers' who should
have little cause to weep if a deflowering is going to happen.
Later on, when Oberon shows the sleeping Titania and Bottom to
Puck, these flowers, now 'flouriets', are again weeping. For as
Oberon says,

And that same dew, which on the buds
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flouriets' eyes
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.

What flouriets are these, and what is their disgrace? They are
Diana's buds bewailing the disgrace of being transformed into
Cupid's flowers during the bower episode, that is the
humiliation of Titania, brought about not because of the demise
of her married chastity, but by her degrading desire for Bottom.

There are a couple of instances where Titania speaks of sex.
The first is in Act 3 Scene 1 when she tells her fairies to
light tapers for Bottom 'To have my love to bed and to arise'.
Hidden within this simple statement about getting up after
sleeping, is a phallic arousal on Bottom's part, actually of
Bottom's part. The next occurs after their reappearance in Act
4 Scene 1, when Titania enfolds the drowsy Bottom in her arms
and says,

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
Oh, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!

Woodbine and honeysuckle are innocent enough, but the enringed
finger is a Shakespearean metaphor for sexual intercourse, and
the ivy clinging to it's tree in an amorous embrace has intense
sexual connotations'.

This is not to deny that Titania is sensually taken with
Bottom; she is. The question is how far her sensuality goes,
and how far it can go. A good part of Oberon's punishment of
Titania centers in the physical and metaphysical impossibility
of a fairy queen having sex with an ass. Add to this the
impossibility of exhibiting such a sexual situation in
Shakespeare's theater, and if we still decide for a sexual act,
then it must happen verbally. Since it could not be acted out,
which would make Titania's onstage metaphors serve as verbal
substitutes for what can't be acted out. It seems to me that
Titania's sexually ambitious metaphors are not evidence of what
she and Bottom did, or are doing, but what she thinks she would
like to be doing. Such metaphors, are the only way to express
the mystery of desire in the psyche of a fairy queen.

To expand on this, since desire requires lack, we must imagine
that Bottom has something that Titania lacks. One glance at
Bottom makes this seem absurd. What has Bottom got that Titania
could possibly desire? The most obvious thing a fairy queen
lacks and Bottom possesses, is his 'mortal grossness'. That is
how she phrases it when she tells Bottom that she will 'purge
[his] mortal grossness so / That [he] shalt like an airy spirit
go'. Unfortunately for her, the last way in the world Bottom
could 'go' is like an airy spirit. Not even Titania has such
transformative powers. And yet she cherishes him most
passionately, not in any airy form, but in his physical form.
This follows her speech to Oberon expressing her admiration for
'lower' things, i.e. a woman, a human, pregnancy, and mortality.
She neglects her allegiance too 'higher' things, i.e. a man, a
royal husband, wifely obedience, and immortality. It also
follows Oberon's accusing her of loving the mortal Theseus. So
Oberon creates a punishment that mimics her desire. She is made
to descend to the level of her desire, to the very Bottom, and
to be enthralled by it. When she dotes on Bottom's 'shape', his
'amiable cheeks', and 'fair large ears', when she obliges her
elves to cater to each of his corporeal needs, and when she
winds his drowsy bestial body in her arms, what else is she
doing but desiring his mortal grossness?

Not just his 'grossness' but his 'mortal grossness'. Her
'tragedy' is not like that of the mortal lovers, whose fatal
passion is 'short as any dream' because the jaws of devouring
time do their business quickly. Unlike humans, Titania is not
in flight from time and mortality. She is trying to find her
way into a world of sexuality, pregnancy, birth and death. She
is being frustrated by her immortal ungrossness. Her love for
Theseus, her wish to be the pregnant Indian queen, her mothering
of the queen's child, and her passion for Bottom. All reflect a
desire for mortality. Considering this, her surrender of the
changeling child marks her reconciliation to Oberon and to her
destiny as an immortal. Titania's 'tragedy' is that she can't
be a tragic heroine, because fairy queens cannot fall.

In a small way she does fall, and not into bed with Bottom,
whose more than mortal grossness is its own impediment to any
sexual interludes in Titania's bower. Bottom appreciates being
treated as a very important person, but is more interested in
the pleasure of eating than in the bodily charms of Titania.
Despite a major campaign in which she sends armies of elves to
hop in his walks, gambol in his eyes, and fetch and feed and
scratch as well, she cannot capture his loving glance any more
than Oberon can hers. From the standpoint of Theseus'
therapeutic 'dream', this would suggest that it is not
Hippolyta-Titania's sexual desire alone that is being purged but
the aggressiveness and desire to dominate men. So the
presumptuously masculine Amazon becomes the presumptuous Queen
Titania, who then becomes the aggressive lover of Bottom. If
Oberon has imposed his will on her with flowers and charms, she
imposes hers on Bottom just as strongly, First tethering his
body, 'Out of this wood do not desire to go. / Thou shalt
remain here, whether thou wilt or no', and later, 'Tie up my
lover's tongue, bring him silently'. in between, she displays
her love passionately:

I am a spirit of no common rate.
The summer still doth tend upon my state;
And I do love thee. Therefore, go with me.

This style of love seems as self-centered and inconsiderate in
its arrogance as Bottom is in his bestial oblivion. But
Bottom's oblivion outweighs Titania's desires. In this way
Titania learns there are limits to the power of a queen, even an
Amazonian queen.

In fairyland kings demand, command, punish and finally forgive.
When Oberon displays for Puck the sleeping queen and her
entwined beloved, Oberon says, 'Seest thou this sweet sight?':

Her dotage now I do begin to pity.
For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her and fall out with her.
For she his hairy temples then had rounded
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flouriets' eyes
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
And she in mild terms begged my patience,
I then did ask of her her changeling child;
Which straight she did give me, and her fairy sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
And, now I have the boy, I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.

The quality of mercy is not completely missing in Oberon, but it
is by no means free and generous either, coming as it does only
after he has his humiliating way. His sarcastic 'Seeist thou
this sweet sight?' summarizes his entire project to restore
marital order by doctoring Titania's eyes and standing coldly by
to observe her humiliation. This is his version of the sadism
Hermia's dream attributes to Lysander, and since this is also
Hippolyta's 'dream', it represents her anxieties about a Theseus
who won her love by doing her injuries. Oberon not only sees
Titania's disgrace, but feels it, and by doing so breaks his
charm.

Unpleasant as Oberon's methods are, we can only judge them by
Titania's response. When she wakes up, she is not bitter, but
quick to love, 'My Oberon!'. And, to obey, when he asks for
music she immediately cries, 'Music, ho! Music, such as
charmeth sleep!'
.