Midsummer's Bottom by Darren Dash

Author:Darren Dash [Dash, Darren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Home of the Damned Ltd
Published: 2018-06-21T05:00:00+00:00

3.[II](i)

A glade in Feyland. Enter OBERON, king of the Fairies, and Titania, his queen.

OBERON: The sun dawns on the land of the mortals.

TITANIA: Shall we hence and view it from our portal?

OBERON: Nay. The sight ’plexes me. Know you the time?

This day and two more: Mid Eve shall be nigh.

TITANIA: This bothers you, my loved and noble lord?

OBERON: Faith, my queen, it bites like a sharp-edged sword!

Three more days, and on the fourth: the Players!

TITANIA: But what of our chaotic human knight?

OBERON: That fool shall never set matters aright.

Ten days he’s had to bob and duck and weave,

Yet I spy no respite this looming Eve.

TITANIA: He vowed to take things down to the wire.

OBERON: Of such suspense, I have no desire.

By now all should be blood and salty tears.

Chapman knows not the torment of our years.

If only I could have deployed cruel Puck:

By now he would have set their plans amuck.

TITANIA: Your words are born of exasperation;

Such panic suits not thy lofty station.

OBERON: My lady, of course, is perfectly right;

Yet I had such high hopes for this year’s night.

I planned to host a party of such size

It would have startled ev’ry pair of eyes.

Pigs I planned to hoist aloft, engulf in

Flame and then shoot off into the sky to

Squeal and burn: the moon, her blushes to hide

Would have turned. Now all that waits is the play.

’Tis no wonder my face seems long as day.

TITANIA: No wonder, my lord, and yet my heart thinks

You do the poison of defeat swift drink.

Our human’s odd ways are twisting and sly;

Perhaps he flounders and has gone awry;

Yet maybe you do write him off too soon:

Does not the sun toy strangely with the moon?

OBERON: Moon? Sun? Woman, these globes are not the same!

TITANIA: I never claimed they were. And yet the game

Is not so far removed. Heed me now and

My words will be proved. Does not the hot sun

Control the night by the cool reflection

Of that world’s satellite? And yet the moon’s

Face is not always aglow; it lights in

Quarters; it comes, it grows, and then it goes.

OBERON: Moons! Suns! Quarters! The point, madam, the point!

TITANIA: The point, my sullen lord, is plain, ’tis this:

The heavens play games with their astral twists.

The brash sun seeks; the coy moon hides; and this

Has been the pattern since the start of time.

Engaged though they are in heavenly sport,

This world does not suffer; it wants for nought.

These strange forces we cannot understand;

So it is with the minds of mortal man.

This human’s plot to us seems doomed to ruin;

But were we two babes, gazing on the moon

When only one quarter showed of its ring,

Would we not think it a flawed, fragile thing?

The ways of gods and men are strange;

We should not wish them rearranged.

OBERON: Words, my good lady, on which I must dwell,

But for now: silence. Who visits our dell?

Enter Diarmid Garrigan, a human.

Ah — Diarmid. Let’s converse with him awhile,

Adopt his crude manner and ape his style.

Hello, Diarmid, my old friend. Please, no need to kneel. Arise, old boy, arise.

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