Midsummer Night’s Dream

Press, 22 April 1980, Page 18

Midsummer Night’s Dream

As tomorrow is Shakespeare’s birthday . you might like to read part of a story of one of his plays. I have chosen : “A : Midsummer Night’s Dream” because it is a popular fairy story that ends happily ever after. .

The background to the play is the city of Athens in Greece. In the story, Athenian law required a girl to marry the husband her father had chosen for her. The punishment for disobeying the law was death.

The people in the story are Hermia, who wished to marry Lysander; Egeus, Hermia’s father; and Helena who wished to marry Demetrius. Most of the events took place in a woodland area where Oberon and Titania ruled as king and queen of the fairies and sprites. When Hermia refused to marry Demetrius because she loved Lysander, Egeus, her father, insisted that the cruel law must be enforced. and his daughter must die. Whether Demetrius wished to marry Hermia is not certain, because he was courting her friend, Helena, at the same time, and Hermia gave this as her reason for refusing him. But the stem Egeus would not listen to her plea.

To save Hermia’s life Lysander decided to take her to his aunt’s house some distance away from the city, and its law. Hermia was to leave her father’s house late at night

to meet him in a wood on the outskirts of Athens. When Demetrius heard what Hermia was planning to do, he seemed to have a change of heart. He followed her to the woods, perhaps to try to persuade her to marry him. Helena followed Demetrius. It was some time before she found him, and when she did, he was not pleased to see her. The fickle Demetrius was angry at having been followed. After an argument he left her, alone and distressed in the dark forest.

The wood Lysander had chosen for his tryst with Hermia was the home of Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairy people.

Oberon had been close to the scene when Helena and Demetrius had quarrelled, although they had not known he was there. The fairy king felt sorry for the unhappy girl. He decided to use his magic to reunite them, to make her happy. Ober.on summoned his favourite adviser Puck, sometimes known as Robin Goodfellow. Puck was a mischievous sprite, but he was devoted to his king. He listened carefully to his instructions.

Oberon told Puck to pick some woodland flowers called “love in idleness.” The little purple flowers had magic powers. The spirte was told to follow Demetrius until he lay down to sleep, and then to rub the flowers over his eyelids. The effect would

be to make him fall in love with the first person he looked upon when he opened his eyes. Oberon did not know that Hermia and Lysander were in the woods when he was talking to Puck. The sprite had not seen any of the mortals in the wood that night. Eventually he found a man asleep on a smooth bed of moss and rubbed the magic flower over his eyelids as he had been told to do. You will have guessed that the man was Lysander. When Oberon found Demetrius asleep in another part of the forest he knew Puck had made a mistake. He gently applied the little flower to his eyelids and went away to find Puck.

Confusion reigned in the woods when the two, men awoke, at different times, and some distance apart. Poor Helena, roaming distractedly through the woods, found both Lysander and Demetrius. She was the first person each man saw as he opened his eyes. Great was her astonishment when first Lysander, and later Demetrius, began to speak to her with words of love. Hermia was at a loss to understand Lysandei?s change of heart. An angry scene developed. Hermia and Helena quarrelled violently. The two men went away to fight each other for. the love of Helena.

Seeing the confusion; that Puck’s mistake had. caused, Oberon sought the help of Titania, the queen’ of the fairies. Between them they worked out a plan to restore peace among the four mortals. To make amends for his mistake Puck, the invisible sprite, brought them together and closed their eyes in sleep. Titania gently removed the flower’ juice from Lysander’s eyes,' but left it to work its magic between Helen and Demetrius.

Anger and confusion dissolved in sweet sleep. When they awoke the recent events had faded into a midsummer night’s dream.