Midsummer Night's Dream Act II Scene 1

A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM by William Shakespeare
Act II, Scene1

Titania says that the outcome of the disagreement between herself and Oberon is that nature is out of tune with itself and the times. The seasons are topsy-turvy and nothing is as it should be. Her reasoning reminds us that 'climate change' far from being a recent phenomenon was operative four hundred years ago. I am surprised that the climate change lobby has not seized upon these lines as their justification - although they do of course throw doubt upon their main thesis that this is a 'modern' phenomenon! They just go to show that the seasons, together with weather, are not immutably fixed in their paths but, like all things, forever changing. In the text, 'old Heim' is the personification of winter. The 'murrion' or 'murrain' flock are subject to disease.

These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Have every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
_______________________________
The film clip in this video is taken from Max Reinhardt's Dream of 1935 which I had not seen until a few days ago when I watched the film in the You Tube version supplied by ionwaxx. If you haven't seen it, you may well, like me, love it. My thanks to ionwaxx for permission to use his work; see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8HOgsZrjl4

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• midsummer
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• II
• scene
• titania
• oberon
• max
• reinhardt
• climate
• change
• charles
• bryant
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[PoetLina]

A well seasoned piece of knowledge, what made that Spring to mind?

[brychar66]

@PoetLina Dunno darlin :) Home thoughts from abroad perhaps? x x x And of course spring will now greet you some time before it smiles upon our lawns, lucky beggar!

[PoetLina]

There was "nothing" that was not dreamt of in His philosophy.

Then would old Hiem be Heimdall the guardian of the Norse Gods? Heim meaning home or hearth would also be one of very few norse and saxon words that have stayed with us (curiously mostly having to do with home and family).

Are these to be regular readings (please)?

[brychar66]

nor nothing that was not dreamt of in Lina's philology ;) you are almost certainly right, it has to be northern..yes, all those words have warmth of meaning...language is most truly a matter of roots & history, layer on layer down to the very beginning of things, the primal UGH!! I did those two latest WS readings becos they cried out to me and I just HAD to - as the little boy said, caught with his fingers in the jam :)

[peace2theworld1]

@PoetLina

Hiems is the Latin word for winter

[XaveJamesGrey]

Wonderful to hear you read this. Thanks for including a link to the 1935 Reinhardt film, too.

[chettmansberger]

@blueseasandsky

Forgive me for my ignorance, and I'm NOT being sarcstic at all... But isn't it Mendolsohn (sp) throughout?

[HorseChickLover]

@awakenedlink37 i think soooooo creppy

[Shanniquitie]

lol winnie the pooh in drag, playing titania to piglet's oberon. thanks for that.

[awakenedlink37]

Is the narrarator... The man who voiced Winnie the Pooh??