Puck found the charmed flower; and while Oberon was to streak Titania's eyes with some of the juice thereof, Puck was to anoint the eyes of the disdainful youth with another quantity of it, that he might be compelled to adore a sweet Athenian lady in love with him. Puck was then dismissed with instructions to meet Oberon before the first cock-crow. Titania, in another part of the wood, distributed her attendants, some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, some to war with bats for their leathern wings to make small elves' coats, and some to keep back the clamorous owl that nightly hooted at the quaint spirits. Having given her instructions, she fell asleep. This was Oberon's opportunity—and one he did not neglect. He squeezed the flower on Titania's eyelids, and disappeared.
Titania wakened with eyes fixed on Bottom, who, by Puck's art, had an ass's head. Nevertheless, she thought him wise and beautiful. She instructed her attendant fairies to be kind and courteous to the gentleman, and to feed him with apricots, dewberries, purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries. Then they were to steal the honey-bags from bumble bees for his service, and to crop their waxen thighs, and light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, to show her love to bed; and further, to pluck the wings from butterflies, to fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. By Puck's mistake, the love juice was laid in absence of the fair Athenian lady, and so the object desired was not obtained. In consequence of this, much confusion and misunderstanding followed. To prevent a fight, Oberon, whom Puck addressed as "king of shadows," ordered the night to be overcast with drooping fog, that the rivals might be led astray. Other instructions were given, which Puck suggested should be done quickly, as in the distance shone Aurora's harbinger, at whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, trooped home to churchyards. Damned spirits, he said, that had burial in cross-ways and floods, had already gone to their wormy beds, lest day should look on their shame. Oberon began to pity Titania, and, touching her eyes with an herb, her love for the loathsome visage she had admired for ever vanished.
The Midsummer Night's Dream concludes with the following song, if we except Puck's address:
"Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray,
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue, there create,
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true and loving be:
And the blots of nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be,—
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace with sweet peace:
E'er shall it in safety rest,
And the owner of it blest.
Trip away,
Make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day."
In gleaning from Macbeth, we shall pass over the weird sisters' predictions as lightly as possible, without breaking the connecting links, though we are greatly tempted to incorporate a considerable part of this play into our collection of tales and traditions, seeing that, in our opinion, none of Shakspeare's works bring out more graphically the superstition of past ages than the poet's Macbeth.
The play is represented as beginning in an open place, where, in a thunder-storm, three witches appeared and disappeared without doing any important deed of darkness. They met again on a heath, in another thunder-storm. One of them told the other hags that she had been away killing swine. Another told tales of a sailor's wife who had gone to Aleppo, and threatened to sail thither in a sieve. Macbeth and Banquo discovered the witches and saluted them. Through the women's subtlety, the fiend entered Macbeth's heart, and induced him to form the bloody plans of removing all obstacles in the way of his obtaining the crown, and handing it down to his descendants. First one victim, and then another, fell under his treachery. He was sorely troubled: the ghost of Banquo haunted him.
Hecate joined the witches on the heath, and upbraided them for trading and trafficking with Macbeth without consulting her, the mistress of their charms. Away the witches were sent, with instructions to meet at the pit of Acheron in the morning. There Macbeth was to know his destiny. Vessels and spells the hags were to provide, while Hecate was to catch a vaporous drop that hung on the corner of the moon, before it touched the ground. That drop, distilled by magic sleights, would raise such sprites, that by the strength of their illusion would draw Macbeth to confusion. Such, Hecate declared, would be his doom for spurning fate, scorning death, and bearing his hopes above wisdom, grace, and fear.
The three witches met in a dark cave, and, while the thunder rolled without, they boiled a cauldron of hellish soup, the ingredients of which may be gathered from the following lines:—
1 Witch. "Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd.
2 Witch. Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whined.