Oberon and Titania never met now, in grove or green, by the clear fountain, or in the spangled starlight, without quarrelling so fiercely that their elves crept for fear into acorn-cups, and hid themselves there. They generally tried to keep out of each other’s way, but on this night it happened that as King Oberon, with his little sprite Puck and his train, approached from one direction, Queen Titania and her attendant fairies came near from the other. Titania reproached Oberon with all the ill-luck that was happening because of their dissension, and Oberon replied that it only lay with her to amend it.
“Why should Titania cross her Oberon?” he asked. “I do but beg a little changeling boy to be my henchman.”
“Set your heart at rest,” replied Titania; “the whole of Fairyland will not buy the child of me.”
“How long do you intend to stay in this wood?” asked Oberon.
“Perhaps till after Theseus’s wedding-day,” said Titania. “If you will join patiently in our dance, and see our moonlight revels, go with us. If not, shun me, and I will take care to avoid your haunts.”
“Give me that boy, and I will go with you,” said Oberon.
“Not for your fairy kingdom!” was the decided answer. “Fairies, away! We shall quarrel in earnest if I stay any longer.”
As he could not win the boy by entreaty, Oberon resolved to try another plan to gain his desire. Calling his little sprite Puck to him, he bade him go and fetch a certain magic flower, which maidens call “love-in-idleness.” The juice of this flower had a wonderful charm. When laid on the eyelids of a sleeping man or woman it had the power of making that person doat madly on the next living creature that was seen. Oberon determined to squeeze some of the juice of this flower on Titania’s eyes while she slept, so that when she woke up she should immediately fall in love with the first creature she saw, whether it were lion, bear, wolf, or bull, meddling monkey or busy ape. He determined also that he would not take off the charm (which he could do with another herb) until she had rendered up the little Indian boy as page to him.
“Fetch me this herb,” he said to Puck, “and be thou here again before the leviathan can swim a league.”
“I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes,” cried the prompt little messenger, and away he flew.