*Two fairies - Robin Goodfellow, aka Puck, and Moth* - meet in the wood outside Athens.* *Previously this was a generic fairy, I designated it as Moth.
Puck: Hello, spirit! Where are you going?
Moth: I go everywhere, over hills and valleys, through bushes and thorns, over parks and fenced-in spaces, through water and fire - faster than the moon orbits the earth.
Moth: I work for Titania, the Fairy Queen, and organize fairy dances for her on the grass. The cowslip flowers are her bodyguards. Their petals have spots in them - those are rubies, fairy gifts, which make them smell sweet.
Moth: I have to find some dewdrops and hang a pearl earing on the cowslips. Goodbye, you dumb old spirit, I've got to go. Titania and her elves will be here soon.
Puck: Uh, Oberon, king of the fairies, is having a party here tonight, though. Make sure the queen doesn't come near him, because those two are fighting over an adorable boy Titania stole form an Indian king. She never kidnapped such a darling child before.
Puck: But Oberon wants the child for himself, to accompany him on wanderings through the wild forests. But the queen refuses to hand the boy over, instead putting flowers in his hair and making a fuss over him.
Puck: And now Oberon and Titania refuse to speak to each other, or meet anywhere - not the forest, not the plain, not the river nor under the stars. They argue all the time, and their fairies get so scared they hide in acorn cups and won't come out.
Moth: Unless I'm mistaken, you're that mischievous spirit named Robin Goodfellow. Aren't you the one who goes around scaring the maidens of the village, stealing cream from milk, screwing up flower mills, and frustrating housewives by keeping milk from turning into butter?
Moth: Aren't you the one who keeps beer from foaming up as it should, and cause people to get lost at night while you laugh at them? Some people call you "sweet Puck" and you're nice to them, doing their work and giving them luck - that's you, right?
Puck: Yep, that's me, Oberon's jester! I also trick a fat, well-fed horse into thinking I'm a young female :) Sometimes I hide at the bottom of an old woman's drink disguised as an apple, and when she sips, I make her spill the drink all over herself!
Puck: Sometimes a wise old woman with a sad story to tell tries to sit down on me, thinking I'm a three-legged stool, but I slip out from under her, and she falls, crying, "OW! My butt!" and coughing, and everyone laughs and has fun!
Puck: But step aside, fairy! Here comes Oberon.
Moth: And here's my mistress, Titania. I wish he'd go away!
Oberon: How not nice to see you, Titania.
Titania: What, are you jealous, Oberon? Fairies, let's get out of here. I've sworn never to sleep with him or talk to him again.
Oberon: Wait just a minute, you brazen hussy. Aren't you supposed to obey me, your lord and husband?
Titania: Well if you're my lord and husband, then I'm your lady and wife, so you should be loyal. But I know for a fact you snuck away from Fairyland disguised as a shepherd, and spent all day playing straw pipes and singing love poems to your new girlfriend.
Titania: The only reason you left India was to come here and see that butch Amazon Hippolyta, your boot-wearing mistress and warrior lover. Now that she's getting married to Theseus, you're here to celebrate their marriage.
Oberon: So you're going to stand there shamelessly talking about me and Hippolyta, when you know that I know about your love for Theseus?
Oberon: Weren't you the one who made him ditch Periginia in the desert, right after raping her? And weren't you the one who made him cheat on all his other girlfriends, like Aegles, Ariadne, and Antiopa?
Titania: These are nothing but jealous lies. Since the beginning of midsummer, my fairies and I haven't been able to do our dances in the wind ANYWHERE without being disturbed by you and your arguments.
Titania: And because of your interruptions and disturbances, the winds have made fogs rise from the sea and fall down on the rivers so that the rivers flood, just to get revenge on you.
Titania: All the work the oxen and farmers have done to plow the fields is for nothing - unripe grain has rotted before it was ripe. Sheep pens are empty in the flooded fields, and crows get fat from eating the dead bodies of infected sheep.
Titania: All the fields where people play games are filled with mud, and you can't even see the mazes people make in the grass - no one walks in them anymore, and they're grown over. It's not winter for mortals, and they're not protected by hymns and carols.
Titania: So the pale, angry moon, who controls the tides, fills the air with diseases, and because of this bad weather and these bad moods the seasons change. Frost spreads on the red roses, and winter wears a crown of summer flowers as a sick joke.
Titania: Spring, summer, fertile autumn and angry winter have all changed places, and now the confused world doesn't know which is which, all because of our argument. We are responsible for this.
Oberon: If you admit it, and have the power to fix it, do something about it. Why would Titania want to argue with her Oberon? All I'm asking for is that little human boy.
Titania: Get over it. I won't give up this child for all of Fairyland. His mother was one of my worshipers, and we always used to gossip together at night in India, sitting together by the ocean and watching the merchant ships sailing on the ocean.
Titania: We laughed, seeing sails fill up with wind so that they looked like they had big, pregnant bellies. She - actually BEING pregnant - would imitate them, and go sailing over the land herself to get me presents, and come back like a ship from a voyage.
Titania: But she was mortal, and died giving birth to that boy. For her sake I am raising him, and I will not give him up.
Oberon: How long do you plan to stay here in the forest?
Titania: Probably until Theseus' wedding day. If you behave yourself and join us in our circle dance and moonlight celebrations, then you can come with us. If not, leave me alone, and I’ll stay away from your turf.
Oberon: Give me that boy and I'll come with you.
Titania: Not for your entire fairy kingdom. - Come on, fairies, let's go! I'm gonna throw hands if I stay any longer.
Oberon: Fine, go, then. You won't leave this grove until I pay you back for this insult. - Puck, come here.
Oberon: You remember that time when I was sitting on a cliff, and I heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back singing so sweetly and harmoniously that it calmed the stormy sea and made stars shoot out of the sky so they could hear her better?
Puck: Yep.
Oberon: That same night, I saw Cupid flying from the moon to the earth, arrows at the ready. (But you couldn't.) He took aim at a beautiful young virgin on a throne in the west, and shot an arrow of love well enough to pierce a hundred thousand hearts -
Oberon: But the fiery arrow was put out by watery, virginal moonbeams, and the royal virgin continued her virginal thoughts, uninterrupted by thoughts of love.
Oberon: But I remember where Cupid's arrow fell. It fell on a little western flower, which used to be white as milk but turned purple from being wounded by the arrow of love. Youg girls call it "love-in-idleness."
Oberon: Bring me that flower - I showed it to you once. If its juice is put on someone's eyelids while they're asleep, they'll fall in love with the next living creature he sees. And bring it before the sea monster Leviathan has time to swim three miles.
Puck: I can go around the world in forty minutes!
Oberon: When I have the juice of that flower, I'll trickle some drops of it on Titania's eyes while she's sleeping. She'll fall madly in love with the first thing she sees when she wakes up - even if it's an animal!
Oberon: And before I make her normal again - which I can do with another plant - I'll make her give me that little boy as my page.
Oberon: But who's that coming this way? I'll make myself invisible and listen to their conversation.
Demetrius: Look, I don't love you, stop following me! Where are Lysander and beautiful Hermia? Lysander I will stop - but Hermia stops my heart from beating.
Demetrius: You told me they escaped into this forest. So now here I am, going crazy in the middle of the woods, because I can't find my Hermia. Go away, get out of here, STOP. FREAKING. FOLLOWING ME.
Helena: You attract me to you, you cruel magnet! But you must not attract iron, because my heart is true as steel. If you let go of your power to attract me, I won't have any power to follow you.
Demetrius: At any point did I ask you to follow me? Do you think I'm speaking nicely? Or am I not saying, in the clearest terms, that I do not and cannot love you?
Helena: Yes, but that makes me love you more. I'm your little dog, Demetrius. The more you beat me, the more I'll love you. Treat me like you would treat a dog - kick me, hit me, neglect me, try to lose me.* *This did not age well.
Helena: Just let me follow behind you, even though I'm not good enough for you. Could I ask for a worse place in your heart than to be treated as you would treat a dog? And yet I would consider it an honor to be your dog.
Demetrius: Don't push it. Just looking at you makes me sick.
Helena: And I get sick when I can't look at you.
Demetrius: You're risking your reputation by leaving the city and stalking someone who doesn't love you. Standing aroud alone in a deserted area in the middle of the night isn't the best way to protect your virginity.
Helena: I rely on your virtue to protect me. And because I can see your shining face, it doesn’t feel like nighttime to me. This forest doesn’t seem deserted when you’re here, because you are all the world to me. So how can anyone say I’m alone, when the whole world is here to look at me?
Demetrius: I'll run from you and hide in the bushes, and leave you to the mercy of wild animals.
Helena: The wildest animal isn't as cruel as you are. Run whenever you want to. The story of Daphne and Apollo will be changed - the lustful god will run from the virginal nymph, the dove chases the griffin, and the deer hunts the tiger. Speed is useless when the cowardly person chases and the brave person runs away.
Demetrius: I'm not sticking around to listen to you any longer. Leave me alone - or if you follow me, you do so knowing that I will do something bad to you in the forest.
Helena: In the wood? Yeah, in the church, in the town, in the fields, you have ALREADY hurt me. Shame on you, Demetrius! Your behavior is an insult to all women. We cannot fight for love as men can. We should be pursued and courted, not do the pursuing.
Helena: I'll follow you and turn this hell I'm in into a kind of heaven. It would be heavenly to be killed by someone I love so much.
Oberon: Goodbye, nymph. Before he leaves this part of the forest, you'll change places - you'll be the one running away, and he'll be in love with you.
Oberon: Do you have the flower? Oh, and welcome, travel.
Puck: Yep, here it is!
Oberon: Give it here. I know a bank where thyme, oxlips, and violets grow. It's covered over with luscious honeysuckle, sweet muskroses and sweetbrier.
Oberon: Titania sleeps there sometimes at night, lulled to sleep among the flowers by dances and other delights. Snakes shed their skin there, and the shed skin is wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
Oberon: I'll put the juice of this flower on Titania's eyes, and fill her with horrible delusions and desires.
Oberon: You take some of it too, and look around this part of the forest. A sweet Athenian lady is in love with a young man who wants nothing to do with her. Put the juice of the flower on his eyes, and time it so the next thing he sees will be the lady.
Oberon: You'll be able to tell it's him because he's wearing Athenian clothes. Do it carefully, so that he'll end up loving her more than she loves him. And then be sure to meet me before the rooster's first crow at dawn.
Puck: Don't worry, sir, I'm at your service!