Act4: the approaching of climax

In the Act 4, scene 1 what Puck promises in 3.2 (“Jack shall have Jill/Naught shall go ill”) comes to pass:

· The lovers’ relationships are amicably resolved, though there remains confusion about what has happened in the Night’s;

· Oberon and Titania are reconciled,

· and Bottom is restored to his normal condition.

Only two tasks are left for the last act: these are to celebrate the threefold wedding, and for the fairies to bless the three couples with fertility, and their children, about to be conceived, with good health. In most of Shakespeare’s comedies the comic resolution does not occur until the last act; here all hostilities are ended by the middle of the penultimate act. The scene easily breaks down into a series of short episodes which have a clear narrative sequence, corresponding to the characters who are speaking. With the exception of Puck, everyone whom we know to be in the wood is on stage (somewhere)!

· Bottom, led on stage by Titania and her train, continues to enjoy the treatment accorded him in 3.1;

· as he and Titania sleep, Puck arrives to be told by the watching Oberon that he now has the Indian boy;

· Titania, given the antidote (“Dian’s bud”) and woken, is repelled by the sight of Bottom (whom Puck is told to return to his proper appearance), but dances joyfully with Oberon;

· as they depart, Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus appear, ready for the hunt;

· their finding and waking of the lovers leads to a confused account of their presence, but a very clear statement of Demetrius’ love for Helena, allowing Theseus to “overbear” Egeus’ choice of Demetrius, and favor the two couples with a joint wedding ceremony (an honor which should compensate Egeus for any loss of face);

· everyone else having at length left the wood, Bottom wakes, and has the stage to himself for his virtuoso prose soliloquy.

As noted above, this scene is remarkable for the number of characters on stage, and movements must take account of this. As it is now daylight, the sleepers will be seen by anyone who comes near them. When Bottom and Titania come on stage, they must, therefore avoid the lovers. Titania’s words describe her actions as does Bottom’s asking Mustardseed to help Cobweb scratch his face: Titania sees the “sleek smooth head” and “fair large ears” but loves Bottom because, rather than in spite, of these. There is continued humour in the incongruity here: offered fairy music, Bottom calls for “the tongs and the bones”; when Titania offers a dainty delicacy (“the squirrel’s hoard”), Bottom seeks huge quantities of animal fodder. When Titania comes to her senses, her dancing with Oberon is very important: their movement in time to the fairy music and rhythmic verse anticipates their activity in the next act. To “rock the ground” is what they have for long failed to do (with the dire results described by Titania in 2.1).Theseus and Hippolyta come on stage as the fairy king and queen leave it: this order is reversed in the next act; in each case we recognize a symmetry in the two pairs of rulers. The duke and his consort seek a vantage-point from which to watch the hunt. For obvious reasons the audience will not see the hounds, so a word-picture is required; once the lovers are found, the hunting can be “set aside”. Theseus evidently approaches the part of the stage where the young lovers (but not Bottom) sleep. “But soft, what nymphs are these?” may be ironic (he would recognize them if he looked) but he may not have a clear view. Egeus is able to identify his own daughter, and the others, and has to state the obvious in voicing his surprise at “their being here together” (the surprise is as much at their being “together”, as in the wood at all). When the lovers wake, their words are in striking contrast to their previous waking: in the Night’s both Lysander and Demetrius have woken instantly, filled with certain love for Helena; now both are hesitant, unsure what to say. We have not seen either of them exhibit such careful introspection nor attempt to be so conciliatory before. But Demetrius’ renewal of love for Helena solves Theseus’ problem. He cannot confirm Egeus’ choice because Demetrius cannot (unlike Hermia) be compelled to marry against his will. So Egeus is over-ruled and the Athenian law has not been compromised. Bottom,on waking, experiences equal confusion, if not greater. Where the young lovers have no idea why their affections have altered so radically (and back, in Lysander’s case), Bottom has had sight of the fairy world, but will find it difficult now to believe. He attempts to put his “dream” in words but is unequal to the task, though he hopes Peter Quince may be able to turn it into a ballad. If the action of the scene is marked by waking, the language is marked by references to dreaming. Oberon suggests (line 70) that Bottom and the lovers will think of “this Night’s’s accidents” as “the fierce vexation of a dream”, while Titania wakes believing she has had “visions”. Lysander, speaking to Theseus thinks he is “half sleep, half waking”, Hermia thinks she is seeing double (a faithless and a faithful Lysander?) and has already dreamed of Lysander’s watching a serpent eat her heart away. Demetrius suggests they are still dreaming, but sees he must be awake when he realizes that the other three have seen and heard the same things as himself. Bottom’s soliloquy repeats the word “dream” six times and also refers to a “vision”. He does not attempt to describe what he has seen, suggesting that only a “patched fool” (that is, a jester or “professional” Fool) would attempt it. (A Fool of this kind would have the learning and wit indeed to explain the dream.) Saint Paul’s comment on spiritual gifts is called in evidence, but as usual Bottom assigns sense-experiences, not to the organs which experience them, but to others. He and Quince confuse sight and sound elsewhere (Quince in 3.1, 90; Bottom in 5.1, 188-9). This idea of the events in the wood as a dream, is continued in the next act: Hippolyta argues that the common elements in what the lovers say indicate that something odd occurred. Later, Puck, in speaking the epilogue will argue that the play is the audience’s, as much as the performers’, dream.