Oberon ( / ˈ oʊ b ər ɒ n / ) is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare 's play A Midsummer Night's Dream , in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania , Queen of the Fairies.
31-499: Fairy King or king of the fairies may refer to: Oberon the Erlking (Danish elverkonge "elf-king") Fairy King (horse) See also [ edit ] Fairies Mythological king Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Fairy King . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
62-401: 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
93-571: A bellows-mender might be called upon to repair. In Jean-Louis and Jules Supervielle's French adaptation, Le Songe d'une nuit d'été (1959), Flute is renamed to Tubulure , where Georges Neveux's 1945 adaptation used the English names. On the Elizabethan stage, the role of Flute and the other Mechanicals was intended to be doubled with Titania's four fairy escorts: Moth (also spelled Mote), Mustardseed, Cobweb, and Peaseblossom. Tom Snout
124-429: A fight breaks out between the two young men. Oberon is furious with Puck and casts a sleeping spell on the forest, making Puck reverse the potion on Lysander, admonishing Puck to not reverse the effects on Demetrius. Both couples awake and begin the journey back to Athens. Oberon now looks upon Titania and her lover, Bottom, and feels sorry for what he has done. He reverses the spell using a magic herb. When she wakes, she
155-507: Is a tinker , and one of the Mechanicals of Athens. In the play-within-a-play , Tom Snout plays the wall which separates Pyramus' and Thisbe's gardens. In Pyramus and Thisbe , the two lovers whisper to each other through Snout's fingers (representing a chink in the wall). Snout has eight lines under the name of Tom Snout, and two lines as The Wall . He is the Wall for Act V-Scene 1. Tom Snout
186-462: Is a minor character in the play. He is a joiner from Athens who is assigned by Peter Quince to play the part of the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe . When he is first assigned the part, he is afraid it may take him a while to finally remember his lines (even though the lion's role was nothing but roaring originally). Bottom offers to play the part of the lion (as he offers to play all other parts), but he
217-480: Is confused, thinking that she had a dream. Oberon explains that the dream was real and the two reunite happily. They then return to Athens in the epilogue to bless the couples, becoming once again the benevolent fairy king and queen. A fanciful etymology was given for the name Oberon by Charles Mackay in his book The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe along with many other theories on words found in
248-401: Is performing in a play in his story intending it to be presented in the lovers' story, as well as interacting with Titania in the fairies' story. Francis Flute's occupation is a bellows -mender. He is forced to play the female role of Thisbe in " Pyramus and Thisbe ", a play-within-the-play which is performed for Theseus ' marriage celebration. In the play, Flute (Thisbe) speaks through
279-412: Is rejected by Quince, who worries (as do the other characters) that his loud and ferocious roar in the play will frighten the ladies of power in the audience and get Quince and all his actors hanged. In the end, the lion's part is revised to explain that he is in fact not a lion and means the audience no harm. Snug is often played as a stupid man, a manner describing almost all of the Mechanicals. Snug
310-513: Is said to be the child of Morgan le Fay and Julius Caesar . A manuscript of the romance in the city of Turin contains a prologue to the story of Huon de Bordeaux in the shape of a separate romance of Auberon and four sequels and there are later French versions as well. He is given some Celtic trappings, such as a magical cup (similar to the Holy Grail or the cornucopia ) that is ever full. "The magic cup supplied their evening meal; for such
341-407: Is the king of all of the fairies and is engaged in a dispute with his wife Titania, the fairy queen. They are arguing over custody of a child whom Oberon wants to raise to be his henchman. Titania wants to keep and raise the child for the sake of her mortal friend and follower who died giving birth to him. Because Oberon and Titania are both powerful spirits connected to nature, their feuding disrupts
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#1732847613479372-508: Is the only Mechanical to whom the playwright did not assign a first name. In Jean-Louis and Jules Supervielle's French adaptation, Le Songe d'une nuit d'été (1959), Snug is renamed to Gatebois , where Georges Neveux's 1945 adaptation used the English names. On the Elizabethan stage, the role of Snug and the other Mechanicals was intended to be doubled with Titania's four fairy escorts: Moth, Mustardseed, Cobweb, and Peaseblossom. Nick Bottom provides comic relief throughout
403-452: Is turned into a monster with the head of an ass by Puck. The characters' names are Peter Quince, Snug, Nick Bottom, Francis Flute, Tom Snout, and Robin Starveling. Peter Quince's name is derived from "quines" or " quoins ", which are the strengthening blocks that form the outer corners of stone or brickwork in a building. Quince's amateurish playwriting is usually taken to be a parody of
434-408: Is which: And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original. Oberon tricks Titania into giving him back the child using the juice from a special flower that makes you "madly dote upon the next live thing that it sees". The flower was accidentally struck by Cupid's arrow when he attempted to shoot a young maiden in a field, instead infusing
465-456: The 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream , he is portrayed by Roger Rees as a strong character extremely capable of being a director. It is he who leads the search party looking for Nick Bottom in the middle of the play. The character is named in the title of a Wallace Stevens poem, " Peter Quince at the Clavier ", which is written in the first person as if spoken by Quince. Snug
496-399: The rude mechanicals whose head was just transformed into that of a donkey, thanks to a curse from Puck. Meanwhile, two couples have entered the forest: lovers Hermia and Lysander are pursued by Demetrius, who also loves Hermia, and Helena, who loves Demetrius. Oberon witnesses Demetrius rejecting Helena, admires her amorous determination, and decides to help her. He sends Puck to put some of
527-399: The English language that have not found mainstream acceptance. Rude mechanicals The mechanicals are six characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream who perform the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe . They are a group of amateur and mostly incompetent actors from around Athens , looking to make names for themselves by having their production chosen among several acts as
558-434: 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
589-455: The courtly entertainment for the royal wedding party of Theseus and Hippolyta . The servant-spirit Puck describes them as "rude mechanicals" in Act III, Scene 2 of the play, in reference to their occupations as skilled manual laborers . The biggest ham among them, Nick Bottom , becomes the unlikely object of interest for the fairy queen Titania after she is charmed by a love potion and he
620-515: The fairies as he passes through a forest . Huon is forewarned by a hermit not to speak to Oberon, but his courtesy causes him to answer the fairy king's greetings and so wins his friendship and aid. The fairy king is dwarfish in height, though very handsome. He explains that, at his birth, an offended fairy cursed him not to grow past three years of age (one of the earliest examples of the wicked fairy godmother folklore motif) but relented and gave him great beauty as compensation. In this story, he
651-410: The flower with love. Oberon sends his servant, Puck, to fetch the flower, which he does successfully. Furious that Titania will not give him the child, he puts juice from a magical flower into her eyes while she is asleep. The effect of the juice will cause Titania to fall in love with the first live thing she sees upon awakening. Titania awakens and finds herself madly in love with Bottom, an actor from
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#1732847613479682-529: The juice in Demetrius's eyes, describing him as "a youth in Athenian clothing", to make him fall in love with Helena. Puck finds Lysander – who is also a youth wearing Athenian clothing – and puts the love potion on Lysander's eyes. When Lysander wakes, he sees Helena first and falls in love with her. Meanwhile, Demetrius has also been anointed with the flower and awakes to see Helena, pursued by Lysander, and
713-422: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fairy_King&oldid=1142329100 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Oberon Oberon is a variant spelling of Auberon , earlier Alberon ,
744-462: The origin of which is uncertain, though it may be connected with Alberich and Aubrey , or might else be derived from the Old High German elements adal 'noble' + ber (n) 'bear'. Oberon is first attested as the name of a fairy king in the early 13th century chanson de geste entitled Les Prouesses et faitz du noble Huon de Bordeaux , wherein the eponymous hero encounters King Oberon of
775-438: The play. A weaver by trade, he is famously known for getting his head transformed into that of a donkey by the elusive Puck . Bottom and Puck are the only two characters who converse with and progress the three central stories in the whole play. Puck is first introduced in the fairies' story and creates the drama of the lovers' story by messing up who loves whom, and places the donkey head on Bottom's in his story. Similarly, Bottom
806-420: The popular mystery plays of the pre- Elizabethan era , plays that were also produced by craftspeople. His metrical preferences are references to vernacular ballads. Despite Quince's obvious shortcomings as a writer, Stanley Wells argues that he partly resembles Shakespeare himself. Both are from a craftsmanly background, both work quickly and both take secondary roles in their own plays. Robert Leach makes
837-435: The same point. In performing the play, Quince recites the prologue but struggles to fit his lines into the meter and make the rhymes. The noble audience makes jocular comments, while the rest of the mechanicals struggle (all except Bottom, who rather confidently improvises). Traditionally, Peter Quince is portrayed as a bookish character, caught up in the minute details of his play, but as a theatrical organizer. However, in
868-402: The wall (played by Tom Snout ) to Pyramus ( Nick Bottom ). Flute is a young, excited actor who is disappointed when he finds he is meant to play a woman (Thisbe) in their interlude before the duke and the duchess. Flute's name, like that of the other mechanicals, is metonymical and derives from his craft: "Flute" references a church organ , an instrument prominently featuring the bellows
899-427: The weather. Titania describes the consequences of their fighting: 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
930-518: Was its virtue that it afforded not only wine, but more solid fare when desired", according to Thomas Bulfinch . Shakespeare saw or heard of the French heroic song through the c. 1540 translation by John Bourchier, Lord Berners, called Huon of Burdeuxe . In Philip Henslowe 's diary, there is a note of a performance of a play Hewen of Burdoche on 28 December 1593. In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream , written in 1595/96, Oberon
961-406: Was originally set to play Pyramus's father, but the need for a wall was greater, so he discharged The Wall . Snout is often portrayed as a reluctant actor and very frightened, but the other mechanicals (except Bottom and Quince ) are usually much more frightened than Tom Snout. Snout's name, like that of the other mechanicals, is metonymical and derives from his craft: "Snout" means a nozzle or