A Midsummer Night's Dream Act IV Scene i
Act IV Scene i
Titania enters the same clearing where the four lovers lie, she enters along with her fairies, Bottom, and is closely followed by Oberon. Titania lovingly dotes on Bottom who commands the fairies in Titania's train to fetch him things and make him comfortable. He wishes to sleep and asks Titania to ensure no one wakes him. Soon Titania falls asleep as well, and Puck enters the scene. He approaches Oberon who confesses that he pities his wife for so lovingly caring for a man with an ass's head. He discloses that he had come upon Titania as she had bedecked Bottom with flowers, he had argued with her, and easily managed to convince her to hand over the Indian boy. Now that the boy was within his power he wished to undo the magic on Titania, and also asks Puck to undo the transformation of Bottom's head.
Oberon uses the flower of Diana, which has the power to reverse the power of Cupid, on Titania, and so awakens her. She wakes to tell Oberon of a terrible dream in which she had loved an ass, just then Oberon points out the still sleeping Bottom with the head of an ass. Titania is surprised and asks Oberon how this had come to be. Puck reverses the transformation he had wrought on Bottom. Oberon asks Titania to play some music that would cause the mortals to fall deeper in their sleep, and dances with his fairy queen for the same effect. Oberon tells her now that they are happily together once again, they will dance together at Theseus and Hippolyta's nuptials, where the other two couples will also be married. Puck, Oberon, and Titania leave just as the sun begins to rise.
Soon Theseus, Egeus, and Hippolyta enter the clearing with their attendants. Theseus commands that his hunting hounds be brought out so that their lovely baying and barking can fill the air. Hippolyta recounts the time she had heard the spartan dogs bark when she had been hunting with Hercules and Cadmus. Theseus soon notices the lovers all sleeping in the same place, and Egeus identifies them all for the benefit of the duke. Theseus postulates that the lovers had found their way to the clearing as they had been aware the duke would be heading here after concluding the May rites. Upon his command, the lovers are roused with the call of the hunting horns, and when Theseus inquires how enemies like Lysander and Demetrius could sleep next to one another without being so afraid, Lysander answers through the confusion of being awakened from such a deep sleep. He confesses that he and Hermia had come to the woods to elope from Athenian law, Egeus interrupts Lysander there and asks Theseus to punish Lysander for trying to steal Hermia away. He calls on Demetrius, but Demetrius reveals that he no longer feels any love for Hermia but instead favors Helena to whom he had been betrothed previously. Learning of this, Theseus declares that both couples will wed the same day along with him and Hippolyta. He retreats to Athens and bids the lovers follow him. They remain behind for a short while attempting to come to their senses, for they feel that they are still somehow dreaming. Bottom is the last to wake and is disoriented with the dream he had dreamt. He decides to get Peter Quince's help in composing the dream into a ballad.
Analysis
The play now moves away from the jungle and begins to turn towards Athens, these two settings contrast one another. Athens is the civilized place where order and harmony are supposed to dominate, there is no room for magic in that setting. But when the play moves towards the naturally chaotic setting of the forest, the intervention of magic and thick woods causes the characters to encounter chaos. In contrast, Athens is supposed to be a place of order and civility, but there do we see the development of the most disturbing feature of the play. In Athens, Hermia is threatened with exile or death for not obeying her father in the matter of marriage. On the other hand, the forest is the setting within which the strife between the lovers is resolved.
Act IV is the winding down of the action that had peaked in the previous act, and the speed at which de-escalation occurs is the most astounding. All it requires is Oberon's forgiveness of his queen and a little bit of a magical potion on Lysander's eyes. The conflict between Oberon and Titania seems to be an extremely complicated situation when it is first introduced but is resolved in such a simple manner that it doesn't occur in the main action but is only mentioned by Oberon right before he moves to lift the enchantment over Titania. The entrance of Theseus and Hippolyta serves to bring down the chaos among the group of lovers, theirs is an extremely important role even though they are missing throughout the main action of the previous act.
