Oberon

Chaucer uses the word fairy as well as for the individual as for the country or system, or what we should now call fairyland, or fairyism.

He knew nothing, it would seem, of Oberon, Titania, or Mab, but speaks of, quote, Pluto that is the king of fairy, and many a lady in his company, following his wife, the queen Proserpina, etc.

End quote.

The Merchant's Tale, one, one O one O one.

From this passage of Chaucer, Mr. Turwet, quote, cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Proserpina were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania.

End quote.

In the process of the Wife of Bath's tale, it happed the knight, quote, In his way to ride in all his care Under a forest side, Whereas he saw upon a dance go Of ladies four and twenty, And yet moe, toward this like dance He drow full yearn, In hope that he some wisdom should learn.

Milton seems to have been upon the prowl here for his forest side.

Chaucer uses the word fairy as well as for the individual as for the country or system, or what we should now call fairyland, or fairyism.

He knew nothing, it would seem, of Oberon, Titania, or Mab, but speaks of, quote, Pluto that is the king of fairy and many a lady in his company, following his wife, the queen Preserpina, etc.

End quote.

The Merchant's Tale 1.

10101 From this passage of Chaucer, Mr. Truitt, quote, cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Prasapina were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania, end quote.

in the process of the wife of bath's tale it happed the knight in his way to ride in all his care under a forest side whereas he saw upon a dance go of ladies four and twenty and yet mo toward this like dance he drow full yearn in hope that he some wisdom should learn but certainly ere he came fully there evanish'd was this dance he wist not where end quote these ladies appear to have been fairies though nothing is insinuated of their size milton seems to have been upon the prowl here for his forest side in a midsummer's night dream a fairy addresses bottom the weaver hail mortal hail which sufficiently shows she was not so herself Puck, or Robin Goodfellow in the same play, calls Oberon King of Shadows, and in the old song just mentioned, the King of Ghosts and Shadows.

And this mighty monarch asserts of himself and his subjects, but we are spirits of another sort.

The fairies, as we already see, were male and female.

I mean, I hate to say it, but all things considered, it's not actually all that bad, especially considering how some people have it.

Like I heard in the States that King Oberon turned the Senate into banana slugs and forced their kids to watch while he salted them one by one.

Oh, so it's all hunky-dory then, I demand.

Just so long as it's not as bad as America.

Even the fairy world in which, at whatever inevitable interval, he is second to Shakespeare, is pure English, or rather his elves live in an elfin county of their own, and are all but severed from humanity.

Within that greater circle of Shakespeare, where Oberon and Ariel and their fellows moved, aiding or injuring mankind and reflecting human life in a kind of unconscious parody herrick cannot walk and it may have been due to his good sense and true feeling for art that here where resemblance might have seemed probable he borrows nothing from midsummer night's dream or tempest if we are moved by the wider range of byron's or shelley's sympathies there is a charm also in this sweet insularity of herrick a narrowness perhaps yet carrying with it a healthful reality absent from the vapid and artificial cosmopolitanism that did such wrong on goethe's genius If he has not the exotic blooms and strange odors which poets who derive from literature show in their conservatories, Herrick has the fresh breeze and time-bed fragrance of open moorland, the grace and greenery of English meadows.

With Homer and Dante, too, he shares the strength and inspiration which come from touch of a man's native soil.

what has been here sketched is not planned so much as a criticism in form on herrick's poetry as an attempt to seize his relations to his predecessors and contemporaries if we now tentatively inquire what place may be assigned to him in our literature at large Herrick has no single lyric to show equal in pomp of music, brilliancy of diction, or elevation of sentiment to some which Spencer before, Milton in his own time, Dryden and Gray, Wordsworth and Shelley since have given us.

Any oats the elves refuse well will serve the beggar's use.

But if this may seem too much for an alms, then give me such little bits that nestle there in the prisoner's pannier.

So a blessing light upon you and mighty Oberon, that your plenty last till when I return your alms again.

forty two the hag the hag is astride this night for to ride the devil and she together through thick and through thin now out and then in though ne'er so foul be the weather a thorn or a bur she takes for a spur with the lash of a bramble she rides now through breaks and through briars or ditches and mires she follows the spirit that guides now no beast for his food dares now range the wood but hush'd in his lair he lies lurking while mischiefs by these on land and on seas at noon of night are a-working the storm will arise and trouble the skies this night and more for the wonder the ghost from the tomb affrighted shall come called out by the clap of the thunder forty three the mad-maid's song good morrow to the day so fair good morning sir to you good morrow to mine own torn hair bedabbled with the dew good morning to this primrose too good morrow to each maid that will with flowers the tomb bestrew wherein my love is laid ah woe is

Then she pointed her gleaming wand at me, and shook her head.

O Christmas child, she said reproachfully, it is well that it was I who heard you, and not my brave lord Oberon, who has less patience with mortal folly.

So you wish you had not been born on Christmas day? Why, tis the day most blessed in all the year.

the day when the King of Kings sent peace and good-will to man in the form of the Christ child.

She laughed at this, and I coaxed her to tell me another story.

It was one, she said, that had been sung in verse on the Welsh hills, for in ancient times the people of Wales and those of Little Britain were the closest friends.

Long, long ago, she began, a lordly castle was built at Morlaix, in the midst of such pleasant surroundings that some little dwarfs, in search of a home, thought that they could not do better than build their stronghold underneath it.

So they set to work immediately, for they have a very wise rule that when once they decide that a thing must be done, it shall be done at once.