Author: Chris Cook
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Based on characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.
SCENE, - The Town of MONTE ATHENA in Tuscany, and a Wood not far from it.
A wood near ATHENS.
[Many Fairies at play in the wood, among them DAWN, who approaches another Fairy and leans over her shoulder.]
Dawn: How now, spirit! Whither wander you?
Fairy: Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through briar,
Over park, over pale,
Through flood, through fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the queen-regent,
To dew her orbs upon the green,
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours;
[She drains her drink and stands.]
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cow-slip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone;
Our regent and all our elves come here anon.
Dawn: The queen doth keep her revels here tonight;
Take heed the regent come not within her sight.
For Buffy is passing fell and wrath,
Because the regent, among her possessions hath
A certain stake, pass'd down from old,
A weapon wielded by the bold.
And jealous Buffy would have the stake,
That her regent did presume to take.
But she perforce withholds the toy,
For, so she claims, it brings her joy;
And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.
Fairy: Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd the Key; are you not she
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless teenagers churn;
And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Little Bit call you, and sweet Dawn,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck;
Are you not she?
Dawn: Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Buffy, and make her smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and sneeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there. -
But room, Fairy, here comes Buffy.
Fairy: And here my mistress. - Would that she were gone!
Continue to Willow & Tara's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act Two, Scene Two
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