Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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The Augusta Seminary Annual. Shakspere ' s Fairies. THE fact that there is found scattered all through his plays frequent and familiar reference to elves, goblins, fairies and witches, proves that the supernatunil was a subject of especial in- terest to Shakspere. He abounds in folk-lore and delights in fairy tales, so he founded tlie elfin world on the prettiest of the peo- ple ' s traditions, and clothed it in the ever-living flowers of his own exuberant fancy, and as a result we have in A Midsummer- Night ' s Dream a perfect revel of fairies. In this play the whole fairy world is laid open before us — a world of airy creatures, who dance and frisk and play pranks like children of the earth, but who, on occasion, can lay plans and dis- cuss ways and means as soberly and as thoughtfully as people of a larger growth. Oh that we might have seen all the world of f au-y-f oik on A Mid- summer ' s Night scattered through the old Athenian forest, the busy elves flitting about with tapers cropped from the thigh of humble-bees, and lighted At the fiery glow-worm ' s eyes ; Will-o ' -the-wisp dancing, like a golden star, through the mist of swamp and marsh, and every merry sprite bent on fun and frolic ! Great preparations must be made for Queen Titania — How now, spirit ! whither wander you ? demands Puck of a fairy, and I serve the fairy queen To dew her orbs upon the green, is the answer. I must go seek some dew-drops here And hang a pearl in every cowslip ' s ear. Oberon with his love-charm, Titania with her maidens, and that shrewd and knavish sprite, called Robin Goodfellow, are the principal characters in the play ; and l)etween Oberon and his attendant such confusion is wrought, every one plays at such

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8 The Augusta Seminary Annual. Brutus heads the conspiracy against Caesar, his benefactor and greatest personal friend. In this case, however, it seems more misplaced virtue than falsity of nature ; for it was not that he loved Caesar less but that he loved Rome more. Though no two characters could be more widely different, the most ardent affec- tion exists between Brutus and Cassius. A¥ith reverence Cassius looks up to Brutus and yields, but unwillingl} ' ' , every point, though he himself is always in the right. Nowhere can there be found a better illustration of the pain and grief caused by the estrange- ment of friends than in the quarrel scene. Shakspere makes us love both Brutus and Cassius the better for those little wrongs which bring such tender love to light. With sorrow Cassius cries, Brutus hath rived my heart ; A friend should bear his friend ' s infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are, then fervently they pledge their reconciliation, and while their hearts are thus closely drawn comes the sorrowful confession, Portia is dead ! Kent, the most perfect of all friends, we liave left for the last ; for nowhere can we find a clearer, intenser manifestation of loyal manhood. We are conscious of a gradual change taking place in all these characters which were drawn in the different periods of Shakspere ' s life. We feel that he has penetrated further and further into the deep realities of life and has found facts more to rouse and kindle and sustain the heart. We see a more awful and more mysterious darkness and also a more intense and lovely hght. There is something grand in Antonio when he stakes his life for Bassanio ; but mth Kent it reaches the sublime. He shows always a passionate, irrepressible devotion to Lear — a loyalty which persists in spite of appearances. Disguised, he perils his life for his enemy king and docs him service improper for a slave. Yet when the deepest gratitude is expressed for such fidelity he replies — To be acknowledg ' d, madam, is o ' erpaid. All my reports go with the modest truth ; Nor more nor clipp ' d, but so. Berta Macatee.

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10 The Augusta Seminary Annual. cross purposes with every one else, that mischievous Puck in high glee is moved to cry — Lord, what fools these mortals be ! It is this lob of spirits, merry, mischievous, tormenting Puck, Oberon ' s tnisty messenger and the mocking imp, dreaded and propitiated by all the simple villagers, who is the s aftest of all the fairy tribe. One fairy indeed claims — I do wonder everywhere Swifter than the moon ' s sphere, and Titania and Oberon compass the globe, Swifter than the wandering moon, but what is this to Puck ' s casual offer to Put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes. Titania alone with her fairies frolics like a care-free child, but when, in lier rambles through Grove or green, By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen, she meets Oberon, she is changed at once into a dignified, stately little queen, who turns a deaf ear to all the lordly Oberon ' s threats, entreaties and promises. She will not give up her change- line; boy, no, not for thy fairy kingdom, she tells him. All of these delicious fairies are very tiny ; Titania, for all her lofty speeches to her lord, creeps frightened into an acorn sliell at the approach of an intruder. To Oberon and Titania, Peasblos- som, Moth, Cobweb and Mustardseed and all the fairy tribe, noth- ing appears small ; a mushroom or an oak-leaf is a mighty canopy under which whole tribes of fays take refuge from the summer showers, and woe to the adventurous sprite who, running una- wares into a col)web, is ent%vined within its mighty meshes or deluged in the imprisoned drops of dew. Imagine an army of the tiny folk sallying forth to make war upon a snail, who but thnists forth two gigantic horns and routs the valiant crew. As Titania sleeps for the third part of a minute on A bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine,