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A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

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Discussion Topic

Oberon and Titania's past involvement with Theseus and Hippolyta

Summary:

Oberon and Titania's past involvement with Theseus and Hippolyta is rooted in jealousy and romantic entanglements. Oberon accuses Titania of having an affair with Theseus, while Titania suggests Oberon has had a relationship with Hippolyta. This history fuels their current conflict and impacts the events in the play.

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In Act 2, Scene 1, what's Oberon and Titania's past involvement with Theseus and Hippolyta?

In Act 2, scene 1 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania and Oberon, the queen and king of Fairyland, argue about their roles within their own marriage. During this argument, Titania confronts Oberon about his past love affair with Hippolyta, reminding him of his current mistress in the same speech. In her displeasure, she mocks Oberon's tendency to dress up as a shepherd in order to leave Fairyland and see his current love.

Oberon returns with a barb about Titania's past love affair with Theseus, as well as Titania's possessiveness over Theseus that drove him to break his promises to other women. Titania denies Oberon's charges, calling them lies and changing the subject to the effect of their argument on other residents of Fairyland.

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In this scene, we find out that Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the fairies, have been romantically involved with Theseus, Duke of Athens, and his...

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fiancee, Hippolyta.

We are told that Oberon was having an affair with Hippolyta.  Titania scolds him for it in this scene.  When she scolds him, Theseus responds in kind.  He tells Titania that she should not be talking about his affair because she was having her own affair with Theseus.

So it seems that the fairies have managed somehow to end up having love affairs with the human beings.

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What is Oberon and Titania's past involvement with Theseus and Hippolyta?

The play does not entirely answer this question clearly. Oberon and Titania accuse each other of having been involved with the opposite-sex member of the other couple, but neither will admit to such an involvement:

TITANIA
Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest steep of India,
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskined mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity?

OBERON
How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering
night
From Perigouna, whom he ravishèd
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy
(2.1.70–84).
Titania first claims that Hippolyta is Oberon's mistress, or at least that she had been before she got together with Theseus. Oberon, she says, has come to Athens in order to bless the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta, presumably because he wants his former mistress to be happy. Oberon gets angry and calls Titania a hypocrite but without quite admitting exactly what happened with Hippolyta. He talks about his "credit" with Hippolyta, which means his reputation concerning what happened with her, not what actually took place. He tells Titania that she repeatedly seduced Theseus away from the other women he had been with. (In Greek mythology, Theseus is especially famous for having courted many women, leaving each for another as he grows bored or finds it to his advantage.) Titania denies this accusation, saying that Oberon is imagining things because he is jealous: "these are the very forgeries of jealousy." Like forging a signature, a forgery is a lie, so Oberon's jealousy, she says, is lying to him about what happened. Both of them, then, accuse the other, but both of them either deny or refuse to admit that they actually did get involved with members of the royal couple. Considering how angry Titania and Oberon get at each other, it seems probable that neither is completely making things up. However, the final interpretation of what happened is up to the director or critic, since the play is not definitive on the matter.
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