Before Titania goes to sleep, she asks her fairy attendants to sing her a lullaby. Music was often an integral part of Renaissance comedies: although the actors could sing the song without musical accompaniment, more often than not a small band of musicians would be off-stage to provide background music.
The song also involves a dance, for Titania also requests a roundel (a dance in which the dancers form a circle). According to popular legends, fairies are associated with fairy rings. Superstitious folk claimed that the mysterious circles that appeared on grassy lands in the forest at night were caused by fairies that were dancing there during the night. Thus, a roundel is an appropriate dance for the fairies. Although the song in the text is only twenty- one lines long, the dance and the song could last for many minutes in a Renaissance production.
Titania also orders her fairies to attend to their other various duties, which will keep them busy for twenty seconds, “the third part of a minute” (2). The magical power of the fairies is thus implied by this statement. Humans would need many hours to accomplish their tasks, but the fairies can do theirs in a mere matter of seconds. Titania mentions three of these tasks specifically: (1) to prevent the caterpillars from eating musk roses, white flowers that have a rich perfume; (2) to battle with the bats in order to take their leathery wings to make the fairy coats; and