As he waits for his companions to return, Bottom decides to sing a song. His song is about birds and nature, so it is appropriate for the woods at night. But the last three lines of the song may be especially appropriate:
The plainsong Cuckoo grey,
Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer ‘Nay” – (116-18)
The singing of the cuckoo bird sounds very much like the medieval word cuckold. A cuckold was a married man whose wife was cheating on him by having a sexual relationship with someone else. Medieval men ridiculed cuckolds and called them fools. In Bottom’s song, the lines suggest that men are warned about becoming cuckolds, but most men are too foolish to prevent it from happening – they do not say no or nay to the warning of the cuckoo bird. Since Bottom does not appear to be married in this play, he is not a cuckold in that sense. But he is a fool.
Bottom’s loud, raucous, donkey-braying voice awakens Queen Titania, who is sleeping nearby. But rather than getting angry at the person who awakens her, Titania falls in love with him. Bottom is the first person she sees after Oberon had put the love potion on her eyes. Even the Queen of the Fairies cannot control the power of love.
In Greek mythology, Zeus and the other gods were less powerful than fate. The three Fates were powerful female supernatural entities, and the gods had no power over them. Shakespeare’s fairies are similar to the Greek gods here. Although the fairies interfere and affect the destiny of mankind, there are greater forces than the fairies. Shakespeare thus suggests that the mysterious force of fate is all- powerful. Nothing can change it or affect it.
When Bottom tells Titania that he wishes to leave the woods, she proclaims her love to him and begs him not to go. She even bribes Bottom so that he will stay:
I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And sing while thou on pressèd flowers dost sleep; And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go. (139-43)
Titania is offering servants, wealth, entertainment, and comfort to Bottom. In a way, she is offering him paradise. Titania is essentially offering Bottom everything that man desires, everything that man wishes for. Of course, she is also offering love – and not just with any ordinary woman, but with the extraordinarily beautiful Queen of the Fairies. Finally, by offering to purge his mortality, Titania is indicating that she will make Bottom immortal. He will become a fairy. He will become a god. This is an offer that few men could resist.
Titania then calls four of her fairy servants to attend on Bottom. The fairies are named Cobweb, Mustardseed, Peaseblossom, and Mote. The word peaseblossom suggests a small white flower on a pea plant or vine. The word mote in Renaissance usage could mean either a moth or a tiny speck. The names of all four fairies suggests being small or tiny in size. Of course, all four fairies would actually be full-sized humans; but a production could use children or small adults to play these roles.
The fairies introduce themselves to Bottom, and Bottom pokes gentle fun at their names. For example, when Bottom hears the name Mustardseed, he responds with the following:
I know your patience well.
That same cowardly giantlike ox-beef hath devoured many a Gentleman of your house. (173-75)
The word patience in this context suggests suffering. Bottom is humorously suggesting that the fairy is actually a seed of mustard. By comparison to such a seed, a beef roast would appear like a giant. Mustard was traditionally put on beef in England, and so the mustard gets devoured by the giant. Bottom is jokingly offering Mustardseed his sympathy as he suggests that Mustardseed’s relatives have been killed in order to make a delicious roast beef dinner.
The scene ends with Titania asking her fairy attendants to lead Bottom to her bower (her bedchamber).