Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
Hath every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents.
The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain,
The plowman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard.
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock.
The nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
The human mortals want their winter here.
No night is now with hymn or carol blest.
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
– William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 1. Titania says that the quarrel between her and Oberon has caused huge disruptions in the natural world and the world of humans. It has led to bad weather, widespread flooding, rotting of the corn crops, alterations in the seasons, and the spread of diseases everywhere. She lays the blame for the world becoming barren and the upsetting of the natural order of things squarely at their feet – "We are their parents and original." Her long monologue is a striking poem in which both the wind and the moon are personified. The passage explains the close relationship between the fairies and the natural world. When the fairies are in harmony, so is nature.
