You are here

All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 2Scene 1
Back to the Play
"Corin" and "Phillida"
Cultural Context
Act 2,
Scene 1
Lines 60-73

An explanation of the references to Corin and Phillida in Act 2, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Oberon

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Titania

What, jealous Oberon? — Fairies, skip hence,
I have forsworn his bed and company.

Oberon

Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?

Titania

Then I must be thy lady. But I know
When thou hast stol’n away from fairyland,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest step 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?

Corin and Phillida are typical names for a shepherd and shepherdess. Titania is accusing Oberon of stealing away from fairyland, taking on the appearance of a country lad, and flirting with a seductive country girl by reciting poetry and playing a corncob flute.

Most Elizabethans believed, based on the accounts in the Old Testament, that interactions between humans and supernatural beings such as angels and devils sometimes occurred. And since some of them also believed in fairies, the possibility of a sexual encounter between Oberon and a country lass wasn’t just something out of a fairy tale.

(Shepherd and Shepherdess by Jan Thomas, 17th Century)

References: 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas,_Jan_-_Shepherd_and_Sheph...