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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 2Scene 1
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India
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Act 2,
Scene 1
Lines 122-137

A historical allusion of India to explain the changeling in Act 2, scene 1 of myshakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

myShakespeare | A Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.137 | Historical Allusion: India

Titania

The fairyland buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot'ress of my order,
And in the spicèd Indian air by night
Full often hath she gossiped by my side;
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking th’embarkèd traders on the flood,
When we have laughed to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind,
Which she — with pretty and with swimming gait
Following, — her womb then rich with my young squire —
Would imitate and sail upon the land
To fetch me trifles, and return again
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die
And for her sake do I rear up her boy;
And for her sake I will not part with him.