A Midsummer Night's Psychedelic Dream, selections from Kevin Hwang's Essay

"Thy drugs are quick" - Romeo and Juliet
Artwork by Angelynne M Please

A group of high school kids walk into a park. They light up their drugs and sink into the seductive warmth of the high, a few minutes later, the fairies of their imagination arise and cause the kids to make love to those they shouldn’t. After a few hours, the high fades and they leave the park in a muddled haze. Though this may seem to be a post-modern happening, people all throughout time have been enchanted by the psychedelic drug, opium. The earliest recorded use of opium was around 1500 B.C. The Sumerians, Egyptians, Minoans, Persians and many other ancient societies commonly used opium for pain relievers (Opium). Circa 1,300 B.C, Egyptians referred to the effects of opium as magical and mystical. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream though, Shakespeare cleverly represents the magical experience and lullaby of opium. Through the unique setting and characteristics of the Athenian woods, the changeling boy, and Cupid’s “love-in-idleness” potion, Shakespeare alludes to the presence and trade of opium between England and India via what would soon become the East India Company.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare discerns two very different social settings: the royal court and the Athenian woods. As a strict patriarchal society with rigid laws and caste systems, the royal court is a microcosm of 17^th-century England. The king, Theseus, makes Hippolyta his bride as a prize for his conquest of the Amazons, and Hermia, under her father’s wishes, is forced to marry Demetrius or face execution. The chain of command is divided clearly from the king to the conquered, from the young adults to the tradesmen. On the other hand, the Athenian wood is a place of mystery and refuge. It is given no direct descriptions other than that it initiates an acting troupe from town. Shakespeare neither gives any physical descriptions nor hints at the connotations of the woods for the Athenian characters. Lysander and Hermia flee to this unknown as refuge from the court’s rules for the prospect of a fruitful marriage. This parallels the first English merchants leaving for the East, though not for marriage, but for prosperity through the buying-and-selling of luxury goods such as spices, fabrics, and mind-altering narcotics. From both exaggerated travelogues as well as gossip and rumor, the English would then view India as a place of mystery and exoticism as the readers view the woods as a place of equal mystery and exoticism.

The dichotomy between the woods and the court is further distinguished by changes in the linguistic structure of the play. In Act 1 Scene 2, the dialogues within the courts between Lysander and Hermia are written in blank verse.

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream

However, in Act 2 Scene 2, as soon as the characters enter the woods, they start speaking in a highly structured, rhymed verse. This spontaneous change highlights the exoticism of the woods.

Lysander riddles very prettily.
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy,
Lie further off in human modesty.

When Lysander and Hermia, soon to be followed by Demetrius and Helena, enter the woods, they suddenly speak through this rhyme. Compared to how they were speaking in the royal courts, their speech is more dramatized and the rhymes carry a hypnotic flow. These dialogues then represent the metaphorical lullaby of opium. The rhymes serve as the captivating lyrics and the iambic pentameter, ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM, serves as the hypnotic beat. When the characters speak through this melodic and rhythmic their intoxication under an opium induced trance is subtly illustrated. Music, when people are under the influence, often feels as though it flows through a person’s body and slowly takes control. As a result, by unconsciously following the lullaby’s structure as soon as they enter the woods, the characters and their actions speak not only to the exoticism of the woods but also to the narcotic effect of opium.

Opium was reintroduced to Europe in the mid-1500’s as a medicinal product. From the 13^th century, anything from the East was deemed related to Satan and considered a taboo. However, with the surge of seafaring, opium was brought back to Europe by Portuguese sailors. Dubbed the “Stones of Immortality,” the black pills were a popular remedy for numerous ailments. The opium trade first took off with the Portuguese in the 1500’s. By then, opium was already being abused by the Turks and Egyptians (Opium). In 1591, the first English merchants left to trade in the Indian Ocean. These merchants later become known as the East Indian Company (East India Company). By 1606, under Elizabeth I, the finest opium from India was officially ordered to be transported back to England (Opium).

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Jealous of the intimate bond between Titania and the boy, Oberon demands Titania to give him up. With Titania, opium is metaphorized as the objectified speechless Indian Boy – a commodity. For Oberon, the drug takes on a more material and functional role. Opium has a purpose.  For instance, the “love-in-idleness” flower resembles the harvesting of opium. Oberon describes this plant as “before, milk-white, now purple with love’s wound”. When harvesters cultivate opium, they first peel off the outer part of the plant, which allows the raw opium to ooze out and dry on the surface of the pod. When it comes in contact with the cool night air, it oxidizes and darkens into a deep and dark purplish hue (DEA). Moreover, not only do the physical aspects of the potion and opium match but also their effects as well. Symptoms of opium include senses of emotional detachment, sleepiness, and impaired vision, mental processes and mood (Short Term Effects). Titania, Oberon’s first victim, unfortunately awakes to see Bottom. Although Bottom has the head of a donkey, she says that “on the first view to say, to swear, I love thee”. In addition, not only has she fallen in love with the face of a donkey but also with a mere human being. Titania, being a fairy, falling in love with a mortal is appalling. Even when she is infatuated with him, she states that she will “purge thy mortal grossness” – an interesting parallel with the “Stones of Immortality.” This displaced love is mirrored by Demetrius and Helena. After being drugged with the potion, Demetrius suddenly falls for the woman he detests the most. For Titania and Demetrius’ case, this may seem like an obvious use for the potion. The whole point of a love potion is to artificially create love. However, the way it creates this love is through disrupting the victim’s mental process and mood. For Demetrius, Helena was nothing more than a dog, a “spaniel”. However, with his cognitive abilities compromised, he views Helena as a “goddess, nymph, perfect, divine”.