TITANIA: Madam President, my suggestions come from realms of fairy land as I dream, half-waking, on a bank where the wild thyme blows; where oxlips and the nodding violet grows. Quite over canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk roses, and with eglantine. I dream of pease blossoms and mustard seed and canker roses (tho some call them wild) and honeysuckle and ivy--(which I trow is feminine because it requires support). I give you dewberries and apricots, and love-in-idleness, and there is cupid’s flower and Dian’s bud, which is but an herb, but brewed will keep men and women chaste. MISTRESS FORD: (aside) Best brew some for Cleopatra. TITANIA: (continues) These, Madam President, are what I would grow on Avon’s marshy banks. (sits down) LADY MACBETH: Titania hath named a worthy list, let all in favor signify in the usual way. (Members applaud and murmur “aye, aye”) LADY MACBETH: (looking about) Juliet, do I see you wish to speak? JULIET: Madam President, Romeo says the plaintain leaf is most excellent for healing bruises, why not grow that? And Friar Lawrence knows many precious juic-ed flowers that kill the poisons of baleful weeds. Such weeds as the mandrake that shrieks like living mortals when torn from the earth. And surely we must have a pomegranate tree, for Romeo and I both know that the nightingale loves to sing in the branches, and the nightingale sings far sweeter than the lark. JESSICA: Oh you romantic child, still thinking of your honeymoon. LADY MACBETH: Ladies, your approval? (Applause and “ayes”) OPHELIA: (very timidly) Madam President? KATHERINE: (aside) Have we to listen to Ophelia? Everyone knows she hath bats in her belfry. ROSALIND: Hush, Kate, Hamlet hath changed her mind since they were wed, she’s sane enough now. KATHERINE: Hamlet and Petrucio must be of the same kin, Petrucio made me change some, forsooth. OPHELIA: (in louder tones) Madam President. LADY MACBETH: Ah Ophelia, speak up my child. OPHELIA: Madam, I move we plant rosemary, that’s for remembrance and a chosen emblem for weddings and funerals. And pansies, they’re for thought, tho Madam Titania called them “love-in-idleness.” Fennel, too, we should have, that’s for flatterers, tho some say the gladiators mixed it with their daily food, to make them fierce and rude. Columbine is pretty, but it means unfaithfulness--and forsaken lovers--let’s not plant that. Then we must have rue, for its other name is herb of grace--we all need that. And daisies, shall we plant those? They mean to “dissemble.” But oh dear Madam, I pray you let us have violets--and violets and violets, for they mean faithfulness. (sits down) KATHERINE: Madam President, I move we cheer Ophelia, she hath told us useful things. (Members--“Aye, aye, aye!”)