A Midsummer's Nightmare, with apologies
to William Shakespeare...and Joss
by Linda R. Barlow
ACT TWO, SCENE I. A Sunnydale forest.
Enter, from opposite sides, a Vampire Minion, and WILLOW
WILLOW
How now, fang face! Where ya goin'?
VAMPIRE MINION
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
No, wait, skip the fire,
Hot flames – my pyre,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the vampire queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
Farewell, thou witchy creature; I'll be gone:
Our queen and all her minions come here soon.
WILLOW
The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
Take heed thy queen come not within his sight;
For The Master is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from a Burger King;
I hear she never ate so sweet a thing;
And jealous Master, he would have the child
To be Anointed in the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the lovely boy,
And now The Master's pissed.
VAMPIRE MINION
Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Are not you he?
WILLOW
Do I look like a fairy?
No, idiot, I'm Willow, wicked witch.
Who pulled on Giles a diabolic switch.
He thinks I'm still in England on the wagon,
But, hey, that kinda got to be a drag, and
I'm back in Sunnydale, makin' trouble,
So, let fire burn and cauldron bubble.
As for Puck, the little fuck's outta luck.
Now beat it, minion! Here comes The Master.
VAMPIRE MINION
And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!
Enter, from one side, THE MASTER, with his train; from
the other, HARMONY, with hers.
THE MASTER
Ill met by moonlight, Harmony.
HARMONY
What, the jealous Master! Minions, leave.
I have forsworn his bed and company.
(struts and taps her ass)
So you can kiss this goodbye.
WILLOW
Harmony's the Vampire Queen? With minions?
Holy Hecate, I've been away too long!
THE MASTER
Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord?
HARMONY
(Coyly) Then I must be thy lady: but I know
When thou hast sneaked away from Sunnydale,
And in guise of Angelus sat all day,
Playing on pipes of bone and versing love
To lecherous Darla. Why art thou here,
Returned from the farthest depths of hell?
I thought they staked thy ass and crushed thy bones.
THE MASTER
How canst thou thus for shame, sweet Harmony,
Criticize my boinkage with my Darla,
When I know all about thy screwing Spike?
HARMONY
These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
In short, you're worse than William! At least he
From bottom of our bed all sexily,
Did stalk me, crawling up until his chest,
Magnificently hard, pressed on my breasts,
His clever fingers on my flesh adept
Played at my nipples till I could have wept
His dev'lish lips and tongue my breath did steal --
Or would have had I breathing yet to feel --
His muscles hard and sculpted were like rock
While deep between my thighs, I felt his –
THE MASTER
Enough! You dare throw William in my face?
It's high time someone put you in your place
That wretched Spike's the cause of all my woes
Seems he's forgotten from which font he flows
He is the final blossom of my line
And, soul or no, I mean to make him mine,
But just in case the Slayer queers my pitch
In manner as she's done before, the bitch,
Another scheme I'll hatch, so have a care,
Dare not to keep from me my final heir.
In case the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, do suck up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Will every pelting river make so proud
That they will overflow their continents:
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'll see
The seasons alter: sweet spring, warm summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
Confused, now knows not which is which:
All this vile progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
HARMONY
Whoa, our discord to the wider world doth reach?
That's awesome… wait, you mangled my best speech!
THE MASTER
A fair return, do you amend it then.
Wherefore should Harmony cross her Master?
I do but beg a little vampire boy,
To be my newly made Anointed One.
HARMONY
That is so lame! Spike will so roast his ass
Just like the last one -- get a better plan!
THE MASTER
He has a soul so he won't kill a child
Unlike Holtz who slew his only daughter
William's too repentant now to slaughter
The boy is safe, so yield him up to me
Or feel my wrath!
HARMONY
(coyly) Doth thy wrath come with kisses?
THE MASTER (touched) Canst thou look on this ugly face with love?
HARMONY
Uh, I take the Fifth.
THE MASTER
(scowling) How long within this forest will you stay?
HARMONY
Till after Joss's Fuck the Emmys day.
If you will patiently dance in our round
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I'll avoid your haunts.
THE MASTER
Give me that kid, and I will go with thee.
HARMONY
Not for thy vampire kingdom. Minions, away!
A brawl will follow, if I longer stay.
Exit HARMONY with her minions.
THE MASTER
Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My wicked Willow, come hither. Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.
WILLOW
Nope. Must have been some other evil witch.
THE MASTER
That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
WILLOW
Hey! Gay now. Keep your entendres single.
THE MASTER
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
WILLOW
Cupid missed his mark? I don't feel so bad
I've screwed up spells, but Cupid is a god.
THE MASTER
So mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It struck upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
WILLOW
I'll teleport that flower through the earth
In forty nanoseconds.
Exit WILLOW
THE MASTER
Having this juice,
I'll watch Harmony when she is asleep,
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she waking looks upon,
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On chaos demon, or Acathla's face,
She shall pursue it with the soul of love:
And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
As I can take it with another herb,
I'll make her render up the boy to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible;
E'er since I filched a diamond from the earth
And had the geeky Cupid shoot at me.
I will overhear their conference.
Enter XANDER and ANYA, following him
XANDER
I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
Where is Spike and my beloved Buffy?
The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
ANYA
Cute, Xander.
XANDER
You told me they had run off to this place;
So here am I, and sore at heart because,
I cannot win my first and truest love.
So take off, Ahn, and with the stalking, stop.
ANYA
It's all your fault -- you're a demon magnet.
XANDER
Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
Tell you, I do not, and I cannot love you?
ANYA
And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your sex poodle, I vowed it so,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me as your slave, bind and strike thou me,
I'll use my safe-word if it gets too weird.
XANDER
Ok, so the sex was hot, it's true, but
(preening) I saved the world, so I'm above that now.
Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
For I am sick when I do look on thee.
ANYA
(miserably) And I am sick when I look not on you.
And that is really warped, I know; in fact,
My love has so outstripped my fears that soon
I might be boiling bunnies.
XANDER
You do impeach your modesty too much,
To leave the lights and so commit yourself
Into the hands of one that loves you not;
To trust the opportunity of night
And the spookiness of a deathly place
With the rich worth of your unguarded throat.
ANYA
(sarcastic) What, you're a vampire now? You wish!
XANDER
Don't use that word!
I'll run from thee and hide me in the trees,
And leave thee to the mercy of the vamps.
ANYA
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run where you will, that's what you're good at now.
But beware, pal, the legends hold not true:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase,
The dove hunts the griffin; the rabbit -- eeew --
Makes speed to catch the tiger; in other words,
It's Sunnydale, and chicks aren't powerless
I'll make you eat your words soon, Super boy!
XANDER
If thou do follow me, do not believe
But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
ANYA
Hello? Vengeance Demon here. In church or
Pagan temple, or in the Magic Box,
You do me mischief? Be careful, Xander!
I wouldn't press my luck if I were you.
Exit XANDER
(Anya bursts into tears) Blast it all! D'Hoffryn! What's wrong with me?
I'll follow him although it slayeth me
I wish his heart would open just a crack
No mortal on Anyanka turns his back!
Exit ANYA
THE MASTER (suddenly visible)
Fear nothing, sweet thing: ere he leaves this grove,
Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.
Re-enter WILLOW
Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, fairest witch.
WILLOW
Yeah, got it.
THE MASTER
I pray thee, give it me.
I know 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:
There sleeps Harmony sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
WILLOW
(rolls her eyes) Bored now.
THE MASTER
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A lovely, sexy woman is in love
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
By the sloppy, dorky garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
We creatures of the night hate dawn, you know.
WILLOW
Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
Exit The MASTER
WILLOW
And so I fawn and play the dazzled slave,
Unto this creature I suspect that I
Called forth from dust by magicks dark and dread
Myself the author of his resurrection
Without my knowledge or my fell intent.
What pow'r is mine that I can jerk from hell
A vamp so ancient that his flesh recedes
As in a rotting corpse, yet cannot call
The sweetest nymph who ever lay in earth
From her pale bower. Still my grief doth swamp
My heart with icy blood, and I am bound
To Proserpexa who, once roused won't rest
But works her purpose on this world through me.
And so I serve the evils I once fought
In my own web of power am I caught.
Exit WILLOW.
Previous Scene -- Beginning -- To be continued
The real
scene as Shakespeare wrote it
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