"OBERON
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 loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
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 wat'ry moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees." (2.1.155)

Alrighty, so you need a magic potion. But Walgreens is all out. What do you do?

Oberon sends his best lackey to go pick some up. Apparently, Cupid's arrow hit a flower by accident. And now it's the central ingredient in the recipe for love potion number 9. That's A Midsummer Night's Dream for ya.

While this passage is just dripping with elements of the supernatural, we're more interested in the way Shakespeare's giving a little hat-tip to Queen E. You see, since Queen Elizabeth never married, she was called the virgin queen. And we figure the woman Puck calls a "fair vestal" and "imperial vot'ress" is none other than our Elizabeth.

Another hint that he's talking about Queen Elizabeth is that she's "throned by the west." England is definitely west of Athens, where this play takes place. Bam.

Shakespeare's pullin' out all the stops with his mythological references. From Cupid to Diana to Hestia and her vestal virgins, he's got his backside covered if the humanist police show up. Best of all, he's mixing in a little—okay, a lot of—magic talk. And that's always a crowd-pleaser.