About a boy
The gods in A Midsummer Night’s Dream quarrel over a kidnapped Indian princeling whom Oberon wants to turn into his henchman, which I assume involves nothing less than a reach-around. Oberon was apparently the Mogambo of the forest (thanks, louiecypher):
Robin: The king doth keep his revels here tonight.
Take heed the queen come not within his sight.
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath
Because that she, as her attendant hath
A lovely boy stolen from an Indian king.
She never had so sweet a changeling.
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild.
But she perforce withholds the lovèd boy,
Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy…Titania: …. I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest Steppe of India? …Oberon: Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my henchman.
Titania keeps the boy because of her friend tomatoes, ya-ya sisterhood bond with his mom:
Titania:
Set your heart at rest:
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a vot’ress of my order
And in the spiced Indian air by night
Full often hath she gossiped by my side
And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,
Marking the’ embarked 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 I will not part with him.Oberon: Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
Titania: Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay…
‘Not for thy fairy kingdom.’ Oh, snap!
Oberon: When they next wake, all this derision
Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,
And back to Athens shall the lovers wend,
With league whose date till death shall never end.
Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
I’ll to my queen and beg her Indian boy ;
And then I will her charmed eye release
From monster’s view, and all things shall be peace…Oberon: When I had at my pleasure taunted her
And she in mild terms begg’d my patience,
I then did ask of her her changeling child;
Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
And now I have the boy , I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes… [ Link]
What a changeling is:
… a changeling is the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child. The apparent changeling could also be a stock, a glamorized piece of wood that would soon appear to grow sick and die. The motivation for this conduct stems from the desire to have a human servant, the love of a human child, or malice… Changelings would be identified by their wizened appearance, voracious appetite, malicious temper, inability to move , and other unpleasant traits… [Link]
So a changeling is just another name for Boman Irani.
The theme of child kidnapping will always resonate — see the relentlessly depressing Gone Baby Gone. Ironically, the biological mother in The Changeling is played by wealthy childnapper extraordinaire Angelina Jolie.



Facebook this
Reddit this