For example, the first 5 lines below can be paraphrased as follows: 'Therefore (because of our quarrel), the winds, who feel they have made their musical noise (piping) in vain to get our attention, have (as though in revenge at our neglect) sucked up unhealthy fogs from the sea, and these wind-borne fogs falling on the land have made each river so "proud" that it has flooded over its banks. ' Saying that the winds' sound is "piping" is a metaphor for "blowing." Furthermore, the winds are personified, not only as pipers but also as beings who take offense at the indifference of Titania and Oberon:
1 Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Have every pelting river made so proud,
5 That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard:
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
10 And crows are fatted with the murrion flock,
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
The human mortals want their winter here:
15 No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
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 see
20 The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
25 The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension:
30 We are their parents and original.