votress


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vo•ta•ress

(ˈvoʊ tər ɪs)

n.
a woman who is a votary.
[1580–90]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
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However, although he suspects Titania of an intimate relationship with Theseus, the main source of Oberon's jealousy is clearly his wife's loyalty to her dead votress, and his biggest complaint is that she will not part with her friend's child.
Shakespeare evokes a comic version of Yeats's "dying generations" in the goddess Titania's "votress," who dies giving birth to the changeling at the center of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595): "She being mortal of that boy did die" (2.1.135).
The text is indubitably concerned with guardianship and its self-serving rewards, but it raises these questions within a scene whose language primarily and predominantly celebrates the relationship between Titania and her votress in very different terms.