Note to A Midsummer's Night Dream, 2.2.1-8: "Come, now a roundel and a fairy song
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence; / Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, / To make my small elves coats, and some keep back The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders / At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep; Then to your offices and let me rest.
Titania instructs her fairies with their fairy tasks: to kill that canker spots in the roses, to fight the bats for possession of their wings (so that the fairies can sew elve coats with the leathery bat wings), to restrain the noisy owl who draws unwanted attention to fairy tasks with hoots, and finally to sing Titania to sleep with their fairy songs.
