INTRODUCTION TO A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. THIS HIS play was registered at the Stationers' October 8, 1600, and two quarto editions of it were published in the course of that year. The play is not known to have been printed again till it reappeared in the folio of 1623, where the repetition of certain misprints shows it to have been printed from one of the quarto copies. Few of the Poet's dramas have reached us in a more satisfactory state as regards the text. The play is first heard of in the list given by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia, 1598. But it was no doubt written several years before that time; and I am not aware that any editor places the writing later than 1594. This brings it into the same period with King John, King Richard the Second, and the finished Romeo and Juliet; and the internal marks of style naturally sort it into the same company. Verplanck, however, thinks there are some passages which relish strongly of an earlier time; while, again, there are others that have such an energetic compactness of thought and imagery, mingled occasionally with the deeper tonings of " years that bring the philosophic mind," as to argue that they were wrought into the structure of the play not long before it came from the press. The part of the Athenian lovers certainly has a good deal that, viewed by itself, would scarce do credit even to such a boyhood as Shakespeare's must have been. On the other hand, there is a large philosophy in Theseus' discourse of "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," a manly judgment in his reasons for preferring the "tedious brief scene of young Pyramus and his love Thisbe," and a bracing freshness in the short dialogue of the chase, all in the best style of the author's second period. There is at least a rather curious coincidence, which used to be regarded as proving that the play was not written till after the Summer of 1564. I refer to Titania's description, in ii. 1, of the strange misbehaviour of the weather, which she ascribes to the fairy bickerings. For the other part of the coincidence, Strype in his Annals gives the following from a discourse by the Rev. Dr. King: "And see whether the Lord doth not threaten us much more, by sending such unseasonable weather and storms of rain among us; which if we will observe, and compare it with what is past, we may say that the course of nature is very much inverted. Our years are turned upside down our Summers are no Summers; our harvests are no harvests; our seed-times are no seed-times. For a great space of time scant any day hath been seen that it hath not rained." Dyce, indeed, scouts the supposal that Shakespeare had any allusion to this eccentric conduct of the elements in the Summer of 1594, pronouncing it "ridiculous "; but I do not quite see it so, albeit I am apt enough to believe that most of the play was written before that date. Some hints towards the part of Theseus and Hippolyta appear to have been taken from The Knight's Tale of Chaucer. The same poet's Legend of Thisbe of Babylon, and Golding's translation of the same story from Ovid, probably furnished the matter of the Interlude. So much as relates to Bottom and his fellows evidently came fresh from Nature as she had passed under the Poet's eye. The linking of these clowns with the ancient tragic tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, so as to draw the latter within the region of modern farce, is not less original than droll. The names of Oberon, Titania, and Robin Goodfellow were made familiar by the surviving relics of Gothic and Druidical mythology. But it was for Shakespeare to let the fairies " speak for themselves. So that there need be no scruple about receiving Hallam's statement of the matter: A Midsummer-Night's Dream is, I believe, altogether original in one of the most beautiful conceptions that ever visited the mind of a poet, -the fairy machinery. A few before him had dealt in a vulgar and clumsy manner with popular superstitions; but the sportive, beneficent, invisible population of the air and earth, long since established in the creed of childhood, and of those simple as children, had never for a moment been blended with 'human mortals' among the personages of the drama." "In A Midsummer-Night's Dream," says Schlegel, "there flows a luxuriant vein of the boldest and most fantastical invention; the most extraordinary combination of the most dissimilar ingredients seems to have been brought about without effort by some ingenious and lucky accident; and the colours are of such clear transparency that we think the whole of the variegated fabric may be blown away with a breath. The fairy world here described resembles those elegant pieces of Arabesque, where little Genii with butterfly wings rise, half embodied, above the flower-cups. Twilight, moonshine, dew, and spring perfumes are the element of these tender spirits: they assist Nature in embroidering her carpet with green leaves, many-coloured flowers, and glittering insects: in the human world they do but make sport childishly and way wardly with their beneficent or noxious influences. Their most violent rage dissolves in good-natured raillery; their passions, stripped of all earthly matter, are merely an ideal dream. To correspond with this, the loves of mortals are painted as a poetical enchantment, which, by a contrary enchantment, may be immediately suspended, and then renewed again. The different parts of the plot; the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, Oberon and Titania's quarrel, the flight of the two pairs of lovers, and the theatrical manœuvres of the mechanics, are so lightly and happily interwoven, that they seem necessary to each other for the formation of a whole. Oberon is desirous of relieving the lovers from their perplexities, but greatly adds to them through the mistakes of his minister, till at last he comes really to the aid of their fruitless, amorous pain, their inconstancy and jealousy, and restores fidelity to its old rights. The extremes of fanciful and vulgar are united when the enchanted Titania awakes and falls in love with a coarse mechanic with an ass's head, who represents, or rather disfigures, the part of a tragical lover. The droll wonder of Bottom's transformation is merely the translation of a metaphor in its literal sense; but in his behaviour during the tender homage of the Fairy Queen we have an amusing proof how much the consciousness of his new head-dress heightens the effect of his usual folly. Theseus and Hippolyta are, as it were, a splendid frame for the picture; they take no part in the action, but surround it with a stately pomp. The discourse of the hero and his Amazon, as they course through the forest with their noisy hunting-train, works upon the imagination like the fresh breath of morning, before which the shapes of night disappear. Pyramus and Thisbe is not unmeaningly chosen as the grotesque play within the play it is exactly like the pathetic part of the piece, a secret meeting of two lovers in the forest, and their separation by an unfortunate accident; and closes the whole with the most amusing parody." Other Fairies attending their King and Queen. Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE, Athens, and a Wood not far from it. ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. A Room in the Palace of THESEUS. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants. The. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another Moon: but O, methinks, how slow This old Moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's révenue.1 Hip. Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the Moon, like to a silver bow New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night Stir up th' Athenian youth to merriments; 1 The verse here evidently requires revenue to have the accent on the first and third syllables. The Poet more commonly has it accented, as it should be, on the second syllable; as a little after : "I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child." The pale companion is not for our pomp. With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling. [Exit PHILOS. Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS. Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke! 2 The. Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee? Ege. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius. — My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand forth, Lysander :-and, my gracious Duke, This man hath witch'd the bosom of my child: Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchang'd love tokens with my child: Thou hast by moon-light at her window sung, With feigning voice, verses of feigning love; 3 And stol'n th' impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweet-meats, messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth: To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious Duke, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,- The. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair maid: One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax, By him imprinted, and within his power 2 Theseus is repeatedly called duk in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, to which the Poet was evidently indebted for some of the material of this play. The application of duke to the heroes of antiquity was quite common; the word being from the Latin dux, which means a chief or leader of any sort. Thus in 1 Chronicles, i. 51, we have a list of "the dukes of Edom." 3 According to present usage, this should be "verses of feigned love." Probably it is but an instance of the indifferent use of the active and passive forms so common in the Poet's time. See vol. i. page 66, note 4. Walker, however, thinks we should read "verses of feigned love." To leave the figure, or disfigure it.* The. In himself he is; But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, The other must be held the worthier. Her. I would my father look'd but with my eyes. The. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look. I know not by what power I am made bold, In such a presence here to plead my thoughts; The. Either to die the death, or to abjure Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless Moon. Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, Her. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Ere I will yield my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty." The. Take time to pause; and, by the next new Moon, The sealing-day betwixt my love and me For everlasting bond of fellowship, — Upon that day either prepare to die 4 The language is something odd and obscure; but the meaning appears to be," It is in his power either to let the form remain as it is, that is, to leave it undefaced, or to destroy it altogether." In the Poet's earlier period, such jingles as figure and disfigure were too much affected by him. Blood is continually put for passions, impulses, desires, and affections, by our old writers. See vol. i. page 92, note 9. 6 So all the old copies, and such, no doubt, was the Poet's writing; though some editors have changed it to earthly happier. The meaning is, happy in a more earthly and perishable kind of happiness; which meaning is defeated by the change. 7 The folio of 1632 reads "to whose unwish'd yoke;" but the older text is merely an instance of give followed by two objectives. |