Theseus a leading character in his story, and has ascribed the unearthly incidents to mythological personages, conformable to a legend which professes to narrate events that actually happened in Greece. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has merely adopted Theseus, whose exploits he was acquainted with through the pages of North's Plutarch, as a well-known character of romance, in subordination to whom the rest of the dramatis personæ might fret their hour; and has employed for supernatural machinery those "airy nothings" familiar to the literature and traditions of various people and nearly all ages. There is little at all in common between the two stories except the name Theseus, the representative of which appears in Shakespeare simply as a prince who lived in times when the introduction of ethereal beings, such as Oberon, Titania, and Puck, was in accordance with tradition and romance. Beyond one or two passing allusions, there is no attempt to individualize either the man or the country, and, but for these, Theseus might have been called by any other name, and have been lord of any other territory. There is another enunciation of the critics, which requires to be taken with considerable modification: we are told that the characters of the play are classical, while the accessories are Gothic; but the distinction implied is not perhaps so great as we have been led to believe. Godwin has called Theseus the "knight-errant " of antiquity, from which it might be inferred that the knight-errant of the middle ages was a very different person to the romantic hero of ancient times: but, in truth, the two characters were almost identical, as the history of Theseus proves. What material difference, for example, is there between his victory over the Minotaur, and that of Guy, the renowned Earl of Warwick, over the Dun cow? The combats with dragons and other ferocious monsters, the protection of the virtuous and the weak against the wicked and the strong, fluctuation of good and evil fortune, adventures with the fair sex, and engagements with supernatural enemies, these were the incidents of every story in which a warrior was made to figure as the hero of romance. Nor is there anything peculiarly Gothic in the imaginary population of the fairy-world. It is not improbable that many of our legends connected with this fabulous race were derived indirectly from Greece itself. It is impossible to read the Golden Ass of Apuleius, one of the few prose works of imagination which have been transmitted to us from ancient times, without being struck by the similarity of classic and Gothic literature in this department of romance. The Fawns, Satyrs, and Dryads of the Greeks were undoubtedly of a kindred origin with the woodland fairies of more recent times, and the intervention of an agency known as witchcraft is alike traceable in both ages. There can be little doubt that Golding's translation of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe suggested the interlude by the hard-handed men of Athens, as North's Plutarch certainly furnished the characters of Theseus and his "bouncing Amazon;" but that which constitutes the charm and essence of the play, the union of those gross materials with the delicate, benign, and sportive beings of fairy-land, "lighter than the gossamer, and smaller than a cowslip's bell," was the pure creation of Shakespeare's own illimitable and delightful fancy. EGE. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke! THE. Thanks, good Egeus. What's the news with thee? EGE. Full of vexation come I, with complaint Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, THE. What say you, Hermia? be advis'd, fair To you your father should be as a god; THE. HER. I would my father look'd but with my eyes! THE. Rather, your eyes must with his judgment look. HER. I do entreat your grace to pardon me. THE. Either to die the death, or to abjure Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, HER. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, new moon, d (The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, DEM. Relent, sweet Hermia ;-and, Lysander, yield Thy crazed title to my certain right. Lys. You have her father's love, Demetrius ; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him. EGE. Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love; Lys. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he, And, which is more than all these boasts can be, And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes, THE. I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof, But, being over-full of self-affairs, My mind did lose it.-But, Demetrius, come; 44 so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven And in Spenser's "Faerie Queen," II. viii. 19:-- "So would 1, said the enchanter, glad and faine b The course of true love never did run smooth:] This sentiment is not uncommon, but it has never been so beautifully expressed. It occurs in Milton's "Paradise Lost," Book x. 896, et seqq., and we meet with it in Middleton's "Blurt, Master Constable," Act III. Sc. 1: How chance the roses there do fade so fast? Lys. Ay me!* for aught that I could ever† read, Could ever hear by tale or history, b The course of true love never did run smooth: " But, either it was different in blood ;— HER. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low!‡ Lys. Or else misgraffed, in respect of years; HER. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young! Lys. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends; § HER. O hell! to choose love by another's eye! Lys. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it; Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen,(2) unfolds botli heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say,-Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion. HER. If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross; As due to love, as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers. e Lys. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child; HER. My good Lysander! By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves; * Lys. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, HER. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. HER. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. HER. The more I hate, the more he follows me. HER. Take comfort, he no more shall see my Lysander and myself will fly this place. a And prospers loves;] This is the reading of the quarto published by Fisher; that by Roberts, and the folio, have love. b Your fair:] That is, your beauty. See "Love's Labour's Lost," note (a), p. 69, and the "Comedy of Errors," note (b), p. 121. The folio reads, you fair. c 0, were favour 80,-] Favour, in Shakespeare sometimes means countenance, features, and occasionally, as here, good graces generally. d Your words I'd catch, fair Hermia, ere I go,-] The old copies read, "Your words I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go." The very slight alteration, which gives intelligibility to the line, was first made in the folio, 1632. Helena would catch not only the beauty of her rival's aspect, and the melody of her tones, but her language also. If the lection here proposed is inadmissible, we must adopt that of Hanmer,-"Yours would I catch," for the old text will never be accepted as the author's. e His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.] Thus, Fisher's quarto; Before the time I did Lysander see, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, HER. And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, There my Lysander and myself shall meet: And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes, To seek new friends and stranger companies. Farewell, sweet playfellow, pray thou for us, And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight From lovers' food, till morrow deep midnight. [Exit HERMIA, Lys. I will, my Hermia.-Helena, adieu : As you on him, Demetrius doter on you! [Exit LYSANDER. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, that by Roberts, and the folio, have, "none of mine." f And stranger companies.] In the old text the passage runs as follows: "And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel swell'd, There my Lysander and myself shall meet, And thence from Athens turn away our eyes To seek new friends and strange companions." The restoration of "counsel sweet," and "stranger companies," is due to Theobald, and as the rest of the scene from the entrance of Helena is in rhyme, there can be no reasonable doubt that these four lines were originally in rhyme also. |