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CHAPTER THREE
THE MIDDLE COMEDIES (I)
A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor
and
The Merchant of Venice
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- - - I - - -
The four early comedies which I have dealt with are to some extent experimental, exploring different aspects of comic drama. However, this should not be seen as isolating them from later comedies, since throughout his career Shakespeare seems to have delighted in tackling the various problems presented by his comic plots in new and interesting ways - but disorder, conflict and violence are always central to his concept of comedy. As he matured, he inevitably drew on and improved aspects of his earlier plays, and it is instructive to follow his development by considering a feature common to The Comedy of Errors (ca.1589) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595), 3.1 this being the conflict and threat of violence which opens both of these comedies. In the earlier play Egeon is under sentence of death at the outset, and his conflict with the Duke of Ephesus clouds the opening scene; while in A Midsummer Night's Dream Hermia is brought before Theseus who threatens her with death unless she bows to her father's will. Both rulers are sympathetic towards their victims, neither of whom deserves to die, and this lends to the pathos, particularly in the earlier play. The possibility of death resurfaces in the final scene of The Comedy of Errors and seriously threatens to mar the comic conclusion, while in A Midsummer Night's Dream an alternative, less harsh punishment is offered at the outset, thus removing any cause for anxiety on the part of the audience when the final judgement is made later in the play. This less threatening approach is more satisfactory in a comedy, but even so, in both plays the harsh law, initially an insuperable obstacle to happiness, is quietly brushed aside, as the conventions of romantic comedy dictate in such matters.
Three aspects of Shakespeare's treatment of the idea of the opening threat of violence returned to later in the play make it more successful in A Midsummer Night's Dream than it was in The Comedy of Errors: firstly, the offence for which death is a possible punishment is germane to the plot; 3.2 secondly, the threat of death causes Hermia and Lysander to run away, thus setting in motion the central comic action of the play, while in The Comedy of Errors the initial death threat has no direct bearing on the main comic action; and thirdly, Theseus is an important figure in his play, while the Duke of Ephesus is not. In fact, the threat of death, which actually opens The Comedy of Errors, is deliberately briefly postponed in A Midsummer Night's Dream in order to
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establish Theseus' stature as a ruler, and also to reveal some of the important themes and motifs of the play, thus enhancing the relevance of the threat when it is introduced, some twenty lines into the play, at the entry of Egeus.
Another aspect of A Midsummer Night's Dream found in earlier plays, but here improved upon, is the use of the sub-plot to echo and comment on the action in the main plot. This is found tentatively used in, for example, The Comedy of Errors, where Dromio of Syracuse experiences the same sense of dislocation as Antipholus of Syracuse, and his affair with 'the Kitchin wench' parodies his master's relationship with Luciana; in The Two Gentlemen of Verona Launce's account of his farewell parodies the actual farewell of Proteus to Julia; and in Love's Labour's Lost, instead of parodying the main plot, the sub-plot points to the absurdities of the men in the central action, where their unsuccessful love for the women must be contrasted with the successful love of Armado for Jaquenetta in the sub-plot. In A Midsummer Night's Dream the action takes place on four levels - the mature love between Theseus and Hippolyta is the subject of the main overarching action; the youthful love of Lysander for Hermia, and Demetrius for Helena, forms the principal subject of the central action; alongside this is the discord in the love between Oberon and Titania in the fairy world; and finally there is the plot containing the mechanicals and their attempt at staging the love story, Pyramus and Thisbe (itself an echo of the main plot) - and on all four levels certain plot features will be found reproduced in such a way as to intimately interconnect each level, giving the whole play a remarkable organic unity not found to the same degree in the earlier comedies. Disorder, conflict and violence feature conspicuously in all four levels of the action and thus constitute an important unifying factor in the overall plot structure.
The play opens with Theseus and Hippolyta contemplating their marriage:
Now faire Hippolita, our nuptiall houre
Drawes on apace: four happy daies bring in
Another Moon: but oh, me thinkes, how slow
This old Moon wanes ....
(I.i.1-4)
Here we see the dominant theme of the play, love and marriage, introduced at the outset, and along with it the most important image of the play, the moon. Shakespeare's choice of the moon to preside over the action is
a happy one, for it has a vast array of associations which are used as yet another means of linking the various strands of the plot. Two conflicting aspects of the moon are immediately apparent: Diana, Phoebe and Artemis are all names for the moon goddess, or the moon itself, and these have been variously associated in classical mythology not only with chastity and virginity (aptly signified by the pale, cold light the moon gives), but also with childbirth and general fecundity (Diana of Ephesus being a multiple-breasted fertility goddess). 3.3 In addition the moon goddess was connected with the sea in controlling the tides, and she could also infect with deadly diseases the flocks of those who did not respect her, or, more malevolently, strike dead those with whom she was displeased. The association with the sea and the mere fact that the moon changes, waxing and waning, meant that it could be an image of inconstancy and fickleness; contrary to this, as Spurgeon notes, the association of the moon with the sun meant that it could also stand 'for an emblem of steadfast constancy'. 3.4 When Theseus refers to 'Another Moon' appearing on their wedding day, it is the moon of fertility that he anticipates; the present moon he likens to 'a Step-dame, or a Dowager' (I.i.5), cold and chaste, delaying his marriage. Hippolyta, however, calms her impatient lord by looking forward to the marriage day, when
... the Moone, like to a siluer bow,
Now bent in heauen, shal behold the night
Of our solemnities.
(I.i.9-11)
Brooks sees the image of the 'siluer bow' as 'an archetype of fruitful union', 3.5 emphasising the fertility aspects of the moon. So we see that Theseus and Hippolyta hold conflicting views of how the moon relates to the time intervening before their marriage. He, impatient, dwells on the negative aspects of chastity and virginity, seeing the moon as malevolent, 'withering out a yong mans reuennew' (I.i.6); she sees the moon as benevolent, fecund, auspiciously presiding over their marriage rites. This minor conflict actually serves to underline the amity between the couple, for it does not mar their relationship at all. So confident is Theseus of their love that he can even refer to the conflict and violence which preceded it:
Hippolita, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And wonne thy loue, doing thee iniuries:
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pompe, with triumph, and with reuelling.
(I.i.16-19)
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Theseus resembles Petruchio in that he has tamed a wild woman, making her conform to the accepted social norm of male dominance, an important issue in this play; but Garner suggests that the text invites the interpretation that Hippolyta is brought back to Athens an unwilling bride, with the conflict still much in evidence. 3.6 However, this would negate an important motif in this comedy, the movement from conflict and disorder to an ordered, harmonious state. In the overarching action order and amity have already been achieved at the outset, an important fact when the function of Theseus in the play is considered: he stands for order, being the ruler at the head of an ordered society. Apart from the minor conflicting points of view relating to the moon, already discussed, the only disagreements between Theseus and Hippolyta to be found in the play appear in the final act, and in each case Hippolyta is subservient to her husband, as she should be in a well-ordered society. They differ in their interpretations of the lovers' dream, he finding it 'More strange then true' (V.i.2), she seeing it as 'something of great constancie' (V.i.26), but he does not even bother to comment on her view, having stated his own previously. As she does not pursue the matter, we can conclude only that whatever her private feelings, she allows his views to dominate. They also disagree in their approach to the show put on by the mechanicals, but each time her errors of judgement are pointed out by Theseus and the issue is then considered closed, as in the following typical exchange:
Dutch.
This is the silliest stuffe, that euer I heard.
Duke.
The best, in this kinde, are but shadowes: and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
Dutch.
It must be your imagination, then; & not theirs.
Duke.
If we imagine no worse of them, then they of thẽselues, they may passe for excellent men.
(Q V.i.207-212)
The love between Theseus and Hippolyta, and the ordered state which it represents, is the goal towards which all other lovers in the play should be moving. 3.7
The story of Theseus and Hippolyta was probably taken by Shakespeare from The Knight's Tale in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, where we find Theseus was a great ruler:
Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duc that highte Theseus;
Of Atthenes he was lord and governour,
And in his tyme swich a conquerour,
That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.
(I(A).859-863)
Theseus is also depicted as a powerful ruler in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which Shakespeare would have known in Thomas North's rendering in English of Jacques Amyot's French translation of the original Greek. 3.8 As these works were widely known in Shakespeare's time, little was needed in A Midsummer Night's Dream to establish Theseus as the representative of law and order to whom all matters of contention could be referred, precisely the role we see him in when the first major conflict of the play is introduced. Egeus comes 'full of vexation' (I.i.22) to refer to Theseus the case of his disobedient daughter Hermia:
I beg the ancient priuiledge of Athens;
As she is mine, I may dispose of her;
Which shall be either to this Gentleman,
Or
to her death, according to our Law,
Immediately prouided in that case.
(I.i.41-45)
Hermia's offence is refusing to obey her father, and for this he requests the death penalty. We should not enquire too closely as to what sort of parent Egeus must be to demand the execution of his own daughter for such an offence: the extravagant nature of his reaction is in keeping with the romantic world of the play, and prepares us for the greater excesses which are to follow in the wood near Athens. That he is cantankerous and senile may help to explain his attitude, but the point Shakespeare is making is that patriarchal authority should be absolute in this male-dominated society. By disobeying Egeus, Hermia is flouting the accepted conventions required in an ordered, harmonious society, and defiance of parental authority is frequently met with in romantic comedy, providing a centre of conflict on which the plot hinges. This is illustrated in two of Dekker's plays: in The Shoemaker's Holiday there is opposition to the marriage of Rose and Rowland from not only Sir Roger Oateley, Rose's father, but also Sir Hugh Lacy, Rowland's uncle. As is conventional in such comedies, 'Where there is much loue all discord ends' (The Shoemaker's Holiday V.v) in a happy resolution celebrated in marriage. The first part of The Honest Whore furnishes a good example of how devoid of realism the plots of romantic comedies could be in the matter of parental opposition: the Duke goes to great lengths to ensure that his daughter, Infelice, does not marry Hippolito, arranging Infelice's mock death and
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then keeping her hidden from Hippolito. Romantic excesses in general were parodied by Beaumont and Fletcher in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, where Venturewell opposes the love of Jasper, his apprentice, for his daughter, Luce, proposing to marry her instead to the despised Humphrey. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, extravagant though Egeus' demand for justice may be, no parody is intended, although Shakespeare does acknowledge the absurdity of the romantic plot by including the ridiculously exaggerated tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, which recalls the serious theme of his own Romeo and Juliet. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, not only does Hermia reject parental authority as did Juliet), but, in running away with Lysander, she also defies the supreme authority of Theseus, and the inevitable outcome of such disobedience is the state of chaos which ensues that night in the woods near Athens. 3.9
The conflict brought before Theseus is three-sided: Egeus is at odds not only with his daughter, but also with Lysander, whom he blames for Hermia's contrariness; and inevitably there is the hostility and conflict between Demetrius and Lysander, with Egeus taking Demetrius' side. What for Lysander has been the pleasurable occupation of wooing Hermia is seen by Egeus as perverted, evil:
Thou, thou Lysander, thou hast giuen her rimes,
And
interchang'd loue-tokens with my childe:
Thou hast by Moone-light at her window sung,
With faining voice, verses of faining loue
...
With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughters heart,
Turn'd her obedience (which is due to me)
To stubborne harshnesse.
(I.i.28-31 and 36-38)
Here the moon is associated with fecundity, but more important, it is also linked with magic and the supernatural, for 'cunning' suggests not only craft and deceit, but the occult arts as well. 3.10 This is the first suggestion of the supernatural in the play and Shakespeare has deliberately established an association between the moon, the supernatural and the present disagreement: when the merely human agent, Theseus, proves incapable of satisfactorily resolving the conflict, it is transferred to the forest, the fairies' domain, presided over by the moon. Leggatt has suggested that the conflict between Hermia and Egeus is fundamentally a difference of perception, 3.11 an idea which can be extended to other conflicts in the play as well. Egeus and Lysander differ in the way they see Hermia, each expecting her full allegiance and
obedience; and Lysander sees Demetrius as duty-bound to woo Helena, whereas in fact both men wish to woo Hermia. However, in matters of parental authority and perception, Theseus' position is quite clear:
The.
What say you Hermia? be aduis'd faire Maide,
To you your Father should be as a God;
...
Demetrius is a worthy Gentleman.
Her.
So is Lysander.
The.
In himselfe he is.
But in this kinde, wanting your fathers voyce.
The other must be held the worthier.
Her.
I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
The.
Rather your eies must with his iudgment looke.
(I.i.46-47 and 52-57)
Theseus appears to be sympathetic to the cause of true love, for although his authority is absolute, he tries to reason with Hermia; nevertheless, valuing reason above imagination, he puts himself in opposition to the romantic love of Hermia and Lysander, proposing sterile punishments to placate Egeus, rather than advocate the fecundity of a possible marriage. When he finally tells Hermia what sentence she can expect, it seems unlikely that Egeus' demands are going to be met:
Either to dye the death, or to abiure
For euer the society of men.
(I.i.65-66)
The alternative to death is to take refuge in the church as a nun, 'Chanting faint hymnes to the cold fruitlesse Moone' (I.i.73). Even a life of chastity presided over by the virgin moon would be preferable to death, but it is not to this moon that Hermia ultimately devotes herself; rather, she is able to avoid death and yet still marry Lysander under the aegis of the moon as fertility goddess.
After Theseus has delivered his ultimatum the young lovers are left alone, and the scene closes with much solemn foreboding on their part. Brooks has commented at length on the patterned speech found in much of the play, 3.12 and Leggatt notes of the patterned language in the forest scenes that 'the violence of the ideas is lightened by jingling rhythm and rhyme'. 3.13 The same could be observed of this earlier scene, in which Lysander and Hermia gloomily contemplate their future, blighted by their conflicts with Egeus and Demetrius. Amid their serious thoughts two passages of patterned speech lighten the effect their despair has on the general tone of the scene. The first consists of alternating expressions
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by Hermia and Lysander of the futility of hoping that the conflicts associated with their love will ever be resolved:
[Lys.]
The course of true loue neuer did run smooth,
But either it was different in blood.
Her.
O crosse! too high to be enthral'd to loue.
Lys.
Or else misgraffed, in respect of yeares.
Her.
O spight! too old to be ingag'd to yong.
Lys.
Or else it stood vpon the choice of merit.
Her.
O hell! to choose loue by anothers eie.
Lys.
Or if there were a simpathie on choise,
Warre, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it.
(I.i.134-142)
Our attention here is partly distracted from the serious thoughts on the lovers' minds by the catechetical responses of Hermia as Lysander puts forth each proposition: we tend to follow the logic of the replies rather than the sentiments which give rise to them. Then later, the hopelessly entangled nature of the conflict is brought out in patterned dialogue between Helena and Hermia:
Her.
I frowne vpon him, yet he loues me still.
Hel.
O that your frownes would teach my smiles such skil.
Her.
I giue him curses, yet he giues me loue.
Hel.
O that my prayers could such affection mooue.
Her.
The more I hate, the more he followes me.
Hel.
The more I loue, the more he hateth me.
Her.
His folly Helena is none of mine.
Hel.
None but your beauty, wold that fault wer mine.
(I.i.194-201)
As in the previous passage, the technique of statement and response lightens the effect of the dialogue, particularly here, where Helena's answers point the irony of the women's predicament, that the love desired by Helena is given to Hermia, who spurns it. While the ingredients for conflict and tragedy are present at the close of this scene, Shakespeare uses such set passages as the two I have quoted to ensure that the effect is not so serous as to be out of keeping in a comedy.
After this the mechanicals appear, preparing for their production of Pyramus and Thisbe, which Quince calls 'the most lamentable Comedy' (I.ii.11), and which is described for Theseus before its performance at the end as 'very tragicall mirth' (V.i.57). These descriptions are ironically correct, as the play really is a tragedy, but its presentation is so absurd as to render it comic. Its main function in A Midsummer Night's Dream is to parody the serious action concerning the conflicts between the young lovers. There are many possible sources Shakespeare
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could have used for this play-within-a-play, and in them one important aspect is parental opposition to the lovers. For example, in N.R.'s Tragoedia Miserrima Pyrami & Thisbes Fata Enuncians, 3.14 Iphidius, the father of Pyramus, says
But the erraticall motions in childrens notions
Must to a regular forme by parents be reduced.
(Tragoedia Miserrima I.i.7-8)
These are exactly the sentiments of Egeus in the main play, and although the parents of Pyramus and Thisbe never appear in Quince's production, Thisbe has both mother and father, and Pyramus a father, in the original casting (I.ii.56-59); and at the end of the production Pyramus rises from the dead to assure Theseus that 'the wall is downe, that parted their Fathers' (V.i.337-338). It seems likely, therefore, that Shakespeare intended parental opposition to be one of the parallel features of the main play and Quince's tragedy. The casting of the play takes place directly after the serious scene in which the lovers lament their fortune, anticipate the worst outcome, and decide to run away. The deaths of Pyramus and Thisbe, mentioned twice when Quince's company first assembles, are a direct result of the secret meeting of those two lovers in defiance of their parents' wishes, and so a violent outcome resulting from the clandestine actions of Lysander and Hermia is, by comparison, a possibility, although the humorous context ensures that the audience will not be unduly troubled by this. In fact, the whole concept of violence in the mechanicals' production is soon reduced to an absurdity. It is the lion that indirectly brings about the tragic deaths of Pyramus and Thisbe, and in his enthusiasm to play all parts, Bottom presents Quince with the imagined problem of too much reality: should the lion scare the ladies in the audience, 'that were enough to hang vs all' (I.ii.72) - yet another reference to death, reminding us of Hermia's death sentence, and so ridiculing the seriousness of the main action. Velz gives an analogue for the lion of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Brooke's Romeus and Juliet, where Mercutio is ironically described as follows:
Even as a Lyon would emong the lambes be bolde,
Such was emong the bashful maydes, Mercutio to beholde.
(Romeus and Juliet 257-258) 3.15
Velz suggests that in using the idea of a lion among the ladies from Romeus and Juliet, 'Shakespeare retained and ludicrously exaggerated the ironies Brooke has slyly suggested about Mercutio', 3.16 making the lion in
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Pyramus and Thisbe a laughable coward. It is Bottom who suggests that the violence of the lion could be so modified: 'I will aggrauate my voyce so, that I will roare you as gently as any sucking Doue; I will roare and 'twere any Nightingale' (I.ii.76-78), so taking from violence its very nature.
Similarly, when the play is finally presented before Theseus its tragic character is completely transformed by the bad acting and over-literal production. Quince's nonsensical Prologue effectively reverses, by its bad pointing, every compliment it intends. The idea for such a speech could derive from Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, 3.17 in which similar mispunctuation enlivens the conflict between Ralph and Christian Custance:
I commende me vnto you neuer a whit.
Sorie to heare report of your welfare.
For (as I heare say) suche your conditions are
That ye be worthie fauour of no liuing man.
(Roister Doister III.iv.39-42) 3.18
In A Midsummer Night's Dream the misplaced pointing is more subtle in its effect, showing not only the simplicity of the mechanicals, but also the lack of communication which exists between the upper classes and the lower. This is a gap which the magnanimous Theseus attempts to bridge by agreeing to see the production, but the comic differences between the classes, stressed by the reception of the play-within-a-play, are never fully resolved. The very language used in the production is a source of controversy, for when Bottom says his 'chiefe humour is for a tyrant' (I.ii.24), what he has in mind is the traditional, but outmoded, rantings of characters such as Herod in the miracle play, The Magi, and the Slaughter of the Innocents, when he reacts to the news that the magi had evaded him:
A-nother wey? owt! owt! owtt!
Hath those fawls traytvrs done me this ded?
I stampe! I stare! I loke all abowtt!
Myght I them take, I schuld them bren at a glede!
I rent! I rawe! and now run I wode!
A! thatt these velen trayturs hath mard this my mode!
The[y] schalbe hangid, yf I ma cum them to!
(The Slaughter of the Innocents 777-783) 3.19
Quince discourages Bottom from playing the part of a tyrant, not because he objects to this type of drama, but because Pyramus and Thisbe has no
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such part. Instead we find Shakespeare lampooning some of his sources, where such ridiculous passages as the following deliberation by Pyramus may be found (this one in N.R.'s Tragoedia Miserrima):
What shall I doe? I know not what to doe,
Where shall I runne, Oh runne? I cannot goe,
Where shall I goe, oh goe? I cannot stirre.
(Tragoedia Miserrima I.ii.15-17)
Bottom's address to 'grim lookt night' (V.i.168) is modelled on such speeches, and so instead of pathos it provokes only laughter. The conflicting ideas of what constitutes fine drama signify a gulf between the nobles and the mechanicals, and we, at two removes from the play-within-a-play, laugh not only at Quince's production, but also at the response it elicits from Theseus' court. That the tragic Pyramus and Thisbe should degenerate to such disorder at the end is entirely appropriate, since the conflicts between the lovers have been resolved and Egeus' demands for the death penalty set aside. All thoughts of death can be dismissed, being as incongruous as the production of Pyramus and Thisbe itself.
Of the four strands of plot which I have distinguished in A Midsummer Night's Dream, those concerning the mechanicals and the fairies must be jointly considered as the sub-plot, since the main plot in a romantic comedy conventionally concerns the pairing off and marriage of its central characters. However, although the mechanicals and fairies are part of the sub-plot, it is the fairies who ultimately resolve the lovers' conflicts, and they make their first appearance only after these conflicts have been laid before us. Of the fairies, Puck, as Oberon's agent, is the most active in influencing the affairs of the lovers, and his character as a 'shrewde and knauish sprite' (Q II.i.33), 'that merrie wanderer of the night' (II.i.43), is established shortly after he enters: he and the fairy he meets discuss his activities, apparently drawn from folklore. 3.20 Kersten finds his inconstancy and capriciousness central to the play, 3.21 and notes that he is 'die einzige Figur im Drama, die grundsätzlich Spaß und Wohlgefallen hat an allen Dingen, die verkehrt laufen', 3.22 and to compliment this, 'Eine moralische Gesetzmäßigkeit existiert für ihn nicht'. 3.23 The tradition of malevolent, or at least mischievous, fairies was well founded by the time Shakespeare created Puck, and as far back as the mid-fourteenth century we find an evil fairy king in the metrical romance, Sir Orfeo. He hails from a land of
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... castels and tours,
Riuers, forestes, friþ wiþ flours,
(Sir Orfeo 159-160) 3.24
which (bar the 'castels and tours') looks forward to the forest setting of A Midsummer Night's Dream. When the fairy king steals Heurodis in Sir Orfeo, he removes her from her accustomed environment:
Ac зete amiddes hem ful riзt
Þe quen was oway ytuiзt,
Wiþ fairi forþ ynome;
Men wist neuer wher sche was bicome,
(Sir Orfeo 191-194)
and it is the same with Bottom and the lovers in the wood near Athens - they are placed in unfamiliar circumstances where they are subjected to the spells of the fairies.
Puck is the chief agent of disorder in the forest, and he takes great delight in the chaos he creates when he mistakenly places the juice intended for Demetrius on Lysander's eyes. Thus the juice, instead of bringing order amongst the mortals as intended, heightens their state of conflict. Puck's reaction to Oberon's discovery of the mistake typifies his unconcern and lack of conscience: 'Then fate ore-rules' (III.ii.92); similarly, his mischievous translation of Bottom is motivated entirely by his sense of fun, and takes no heed of the consequences it might have for poor Bottom and his company. Although there is conflict between Puck and Oberon, since the latter is angry at having to bear the responsibility of clearing up Puck's mistakes, they are both pleased when Titania falls in love with Bottom in the likeness of an ass, further complicating the already chaotic events in the forest.
From the foregoing it may be seen that Puck is the main link between the mortal and the fairy worlds, and his function is to assist Oberon in restoring harmony to both. I have already discussed the resolved conflict between Theseus and Hippolyta, and the various continuing disagreements between Egeus and the young lovers; but the most important controversy, depicted as having repercussions in both the natural and fairy worlds, is that between Oberon and Titania, first mentioned by Puck. Their conflict centres on a 'louely boy' (II.i.22) whom they both desire to keep as their own, and the consequences for the fairies are severe:
And now they neuer meete in groue, or greene,
By fountaine cleere, or spangled star-light sheene,
But they do square, that all their Elues for feare
Creepe into Acorne cups and hide them there.
(II.i.28-31)
There is apprehension at their approach:
[Puck.]
But roome Fairy, heere comes Oberon
Fair.
And heere my Mistriss: Would that he were gone.
(II.i.58-59)
The reason for this fear is soon apparent, when Oberon and Titania meet and resume their quarrel:
Ob.
Ill met my Moone-light, Proud Tytania.
Qu.
What, iealous Oberon? Fairy skip hence.
I haue forsworne his bed and companie.
Ob.
Tarrie rash Wanton; am I not thy Lord?
(II.i.60-63)
One way in which this conflict resembles that of the mortal couples is its being partly based on a disregard for correct social order. Titania, as Oberon's queen, should be entirely ruled by him, something his question, 'am I not thy Lord?', indicates that he expects of her; but she, like Hermia (and Hippolyta before her, as Queen of the Amazons), rejects male domination. In fact, Titania is even more wayward because she denies Oberon his conjugal rights, a move calculated to point the fundamentally sexual nature of their conflict. This is further emphasised when they accuse each other of inconstancy, she tasking him with his love for Phillida, the shepherdess, and for Hippolyta. This he does not deny, but supplies a counter-accusation:
How canst thou thus for shame Tytania,
Glance at my credite, with Hippolita?
Knowing I know thy loue to Theseus?
(II.i.74-76)
Theseus' sexual exploits were ignored by Shakespeare in the play's exposition (with the exception of the conquest of Hippolyta herself), as they were not consistent with the deeds of a good ruler; but they were well known as being not entirely praiseworthy, a fact seen in North's version of Parallel Lives:
... Theseus' faults touching women and ravishments, of the twaine, had the lesse shadowe and culler of honestie. Bicause Theseus dyd attempt it very often .... 3.25
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Titania flatly denies Oberon's accusation as 'the forgeries of iealousie' (II.i.81), but since he has Theseus' reputation on his side, her denial carries little weight, particularly as she does not back it up in any way. She simply proceeds to catalogue the 'progeny of euills' (II.i.115) which, she says,
... comes
from our debate, from our dissention,
We are their parents and originall.
(II.i.115-117)
Oberon's reply makes a point which would readily be appreciated by an Elizabethan audience, that Titania is at fault in her challenge to male authority:
Do you amend it then, it lies in you,
Why should Titania crosse her Oberon?
(II.i.118-119)
Titania's 'progeny of euills' shows how the conflict in the fairy world has led to disorder in the natural world. It is generally accepted that her description relates to the bad weather experienced in England around the time the play was written, 3.26 but Johnson suggested that the passage was based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, 3.27 in which Ceres, grieving for the loss of her daughter, gives vent to her emotions by causing disorder in the natural world:
... terras tamen increpat omnes
ingratasque vocat nec frugum munere dignas,
...
... ergo illic saeva vertentia glaebas
fregit aratra manu parilique irata colonos
ruricolasque boves leto dedit arvaque iussit
fallere depositum vitiataque semina fecit.
...
... primis segetes moriunter in herbis,
et modo sol nimius, nimius modo corripit imber,
sideraque ventique nocent ....
(Metamorphoses V.474-484) 3.28
Ceres' loss of Proserpina parallels Titania's loss of her Indian boy, but while Ceres deliberately afflicts the natural world, the consequences of Titania's dissension in A Midsummer Night's Dream are seen as an inevitable result of her defiance of Oberon's will. In both cases wind and rain are agents of destruction, while disorder in the heavens - the
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sun and stars in Ovid, the moon in Shakespeare - reflects the disorder on earth:
... the Moone (gouernesse of floods)
Pale in her anger, washes all the aire;
That Rheumaticke diseases doe abound.
(II.i.103-105)
The moon, being capable of inflicting diseases on animals (as I mentioned earlier), 3.29 would be held responsible for the death of the 'murrion flocke' (II.i.97), an echo of Ovid's 'boves leto dedit'. Often in this scene the moon is associated with disorder and conflict: Titania is 'Ill met by Moone-light'; and the moon as 'gouernesse of floods' has caused not only the deaths of animals, but 'the greene Corne | Hath rotted', 'The nine mens Morris is fild vp with mud' and 'the queint Mazes ... are vndistinguishable' (II.i.94-95, 98 and 99-100).
The moon thus plays an important role in causing disorder in the natural world, but the next reference to it, in which Titania offers to make peace on her own terms, draws on the moon's association with fertility for its impact:
If you will patiently dance in our Round,
And see our Moone-light reuels, goe with vs;
If not, shun me and I will spare your haunts.
(II.i.140-143)
Earlier she had complained
... neuer since the middle Summers spring
Met we on hil, in dale, forrest, or mead,
...
To dance our ringlets to the whistling Winde,
But with thy braules thou hast disturb'd our sport.
(II.i.82-83 and 86-87)
Bearing in mind that the dance signified harmony, order and fertility, 3.30 Oberon's action in disrupting Titania's dance of 'ringlets' points to the conflict between them, while her invitation to 'dance in our Round' is an appeal for reconciliation, enhanced by the fertile moon. However, the appeal is based on unacceptable conditions, namely that Titania should retain control of the Indian boy, implying Oberon's surrender of his right to male domination. This would merely confirm the state of disorder in the fairy world, and the troubled state of the natural world would continue unrelieved. Titania's dance and 'Moone-light reuels' are therefore an image of discord and chaos, not of harmony and order, and so
despite Titania's intentions, the moon is yet again associated with disruption.
I have already commented on the sexual nature of Titania's offence, and as a punishment Oberon selects a suitably sexual penance, that she be made to fall in love with whatever animal she sets eyes on after the love-juice is applied,
Be it on Lyon, Beare, or Wolfe, or Bull,
On medling Monkey, or on busie Ape,
(II.i.180-181)
or,
Be it Ounce, or Catte, or Beare,
Pard, or Boare with bristled hair.
(II.ii.29-30)
Kott has observed of the second list that 'these animals represent abundant sexual potency', 3.31 while Colman also detects bawdy implications in the first list, 3.32 particularly as 'meddle' had sexual overtones. 3.33 The fact that Titania falls in love with Bottom in the shape of an ass has further significance:
Since antiquity and up to the renaissance the ass was credited with the strongest sexual potency and among all the quadrupeds is supposed to have the longest and hardest phallus. 3.34
This fits in well with Oberon's plans, for his main aim is to degrade Titania sexually, in order to reduce her to submission to his will, and in this he resembles Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. In asserting their right to male domination both characters take a certain sadistic pleasure in curbing their headstrong partners. Shakespeare has not, however, dwelt on this in A Midsummer Night's Dream; the whole episode of Titania's infatuation with Bottom is treated comically, with the violent sexual undertones only discreetly, often beautifully implied. For example, there is the complex imagery of Titania's
Come waite vpon him: leade him to my bower.
The Moone, me thinkes, lookes with a watry eye:
And when shee weepes, weepes euery little flower,
Lamenting some enforced chastitie.
(Q III.ii.190-193)
Here the moon has connotations of virginity or fertility: water, although a product of the moon's weeping, is necessary for life, and an 'enforced
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chastitie' is, after all, the result of an act of procreation. So, as Bottom is led off to Titania's bower, the moon weeps for the sexual act supposedly about to take place; but it is this very act which will finally restore order by reuniting Titania and Oberon. Titania's last words before being restored to her senses are sexually laden, but both beautiful and, in context, comic:
So doth the woodbine, the sweet Honisuckle,
Gently entwist; the female Iuy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the Elme.
O how I loue thee! how I dote on thee.
(IV.i.41-44)
The arbitrary nature of the effect of the love-juice (there is uncertainty in who will first be seen on awakening) makes it an effective instrument for the promotion of chaos, recalling the origin of the juice itself, as recounted by Oberon. He had seen,
Flying betweene the cold Moone and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd ....
(II.i.156-157)
It is significant that Cupid is 'all arm'd', for this points to the violence he does in shooting his arrows, inflicting love and the conflicts that go with it on his victims. Then Oberon recalls seeing
... young Cupids fiery shaft
Quencht in the chaste beames of the watry Moone.
(II.i.161-162)
In other words, Cupid had missed his mark, and the full effect of his arrow was brought to bear on the flower, love-in-idleness, on which it fell. The moon in this passage, 'cold' and 'watry', is the guardian of virginity, protecting the 'faire Vestall' (II.i.158) who was the subject of Cupid's aim. 3.35 Those whom Cupid strikes, albeit indirectly by means of love-in-idleness, will experience all the violence and emotional upheaval of being in love, to the extent that even Puck can pity them:
Here she comes, curst and sad,
Cupid is a knauish lad,
Thus to make poore females mad.
(III.ii.439-441)
When assessing Cupid's tormenting role in the play it is important to bear in mind the pagan fertility rituals associated with Midsummer
festivals. Vlasopolos has noted 'the close ties between sexuality and cosmic order' in the play, 3.36 and also that it is through the Midsummer rituals that 'man attempts to adjust and maintain himself in harmony with nature'. 3.37 The mechanism whereby this adjustment is brought about is the indulgence in a period of sexual licence and disorder, bringing the participants closer to nature; in A Midsummer Night's Dream this is experienced by Titania and also by the four young lovers, as a direct result of the action of Cupid's flower. 3.38 Although it is only Lysander and Demetrius who come under the influence of the flower, Hermia and Helena are made to experience the same period of conflict and disorder as the men, for they too must undergo the trials in order to partake in the final state of harmony.
By the time the lovers reach the wood, their dissension has developed to the point of open violence, seen in Demetrius' first speech to the doting Helena:
I loue thee not, therefore pursue me not,
Where is Lysander, and faire Hermia?
The one Ile [slay], the other [slayeth] me.
Thou toldst me they were stolne into this wood;
And heere am I, and wood within this wood,
Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
(II.i.188-194) 3.39
The intention of killing Lysander is a serious threat to order, if taken at face value; but as in the first scene of the play, 3.40 patterned speech lightens the effect here: the repeated 'slay' and 'slayeth', and then 'wood' used three times, with changing sense and application, take our attention from the meaning expressed to the words themselves. Indeed, Demetrius' way of telling of his anger, 'wood within this wood', is comic, and more likely to induce laughter in the audience than fear. He further threatens to leave Hermia 'to the mercy of wilde beasts' (II.i.228) and says that if she persists in following him, he will do her 'mischiefe in the wood' (II.i.237). She, in reply, points out that he is forcing her to change sexual roles:
... Fye Demetrius,
Your wrongs doe set a scandall on my sexe:
We cannot fight for loue, as men may doe;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to wooe.
(II.i.239-242)
This is yet another instance of disorder in sexuality, this time a direct
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result of the conflict and chaos it has already caused. When Lysander and Hermia enter shortly afterwards their behaviour is in striking contrast to that of Demetrius and Helena: Lysander adopts the dominant sexual role, wanting to sleep beside Hermia, while she, with becoming modesty, persuades him to sleep a little way off.
Once the love-juice has taken effect Lysander is as violent in his threats as Demetrius had been:
Where is Demetrius? oh how fit a word
Is that vile name, to perish on my sword!
(II.ii.105-106)
He also finds Hermia as repulsive as Demetrius did Helena:
So thou, my surfeit and my heresie,
Of all be hated; but the most of me.
(II.ii.140-141)
The disorder and violence found in the relationships of Demetrius and Helena have been exactly duplicated in Lysander and Hermia, even to the extent that Hermia becomes the pursuer, like Helena, careless of death: 'Either death or you Ile finde immediately' (II.ii.155). This correspondence between the couples, the echoing of their conflicts within the same level of the plot, is another example of patterning in the play, and like the patterned speech, serves to diminish the impact of the violence inherent in the clashes between the lovers.
Sleep plays an important part in the forest scenes, both in causing disorder and conflict, and then later in bringing about harmonious resolutions. When sleep is first encountered, much is made in Titania's lullaby of the dangers that can befall the sleeper, and the love-juice is applied to the eyes of Lysander and Demetrius as they sleep. Titania, and then Lysander and Hermia, all expose themselves to these dangers, awakening transformed - for Titania and Lysander, new infatuations radically change their perceptions, and Hermia's dream could be seen as presaging Lysander's desertion of her:
Lysander looke, how I doe quake with feare.
Me thought, a serpent eate my heart away,
And you sate smiling at his cruell pray.
(Q II.ii.147-149)
His smiling while the serpent eats her heart could prefigure his indifference to her suffering when he is in love with Helena, 3.41 and the
serpent would then represent the fear of losing Lysander, her lover, making the heart an appropriate place for the snake to attack. 3.42 When Hermia next appears it seems to her that her fear is more violently realised than could have been anticipated, for she thinks Demetrius has killed Lysander: 'It cannot be but thou has murdred him' (III.ii.56), and he, instead of denying her suspicions, prolongs her agony:
Her.
What's this to my Lysander? where is he?
Ah good Demetrius, wilt thou giue him me?
Dem.
I'de rather giue his carkasse to my hounds.
(III.ii.62-64)
To this she responds:
And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O braue tutch:
Could not a worme, an Adder do so much?
An Adder did it: for with doubler tongue
Then thine (thou serpent) neuer Adder stung.
(III.ii.70-73)
Here the snake is predominantly a token of evil, something to be feared, and the passage recalls not only Hermia's dream (and she no doubt now feels that Demetrius was the snake of her dream, hence her choice of metaphor), but also the 'spotted Snakes with double tongue' (II.ii.9) of the fairy lullaby, where to the sleeper snakes are fearsome, evil, and sexually threatening. The combined effects of sleep and love-juice on the young Athenians is to heighten animosity and rearrange their sexual attachments, with the previously unloved Helena being pursued by both Demetrius and Lysander. This utterly destroys all previous ties, because Helena sees their advances as made in scorn:
Can you not hate me, as I know you doe,
But you must ioyne in soules to mocke me to?
(III.ii.149-150)
Her devotion to Demetrius turns to anger, and when Hermia enters, the tie between the two women, their 'schooledaies friendship' (III.ii.202) when they were 'Like to a double cherry' (III.ii.209), is also broken:
Loe, she is one of this confederacy,
Now I perceiue they haue conioyn'd all three,
To fashion this false sport in spight of me.
(III.ii.192-194)
With all previous bonds severed, there is a rapid escalation of comic violence, and, as in The Taming of the Shrew, the audience is treated to
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the spectacle of two women fighting. Hermia, suffering under the stress of her rejection by Lysander, turns violently on Helena, who has called her a 'puppet' (III.ii.288):
How low am I? I am not yet so low,
But that my nailes can reach vnto thine eyes.
(III.ii.297-298)
In the face of this Helena quite forgets her description of their 'schooledaies friendship':
O when she's angry, she is keene and shrewd,
She was a vixen when she went to schoole,
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
(III.ii.323-325)
While this volte-face is comic, it cannot but make us sceptical of the sincerity of these young people, since their friendships do not stand up to the stresses placed on them during the chaotic night in the woods. We are presented with an unpleasant side of human nature - its fickleness - which turns the comedy bitter, and we become anxious to see the complications exposing these faults resolved. Similarly, the conflict between the men continues unabated as they chase each other through the forest with drawn swords, their rage increased by Puck's deceptions; and we are ill at ease, lest control of the situation should be lost completely. Nevertheless, Oberon's ambiguous recipe for concord was explicit in its details, requiring that the men be deceived in order to intensify their anger,
Till ore their browes, death-counterfeiting, sleepe
With leaden legs, and Battie-wings, doth creepe.
(III.ii.364-365)
Just as sleep gave rise to the discordant state, so it will restore harmony.
One important effect of this troubled night in the forest is the breaking of the bond between the women. 3.43 Calderwood sees the effect of love-in-idleness 'as a dissolvent upon the natural homosexuality' of their early lives, 3.44 which leaves the way clear for their adult, heterosexual relationships to be formed. This is a sound interpretation: the demands of new loyalty to one's marriage partner will inevitably lead to the weakening of former ties if the new relationship is happy and lasting. As may be expected, this forming of normal sexual relations is
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echoed in other parts of the play: Hippolyta had to leave her kingdom of Amazonian women to marry Theseus, while Titania's devotion to the Indian boy is a direct result of her love for his mother:
... she being mortall, of that boy did die,
And for her sake I doe reare vp her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him.
(II.i.135-137)
This further supports my earlier point, that the conflict between Oberon and Titania is essentially sexual in character, since Oberon is competing with Titania's votaress for her affection, now given to the Indian boy and denied Oberon. This being so, the ritual of Midsummer, with its period of sexual licence bringing harmony with nature and consequent fertility, was a particularly apt occasion for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Slights makes a valid point, though, that the 'discords in this marginal world ... remain stimulatingly discordant' at the end, 3.45 because 'the indeterminacy of Shakespeare's text permits the characters to perpetuate their amorous and festive madness with all the illogic of a dream through and even beyond its formal end'. 3.46 Only once she is enchanted does Titania hand the Indian boy over to Oberon; but amity is at least partially restored between the fairy king and his queen, simply because she is brought by the spell Oberon casts to prefer his love to that of the asinine Bottom. The complete resolution of their conflict is dependent on the ultimate fate of the boy after Titania is restored to her senses, and about this Shakespeare is silent.
What reconciliation has been achieved during the chaotic night in the forest is celebrated at the close of the play in the fairy song and dance, which reflect both harmony and order. Coleridge thought Puck's speech 'a speckless diamond', 3.47 which it is; and according to Weiss, it 'introduces the real world: that of darkness, violence, death', 3.48 in its reference to the hungry lion (quite different from the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe), the wolf, the exhausted ploughman and the screech owl. These recollections of the real world are followed by the appearance of the supernatural world:
Now it is the time of night,
That graues, all gaping wide,
Euery one lets forth his spright,
In the Church-way paths to glide.
And we Fairies, that do runne,
By the triple Hecates teame,
From the presence of the Sunne,
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Following darkenesse like a dreame,
Now are frollicke ....
(V.i.365-373)
The intrusion of the fairies, ostensibly to bless the married couples, reminds us that they continue to exist (at least in the play) alongside the mortals. Their final visit is benign in purpose, but Puck retains his spritely nature unchanged at the end: still capable of stirring up disorder, he remains 'frollicke'. The references to 'graues, all gaping wide' and the following of 'darknesse like a dreame' are out of keeping with the marriage blessing that is pronounced by Oberon, and when Puck tells us,
I am sent with broome before,
To sweep the dust behind the door,
(V.i.375-376)
it is not only household dust that he hides, but all the unresolved, continuing disorders and conflicts at the end of the play; 3.49 and when we reflect on the almost sadistic pleasure he took in disrupting mortal affairs, there is little reason to expect him to behave any differently in the future. Nevertheless, Oberon's blessing is intended to confirm for the audience that a semblance of order has been restored not only in the mortal world, but also in the fairy world, where the aberrations of nature described earlier by Titania are no more:
And the blots of Natures hand,
Shall not in their issue stand.
Neuer mole, harelip, nor scarre,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in Natiuitie,
Shall vpon their children be.
(V.i.395-400)
The action has moved from a state of conflict and disorder, through violence, to a harmonious comic resolution which makes a point of ignoring any residual discords.
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- - - NOTES: CHAPTER THREE - - -
3.1 I base these dates on evidence presented by the Arden editors: Foakes, pp.xvi-xxiii and William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, ed. Harold F. Brooks (London: Methuen, 1979), pp.xxxiv-lvii. Line numbers to quotations from A Midsummer Night's Dream are taken from this edition. return
3.2 Hermia's offence is that of going against patriarchal order; Egeon's offence is simply being in Ephesus, and there is no moral conflict surrounding his circumstances, as there is in Hermia's case. return
3.4 Caroline F.E. Spurgeon, Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us, American ed. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1958), p.260. The duality of the image is also apparent in Lyly's Endymion, The Man in the Moon, where Cynthia (the Moon) is 'alwaies one, yet neuer the same: still inconstant, yet neuer wauering' (Endymion Playd before the Queenes Maiestie at Greenwich on Candlemas Day at Night, by the Chyldren of Paules (London: I. Charlewood for Widdowe Broome, 1591), with line numbers taken from George P. Baker, ed., Endymion, The Man in the Moon: Played before the Queen's Majesty at Greenwich on Candlemas Day, at Night, by the Children of Paul's, English Readings (New York: Henry Holt, 1894).) return
3.6 Shirley Nelson Garner, 'A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Jack shall have Jill; | Nought shall go ill"', Women's Studies, 9 (1981), 52; Garner cites as evidence the siding of Hippolyta with Lysander and Hermia against Theseus and Egeus. I, however, feel that Theseus is sympathetic towards the young lovers and is genuinely reluctant to impose the penalty demanded by the law. See p.95. return
3.7 Theseus is seen as 'the exemplar of civil order, justice and moderation' by Calderwood, who suggests that 'his marriage to Hippolyta ... operates as the social ideal against which other relationships are measured'. James L. Calderwood, 'A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Illusion of Drama', Modern Language Quarterly, 26 (1965), 510. return
3.8 See Bullough, I, 385-386 for a passage from North describing Theseus' prowess as the founder and ruler of an ordered society. The sources and analogues are discussed by Brookes, pp.lviii-lxxxviii. return
3.9 Weiss, p.81, says that they have 'broken away ... from home, parents, society, the law', and 'have truly gone into the dark and into the dark or chaos of their own natures'. There is a parallel between Hermia's disobedience to Egeus and Titania's to Oberon, since both are flouting male authority. See p.101. return
3.10 O.E.D., IV, 129: 'cunning ... sb. ... 4. ... a science or art, a craft. In early
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times often = occult art, magic. ... c 1325 ... 5. Now usually in bad sense ... skilful deceit, craft, artifice ... 1583'. return
3.12 Brooks, pp.xlv-li. return
3.13 Leggatt, p.96. I discuss the effects of patterned speech in the lovers' confrontations on pp.106-107. return
3.14 The edition cited is that of Bullough, I, 411-422; Bullough tentatively identifies N.R. as Nathaniel Richards, a Cambridge poet (p.375). return
3.15 The edition cited is that of Bullough, I, 284-363. return
3.16 John W. Velz, 'Arthur Brooke and the Lion among Ladies in A Midsummer Night's Dream', Notes and Queries, 35 (1988), 49. return
3.17 Brooks, p.110 n., says, 'The garbled letter gained wide circulation through inclusion in Thomas Wilson's Rule of Reason (1533)', which was a text on logic. This pre-dates Roister Doister (1540?). return
3.18 The edition cited it that of Adams. Later, we are given the correct version:
I commende me vnto you. Neuer a whitte
Sory to heare reporte of your good welfare;
For (as I heare say) suche your conditions are
That ye be worthie fauour; of no liuing man
To be abhorred; ....
(Roister Doister III.v.52-56) return
3.19 The edition cited is that of Adams. return
3.20 See, for example, the passages from Reginald Scott's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) concerning Robin Goodfellow: Brooks, pp.146-148. return
3.21 Dorelies Kersten, 'Shakespeares Puck', Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 98 (1962), 193. return
3.24 The edition cited is that of Sisam. return
3.26 See Sidney Thomas, 'The Bad Weather in A Midsummer Night's Dream', Modern Language Notes, 64 (1949), 319-321. return
3.27 Raleigh, pp.68-69; Brooks, pp.137-139, cites several relevant passages from Golding's translation (1567). return
3.28 The edition cited is that of William S. Anderson, ed., P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoses, Bibliotheca Scriptorvm Graecorvm et Romanorvm Tevberniana (Leipzig: BSB B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, 1977). return
3.31 Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary, trans. Boleslaw Taborski, 1965; rpt, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1978), p.182. return
3.32 E.A.M. Colman, The Dramatic Use of Bawdy in Shakespeare (London: Longman, 1974), p.30. return
3.33 O.E.D., IX, 540-541: 'meddle ... v. ... 5. To have sexual intercourse (with) ... 1340-70'. return
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3.34 Kott, pp.182-183; see also William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, ed. R.A. Foakes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p.25, where a photograph of Bottom and the fairies in Peter Brook's 1970 production shows how this aspect was ingeniously depicted. I think, however, that this places unnecessary emphasis on the sexual motifs in the play; Kott, who finds eroticism in A Midsummer Night's Dream 'brutally' expressed (p.175), has over-reacted to earlier sentimental interpretations in which sexual matters were modestly brushed aside. return
3.35 The 'faire Vestall' has been identified with Queen Elizabeth; see, for example, Stopford A. Brooke, On Ten Plays of Shakespeare, 1905; rpt (London: Constable, 1954), p.9; John Dover Wilson, Shakespeare's Happy Comedies, 1962; rpt (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), pp.192-196 (hereafter cited as Dover Wilson, Comedies). return
3.36 Anca Vlasopolos, 'The Ritual of Midsummer: A Pattern for A Midsummer Night's Dream', Renaissance Quarterly, 31 (1978), 27. return
3.38 The ritual of Midsummer is a specific example of the festivals referred to by Barber, who observes a general pattern in Shakespearean comedy of 'release' during the festival, leading to a 'clarification', 'a heightened awareness of the relation between man and "nature" - the nature celebrated on holiday': Cesar Lombardi Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom, 1959; rpt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p.8. For a discussion of the social function of festivity, see Michael D. Bristol, Carnival and Theater: Plebeian Culture and the Structure of Authority in Renaissance England (London: Methuen, 1985), pp.26-39. See also Keith Wrightson, English Society 1580-1680 (London: Hutchinson, 1982), pp.62-65. return
3.39 The Folio and Quartos have 'stay' and 'stayeth'; the emendation is Theobald's - see Brooks, p.39 col. The emended reading is correct, for the idea of Demetrius killing Lysander is encountered again at III.ii.55-76 and 175. return
3.41 Aronson, pp.208-209. return
3.42 Leggatt, p.112, suggests that the snake represents fear throughout the play, but mentions only the fear of being hissed expressed in 'the Serpents tongue' (V.i.419) of Puck's epilogue; I would add that evil is also implied in the snake images, another being the 'spotted Snakes with double tongue' (II.ii.9) of the lullaby. Both evil and fear are implied in the extended metaphor used by Brutus when calling for Caesar's death:
And therefore thinke him as a Serpents egge,
Which hatch'd would as his kinde grow mischieuous;
And kill him in the shell.
(Julius Caesar II.i.32-34)
(The edition cited is William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, ed. T.S. Dorsch (London: Methuen, 1983).) Such associations can be traced back at least as far as the biblical serpent in Eden. In view of the fairly constant use of the snake image in A Midsummer Night's Dream, I do not think the deeply rooted psychological association of the snake with sexuality, as suggested by Aronson (p.209), is relevant here. In the lullaby, however, the 'spotted Snakes with double tongue' would undoubtedly be 'those most important symbols of the male organ' identified by Freud, V, 357, in 'The Interpretation of Dreams'. [return to note 4.74] return
3.43 Garner, p.59, sees this disruption of friendship as permanent, since neither of the women speaks once they leave the forest the next morning. This is an extreme view, and I do not think we can be so categorical: pouting silence and continued hostility would cloud the levity of the final scene at court, and I do not think this was Shakespeare's intention. return
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3.44 Calderwood, p.513. return
3.45 William W.E. Slights, 'The Changeling in A Dream', Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 28 (1988), 269. return
3.49 O.E.D., IV, 1136: 'dust ... sb.1 ... 5.a. fig. ... Confusion, disturbance, turmoil ... 1570'. return
Proceed to The Merry Wives of Windsor