THE SOURCES AND ANALOGUES OF 'A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM' COMPILED BY FRANK SIDGWICK

NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS

1908

"COMBIEN DE ROMANS DU JOUR ET DE GAZETTES AI-JE FERMÉS POUR ÉTUDIER PLUS LONGTEMPS CES ADMIRABLES COMPOSITIONS, IMAGES DE L'ESPRIT, DES MŒURS ET DES CROYANCES DE NOS ANCÊTRES!"

Paulin Paris.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

§ 1. THE MAIN (SENTIMENTAL) PLOT 7

§ 2. THE GROTESQUE PLOT 27

§ 3. THE FAIRY PLOT 33

OBERON'S VISION 66

ILLUSTRATIVE TEXTS 69

NOTES 188

INDEX 194

THE SOURCES AND ANALOGUES

OF

"A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM"

A study such as the present one does not demand any elaborate investigation of the date or circumstances of the first production of the play, unless these throw light on the inquiry into its sources; but in any case it is always well to base a literary study on literary history. Here it will suffice to say shortly that A Midsummer-Night's Dream, first published in 1600, must have been acted before or during 1598, as it is definitely mentioned in Mores' Palladic Tamia of that year. A more exact determination of its date can only be derived from the internal evidence supplied by allusions in the text or by metrical and general style. Such allusions as have been discovered—for example, that reference to "the death of learning," V. i. 52-3—form here as elsewhere a battle-ground for critics of all sorts, but do not really assist us to an answer. More trustworthy testimony, however, is afforded by the general character of the play, and by Shakespeare's handling of his material; these considerations, [2] combined with whatever other evidence is available, have caused the play to be

assigned to the winter of 1594-5. So placed, it is the latest of the early comedies of Shakespeare, who makes an advance on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, but has not yet attained the firmness of hand which fills the canvas of The Merchant of Venice with so many well-delineated figures. Once arrived at this conclusion, we need not let ourselves again be led away into vagueness or critical polemics by an attempt to find any aristocratic wedding which this masque-like play seems designed to celebrate; such theorising, however interesting in other ways, does not concern and will not avail us now.

It is none the less of value to recognise at the outset that A Midsummer-Night's Dream is more of a masque than a drama—an entertainment rather than a play. The characters are mostly puppets, and scarcely any except Bottom has the least psychological interest for the reader. Probability is thrown to the winds; anachronism is rampant; classical figures are mixed with fairies and sixteenth-century Warwickshire peasants. The main plot is sentimental, the secondary plot is sheer buffoonery; while the story; of Titania's jealousy and Oberon's method of curing it can scarcely be dignified by the title of plot at all. The threads which bind together these three tales, however ingeniously fastened, are fragile. The Spirit of Mischief puts a happy end to the differences of the four lovers, and by his transformation of Bottom reconciles the fairy King and Queen, while he [3] incidentally goes near to spoiling the performance of the "crew of patches" at the nuptials of Theseus by preventing due rehearsal of their interlude. It is perhaps a

permissible fancy to convert Theseus' words "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," to illustrate the triple appeal made by the three ingredients the grotesque, the sentimental, and the fantastic. Each part, of course, is coloured by the poet's genius, and the whole is devoted to the comic aspect of love, its eternal youth and endless caprice, laughing at laws, and laughed at by the secure. "What fools these mortals be!" is the comment of the immortal; the corollary, left unspoken by those outside the pale, being "What fools these lovers be!"

The sources from which Shakespeare drew the plots of his three dozen of plays are for the most part easily recognisable; and although in each case the material was altered to suit his requirements—nihil tetigit quod non ornavit—there is as a rule very little doubt as to the derivation. We can say with certainty that these nine plays were made out of stories from Boccaccio, Masuccio, Bandello, Ser Giovanni, Straparola, Cinthio or Belleforest; that those six were based on older plays, and another half-dozen drawn from Holinshed; that Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, Sidney, Greene, and Lodge provided other plots; and so forth, until we are left with The Tempest, founded in part on an actual contemporary event, Love's Labour's Lost, apparently his only original plot—if indeed it deserve the name—and finally our present subject A Midsummer-Nights Dream.

1.

Theseus. Hippolyta. Egeus. Philostrate. Lysander. Demetrius. Helena. Hermia.

The main (sentimental) plot of the four lovers at the court of Theseus.

2.

Bottom. Quince. Snug. Flute. Snout. Starveling.

The grotesque plot, with the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe.

3.

Oberon. Titania. Puck. Fairies.

The fairy plot.

It may be observed that for these three plots Shakespeare draws respectively on literature, observation, and oral tradition; for we shall see, I think, that while there can be little doubt that he had been reading Chaucer, North's Plutarch and Golding's Ovid, not to mention other works, probably including some which are now lost, it is also impossible to avoid the conclusion that much if not all of his fairy-lore is derived from no literary source at all, but from the popular beliefs which must have been current in oral tradition in his youth.

§ 1. THE MAIN (SENTIMENTAL) PLOT OF THE FOUR LOVERS AND THE COURT OF THESEUS

"And out of olde bokes, in good feith,

Cometh al this newe science that men lere."

Chaucer.

I

As the play opens with speeches of Theseus and Hippolyta, it is convenient to treat first of these two characters. Mr. E.K. Chambers has collected (in Appendix D to his edition) nine passages from North's Plutarch's Life of Theseus, of which Shakespeare appears to have made direct use. For example, Oberon's references to "Perigenia," "Aegles," "Ariadne and Antiopa" (II. i. 79-80) are doubtless derived from North; and certainly the reference by Theseus to his "kinsman Hercules" (V. i. 47) is based on the following passage:—

... "they were near kinsmen, being cousins removed by the mother's side. For Aethra was the daughter of Pittheus, and Alcmena (the mother of Hercules) was the daughter of Lysidice, the which was half-sister to Pittheus, both children of Pelops and of his wife Hippodamia."

In modern phraseology, Theseus and Hercules were thus second cousins.

Of the Amazon queen North says:—

"Touching the voyage he [Theseus] made by the sea Maior, Philochorus, and some other hold opinion, [10] that he went thither with Hercules against the Amazons, and that to honour his valiantness, Hercules gave him Antiopa the Amazon. But the more part of the other Historiographers ... do write, that Theseus went thither alone, after Hercules' voyage, and that he took this Amazon prisoner, which is likeliest to be true."

At this point we should interpolate the reason why Hercules went against the Amazons. The ninth (as usually enumerated) of the twelve labours of Hercules was to fetch away the girdle of the queen of the Amazons, a gift from her father Ares, the god of fighting. Admete, the daughter of Eurystheus (at whose bidding the twelve labours were performed) desired this girdle, and Hercules was sent by her father to carry it off by force. The queen of the Amazons was Hippolyta, and she had a sister named Antiopa. One story says that Hercules slew Hippolyta; another that Hippolyta was enticed on board his ship by Theseus; a third, as we have seen, that Theseus married Antiopa. It is not easy to choose incidents from these conflicting accounts so as to make a reasonable sequence; but, as North says, "we are not to marvel, if the history of things so ancient, be found so diversely written." Shakespeare simply states that Theseus "woo'd" Hippolyta "with his sword." Later in the play we learn that the fairy King and Queen not only are acquainted with

court-scandal, but are each involved with the past histories of Theseus and Hippolyta (II. i. 70-80).

Apart from these incidents in Theseus' life, Chaucer [11] supplies the dramatist with all he requires in the opening of The Knightes Tale, which we shall discuss in full shortly.[1]

"Whylom, as olde stories tellen us,

Ther was a duke that highte[2] Theseus;

Of Athenes he was lord and governour,

And in his tyme swich a conquerour,

That gretter was ther noon under the sonne.

Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne;

What with his wisdom and his chivalrye,

He conquered al the regne[3] of Femenye,

That whylom was y-cleped[4] Scithia;

And weddede the quene Ipolita,

And broghte hir hoom with him in his contree

With muchel glorie and greet solempnitee,

And eek hir yonge suster Emelye.

And thus with victorie and with melodye

Lete I this noble duke to Athenes ryde,

And al his hoost, in armes, him besyde.

And certes, if it nere[5] to long to here,

I wolde han told yow fully the manere,

How wonnen was the regne of Femenye

By Theseus, and by his chivalrye;

And of the grete bataille for the nones

Betwixen Athenës and Amazones,

And how asseged[6] was Ipolita,

The faire hardy quene of Scithia ..."

Egeus, whom Shakespeare makes a courtier of Theseus and father to Hermia, is in the classical legend Aegeus, father of Theseus; both Plutarch and Chaucer so mention him.

The name of Philostrate also comes from Chaucer, where, as we shall see, it is the name adopted by Arcite when he returns to court in disguise, to become first "page of the chamber" to Emelye, and thereafter chief squire to Theseus. It is in this latter capacity that Chaucer's "Philostrate" is nearest to Shakespeare's character, the Master of the Revels.

Of the four lovers, the names of Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena, are of course classical; Shakespeare would find lives of Lysander and Demetrius in North's Plutarch. The name of Hermia, who corresponds with Emilia or Emily of The Knightes Tale, as being the lady on whom the affections of the two young men are set, may have been taken from the legend of Aristotle and Hermia, referred to more than once by Greene. The name cannot be called classical, and appears to be a mistranslation of Hermias.[7]

The story of Palamon and Arcite has not been traced beyond Boccaccio, that fountain of romance, though he himself says the tale of "Palemone and Arcita" is "una antichissima storia." Possibly the story was taken, as much of Boccaccio's writing must have been taken, from tradition. [13] Palaemon is a classical name,[8] and Arcite might be a corruption of Archytas. Boccaccio's Teseide (the story of Theseus) which was written about 1344, and may have been first issued wholly or in part under the title of Amazonide, is a poem in the vernacular consisting of twelve books and ten thousand lines in ottava rima.[9]

Chaucer, in the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women (which is presumably earlier than the Canterbury Tales) states that he had already written

" ... al the love of Palamon and Arcyte

Of Thebes, thogh the story is knowen lyte.[10]"

Skeat says "some scraps are preserved in other poems" of Chaucer; he instances (i) ten stanzas from this Palamon and Arcite in a minor poem Anelida and Arcite, where Chaucer refers to Statius, Thebais, xii. 519;[11] (ii) three [14] stanzas in Trolius and Crheyde; and (iii) six stanzas in The Parlement of Foules, where the description of the Temple of Love is borrowed almost word for word from Boccaccio's Teseide.[12] Finally, Chaucer used Palamon and Arcite as the basis of The Knightes Tale. By this time, while he retains what folk-lorists call the "story-radical," he has reduced Boccaccio's epic to less than a quarter of its length, and improved it in details. It stands as the first of The Canterbury Tales.

ANALYSTS OF CHAUCER'S KNIGHTES TALE

Old stories relate that once there was a Duke Theseus, lord of Athens, a conqueror of many lands. His latest conquest was "Femenye" (once called Scythia), whose queen Hippolyta he wedded and brought home, accompanied by her young sister Emilia. Now as he drew near to Athens, a company of ladies met him in the way, and laid before him their complaint, to the effect that, their husbands having fallen at the siege of Thebes, Creon the tyrant of Thebes would not let the bodies be buried or burned, but cast them on a heap and suffered the dogs to eat them. [15] Duke Theseus, having sworn to avenge this wrong, sent Hippolyta and Emilia to Athens, and rode to Thebes, where in full battle he fought and slew Creon, and razed the city. The due obsequies were then performed.[13]

Amongst the slain were found, half-dead, two young knights named Palamon and Arcite, whom the heralds recognised, from the cognisances on their armour, as of blood-royal, and born of two sisters. Theseus sent them to Athens to be held to ransom in prison perpetually, and himself returned home in triumph.

So years and days passed, and Palamon and Arcite dwelt in durance in a tower; till on a morrow of May it befel that the fair and fresh Emilia arose to do observance to May, and walked in the garden, gathering flowers and singing. Now in a high chamber of the tower, which adjoined the garden-wall, Palamon by leave of his gaoler was pacing to and fro and bewailing his lot, when he cast his eyes through the thick-barred window, and beheld Emilia in the garden below; whereat he blenched, and cried out as though struck to the heart. Arcite heard him, and, asking him why he so cried out, bade him suffer imprisonment in patience; but Palamon replied that the cause of his crying out was the beauty of the lady in the [16] garden. Thereupon Arcite spied out of the window at Emilia, and was so struck by her fairness

"That if that Palamon was wounded sore,

Arcite is hurt as muche as he, or more."

So strife began between the two. Palamon said it were small honour for Arcite to be false to his cousin and sworn brother, since each had taken an oath not to hinder the other in love; nay, as a knight Arcite was bound to help him in his amour. But Arcite replied that love knows no law; decrees of man are every day broken for love; moreover Palamon and he were prisoners, and were like two dogs fighting for a bone which meantime a kite bears away. Let each continue in his love, for in prison each must endure.

Now a duke name Pirithous came to visit his friend Theseus; who being also a friend to Arcite begged Theseus to let him go free out of prison, which Theseus did. And Arcite was set free without ransom, but on condition that his life should be forfeit if he ever set foot again in any domain of Duke Theseus.

Yet now Arcite found himself in no better stead, being banished from the sight of his lady; and could even find it in his heart to envy Palamon, who might still blissfully abide in prison—nay, not in prison, in Paradise, where sometimes he might see her whom both loved. And on his part Palamon was jealous of Arcite, who might even now be [17] calling together his kin in Thebes to make onslaught on Athens and win his lady Emilia.

"Yow loveres axe I now this questioun,

Who hath the worse, Arcite or Palamoun?"

Now when Arcite had for a year or two endured this torment, he dreamed one night that the god Mercury appeared to him, and said to him, "To Athens shalt thou wend." Whereupon Arcite started up, and saw in the mirror that his sufferings had so changed him that he might live in Athens unknown. So he clad himself as a labourer, and went with one squire to Athens, and offered his service at the court, where for a year or two he was page of the chamber to Emilia, and passed under the name of Philostrate. And in the course of time he was so honoured that Theseus took notice of him, and made him squire of his own chamber, and maintained him nobly.

Meantime Palamon had lain seven years in prison, when it befel on the third day of May (as the old books that tell this story say) that, aided by a friend, he broke prison, having given his gaoler to drink of drugged wine, and so fled the city, and lay hid in a grove. Hither by chance came Arcite to do observance to May; and first Palamon heard him sing

"Wel-come be thou, faire fresshe May;

I hope that I som grene gete may,"

and thereafter fall into a study, as lovers will, lamenting his hard fate that he should be passing under a false name, and [18] daily be slain by the eyes of Emilia. Whereat Palamon started up, and reproached him, and challenged him to fight; and Arcite answered him no less boldly, saying he would bring him arms and weapons on the morrow, as well as meat and drink and bedding for the night.

So on the morrow the two donned their harness, helping each other to arm, and then fell a-fighting, Palamon like a wild lion, and Arcite like a cruel tiger, till they were ankle-deep in blood.

On the same day rode forth Theseus with Hippolyta and Emilia to hunt the hart, and Theseus was aware of the two knights fighting. He spurred his steed between them, and cried to them to hold their hands. And Palamon told him who they were, and why they fought. Theseus at first was angry, and condemned them both to death; but when the queen Hippolyta and Emilia and the ladies of their train pleaded for them, he relented, bethinking himself of what love is, for he himself had been a servant [lover] in his time; wherefore, at the request of the queen and Emilia, he forgave them, if they would swear to do his country no harm, and be his friends. And when they had sworn, he reasoned with them, that each was worthy to wed Emilia, but that both could not so do; therefore let each depart for a year, and gather to him a hundred knights, and then return to tourney in the lists for the hand of Emilia.

"Who loketh lightly now but Palamoun?

Who springeth up for joye but Arcite?"

Royal were the lists which Theseus made, a mile in circuit, and walled with stone. Eastward and westward were marble gates, whereon were built temples of Venus and Mars, while in a turret on the north wall was a shrine of Diana goddess of chastity. And each temple was nobly carven and wrought with statues and pictures.

Now the day of the tourney approached, and Palamon and Arcite returned each with a hundred knights.

"To fighte for a lady, ben'cite!

It were a lusty sighte for to see."

Palamon brought with him Ligurge king of Thrace, and with Arcite was Emetreas, the king of India, each a giant in might. So on a Sunday they all came to the city.

And in the night, ere dawn, Palamon arose and went to the temple of Venus to pray that he might win Emilia for his wife; and, as it seemed, in answer to his prayer, the statue of Venus shook, and Palamon held it for a sign that the boon he asked was granted. Emilia meanwhile went to the temple of Diana, and prayed to the goddess, that she might remain a virgin, and that the hearts of Palamon and Arcite might be turned from her; or, if she needs must wed one of the twain, let him be the one that most desired her. To her appeared the goddess Diana, and told her that she must be [20] wedded to one of the two, but she might not tell which that one should be.

And Arcite went to the temple of Mars, and prayed for victory; whereat the door of the temple clattered, and the fires blazed up on the altar, while the hauberk on the god's statue rang, and Arcite heard a murmur of "Victory." So rejoicing thereat he returned home

"As fayn as fowel is of the brighte sonne."

Thereafter in the heavens above strife began betwixt Mars and Venus, such that Jupiter himself was troubled to quell it; till Saturn (the father of Venus) comforted his daughter with assurance that Palamon should win his lady.

That day was high festival in Athens, and all Monday they justed and feasted, but went betimes to rest that they might rise early to see the great fight. And on the morrow there were lords and knights and squires, armourers, yeomen and commoners, and steeds and palfreys, on every hand, and all was ready.