The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream'. Sidgwick Frank
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 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.
The problem—given the play—is to discover what parts of it Shakespeare conveyed from elsewhere, and to investigate those sources as far as is compatible with the limits of this book. For this purpose, it is most convenient to adopt the above-mentioned division into three component plots or tales; and because these are rather loosely woven together, the characters in the play may be simultaneously divided thus:—
| 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.
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, 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 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 contreeWith muchel glorie and greet solempnitee,And eek hir yonge suster Emelye.And thus with victorie and with melodyeLete 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 FemenyeBy Theseus, and by his chivalrye;And of the grete bataille for the nonesBetwixen Athenës and Amazones,And how asseged[6] was Ipolita,The faire hardy quene of Scithia … "
Egeus, whom Shakespeare makes a