WINDSOR PARK. "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM."
"This is the fairy land; O spite of spites
We talk with goblins, owls, and elfish sprites.
'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as
Madmen tongue and brain!"
"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it."
Shakspere had blocked out the play of "Midsummer Night's Dream" in the year 1593, and completed it in the summer of 1599.
The story of Palamon and Arcite by Chaucer, and the love of Athenian Theseus for the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, as told by Plutarch, gave William his first idea of composing a play where the acts of fairies and human beings would assimilate in their loves and jealousies.
One evening while seated at the Falcon Tavern, in company with the Earl of Southampton, Essex, Florio, Bacon, Cecil, Warwick, Burbage, Drayton and Jonson, William read the main points of the play, which was lauded to the skies by all present.
Burbage, the manager of the Globe, suggested to Essex and Southampton that it would be a grand idea to have the "Dream" enacted in the park and woods of Windsor!
It was a novel idea, and one sure to catch the romantic sentiments of Queen Elizabeth, as old Duke Theseus, the cross-purposed lovers, Bottom and his rude theatrical troop, and the fairies, led by Oberon, Titania and Puck could have full swing in the forest, sporting in their natural elements.
In reading or viewing the play, the mind wanders in a mystic grove by moonlight and breathes at every step odors of sweet flowers, while listening to the musical murmurings of fantastic fairies and echoing hounds in forest glens.
Theseus was the first and greatest Grecian in strength of body, second only to his cousin Hercules, each reveling in the god-like antics of seduction, incest, rape, robbery and murder!
The Persian, Egyptian, Grecian and Roman gods commingled with the heroes and heroines of mankind and committed unheard of crimes with impunity, the most outrageous villain seeming to be honored as the greatest god!
The amphitheater grove in front of Windsor Castle, overlooking the Thames, was the place selected for the exhibition of the "Dream." Natural circular terraces for the spectators.
The Virgin Queen had sent out five thousand invitations to her wealthy and intellectual subjects to attend the new and romantic play of Shakspere, "Midsummer Night's Dream," on the 4th of July, 1599.
Everything had been prepared in the way of natural and artificial scenery by the direction of William, while the Queen sat on a sylvan throne, embowered in vines and roses, surrounded by all her courtiers, ladies and lords, in grand, golden array.
The night was calm, bright and warm, while the young moon and twinkling stars, shining over Windsor, lent a celestial radiance to the scene, where lovers and fairies mingled in the meshes of affection. Candles, torches, chimes, lanterns and stationary fire balloons were interspersed through the royal domain in brilliant profusion.
Essex and Southampton were, unfortunately, absent in Ireland putting down a rebellion.
William took the part of Theseus, Field played Hippolyta, Burbage played Puck, Heminge represented Lysander, and Condell Demetrius, while Phillips and Cooke played respectively Hermia and Helen, Jo Taylor played Oberon and Robert Benfield acted Titania, the fairy queen.
The characters Pyramus and Thisbe were played by Peele and Crosse.
The play opens with a grand scene in the palace of Theseus, who thus addresses the Amazonian Queen Hippolyta:
"Now, fair Hippolyta, our mutual hour
Draws on apace, four happy days bring in,
Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man's revenue!"
Hippolyta:
"Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights;
And then, the moon shall behold the night
Of our solemnities."
Egeus, a wealthy Athenian complains to Duke Theseus that his daughter Hermia will not consent to marry Demetrius, but disobedient, insists on wedding with Lysander.
Theseus decides that she must obey her father or suffer death, or enter a convent, excluded from the world forever.
Theseus reasons with Hermia thus:
"If you yield not to your father's choice,
Whether you can endure the livery of a nun;
For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,
To live a barren sister all your life;
Chanting fair hymns to the cold, fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled,
Than that, which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness!"
This sentiment was cheered heartily by the great forest audience, and "Queen Bess" led the applause!
Lysander pleaded his own case for the heart of Hermia, and sighing, says:
"Ah, me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth!"
Hermia and Helena compare notes and wonder at the perversity of their respective lovers.
Hermia says:
"The more I hate Demetrius, the more he follows
me;"
And Helena says:
"The more I love him, the more he hateth me!"
Hermia still sighing for Lysander says:
"Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seemed Athens as a paradise to me;
O then, what graces in my love do dwell
That he hath turned a heaven unto hell."
Helena soliloquizes regarding the inconsistency of Demetrius since he saw Hermia:
"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And, therefore, is winged cupid painted blind;
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;
Then to the wood, will he, to-morrow night,
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense;
But herein mean I to enrich my pain
To have his sight thither and back again."
A number of rude workingmen of Athens propose to give an impromptu play in the Duke's palace in honor of his wedding.
It is a burlesque on all plays, and being so very crude and bad, is good by contrast!
Pyramus and Thisby are the prince and princess, who die for love.
Bottom is to play the big blower in the improvised drama and the Jackass among the fairies. He says:
"I could play a part to tear a cat in, to make all
split"—
"Tho raging rocks,
With shivering shocks,
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phœbus' car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish fates!"
Puck, the mischievous Robin Goodfellow, who is ever playing pranks among his fairy tribe and human lovers, enters the forest scene and addresses one of the fairies thus:
"How now, spirit, whither wander you?"
Fairy says:
"Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Through flood, through fire,
Farewell, thou wit of spirits, I'll be gone;
Our queen and all her elves come here anon."
Puck, the funny tattler, tells of the jealousy of King Oberon, because Titania has adopted a lovely boy:
"For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy stolen from an Indian king,
She never had so sweet a changeling!"
This sly cut at Queen Elizabeth, who had recently adopted a young American Indian as her parlor page, elicited applause among the courtiers, yet "Lizzie" did not seem to join in the cheers!
Oberon and Titania meet and quarrel, just as natural as if they belonged to earthly passion people.
"Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania!
What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence;
I have forsworn his bed and company."
Oberon:
"Tarry, rash woman; am I not thy lord?"
Titania:
"Then I must be thy lady?"
Oberon accuses Titania with being in love with Theseus and assisting him in the ravishment of antique beauties.
"These are the forgeries of jealousy;
Never met we on hill, dale, forest or mead;
Or on the beached margent of the sea
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport!"
After the departure of Queen Titania and her fairy train, King Oberon calls in Puck to aid in punishing her imagined infidelity.
"My gentle Puck, come hither; thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
The rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea maid's music?"
Puck replies:
"I remember."
Oberon continues:
"That very time I saw, but thou could'st not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth
Cupid all armed; a certain aim he took
At a fair Vestal, throned by the West;
And loosed his shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the Imperial Voteress passed on
In maiden meditation, fancy free!
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell;
It fell upon a little Western flower—
Before milk white; now purple with love's wound—
And maidens call it 'love in idleness.'
Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once,
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make, or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league."
Puck replies:
"I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty
minutes!"
The audience saw by this time that the "Vestal" and "Imperial Voteress" in "maiden meditation, fancy free" was none other than Queen Elizabeth, and therefore three cheers and a roaring lion were given for the delicate and eloquent compliment of Shakspere to her Virgin Majesty!
Tributes to the powerful, though undeserved, are received with spontaneous applause, while just praise for the poor receive no echo from the jealous throng. Poor, toadying humanity!
The infatuated Helena follows Demetrius into the dark forest, and though he tells her that he does not and cannot love her, she says:
"And even for that, do I love you the more;
I am your spaniel; and Demetrius
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you,
And to be used, as you use your dog!"
I have seen fool women and fool men act just that way, and the more they were spurned, the more they clung to their infatuation.
Puck returns with the flower containing the juice that will make wanton women and licentious men return to their just lovers.
Oberon grasping the herb says:
"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with blooming woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;
There sleeps Titania, sometime of the night
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight,
And with this juice I'll streak her eyes
To make her full of hateful fantasies.
And take thou some of it, and seek through this grove;
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;
But do it, when the next thing he espies
May be the lady."
Titania enters with her fairy train and orders them to sing her to sleep, and be gone.
Oberon finds his queen sleeping and squeezes some of the love juice on her eyelids, saying:
"What thou see'st when thou dost awake
Do it for thy true love take;
Love and languish for his sake;
When thou makest, it is thy dear,
Wake when some vile thing is near."
Lysander and Hermia wander in the woods, lost and tired, and sink down to rest. He says:
"One turf shall serve as pillow for us both,
One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth!"
Puck finds the lovers asleep, and says to Lysander:
"Churl, upon thy eyes I throw,
All the power that this charm doth owe,
When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid."
Puck finds Bottom in the woods, rehearsing the play for the marriage of Theseus, and translates the weaver into an ass, with a desire for love. He wanders near the flowery bed where Queen Titania sleeps.
She hears him sing, and opening her eyes, says:
"What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
Thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,
On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee!"
Bottom says:
"Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that;
Reason and love keep little company now-a-days!"
Oberon relents and releases his Fairy Queen from her dream of infatuation with Bottom disguised as an ass, and says:
"But first, I will release the fairy queen,
Be as thou wast wont to be;
(Touching her eyes with the herb.)
See as thou wast wont to see;
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower,
Hath such force and blessed power,
Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen."
Titania awakes and exclaims:
"My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamored of an ass!"
Titania is not the only woman who is enamored by an Ass; in fact the mismatched, cross-purposed, twisted, infatuated affections of the sordid, deceitful earth are as thick as blackberries in July, while pretense and pampered power greatly prevail around the globe.
Theseus and his train wander through the woods in preparation for the grand hunt and find Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena still asleep under the magic influence of Puck.
Theseus wonders how the lovers came to the wood, and says to the father of Hermia:
"But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
That Helena should give answer of her choice?"
Egeus:
Theseus:
"Go bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
(Expresses surprise at their situation.)
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy,
To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity."
The lovers are reconciled to their natural choice, and Theseus decides against the father:
"Egeus, I will overbear your will,
For in the temple by and by, with us
These couples shall eternally be knit."
Bottom wakes and tells his theatrical partners:
"I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say
what dream it was.
Man is but an ass, a patched fool.
Eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath
not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his
tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report,
what my dream was!"
The vast audience laughed heartily at the befuddled language of Bottom, the weaver, and imagined themselves under the like spell of fantastic fairies.
The fifth and last act opens up with Theseus and his Amazonian Queen in the palace, prepared for the nuptial rites, and also the marriage of Lysander and Demetrius to their choice.
Theseus speaking of the strange conduct of lovers, delivers this great bit of philosophy:
"More strange than true, I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains—
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact;
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman; the lover all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt;
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name!"
The play of Pyramus and Thisby is then introduced to the palace audience, when Bottom and his Athenian mechanics amuse Theseus and Hippolyta with their crude, rustic conception of love-making.
As the play proceeds Hippolyta remarks:
"This is the silliest stuff that I ever heard."
And Theseus says:
"The best in this kind are but shadows;
And the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them!"
Pyramus appeals to the moon thus:
"Sweet moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams,
I thank thee, moon, for shining now so bright,
I trust to taste of truest Thisby's sight!"
Pyramus and Thisby commit suicide, for disappointment in love, in the climax scene, and waking again Bottom wishes to know if the Duke wants any more of the burlesque play.
Theseus replies:
"Your play needs no excuse; for when the players are all dead,
There need none to be blamed!
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
Lovers to bed; 'tis almost fairy time,
I fear we shall outsleep the coming morn,
As much as we this night have overwatched.
This palpable, gross play hath well beguiled
The heavy gait of night—sweet friends, to bed;
A fortnight hold we this solemnity
In nightly revels and new jollity!"
The forest scene is filled with fairies, led by Puck, Oberon and Titania, all fantastically dressed, rehearsing and singing in their mystic revels.
Puck leading, says:
"Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf beholds the moon.
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores
All with weary task foredone;
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple of Hecate's team,
From the presence of the sun
Following darkness like a dream."
Oberon orders:
"Through this house give glimmering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire;
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier;
And his ditty, after me,
Sing and dance it trippingly."
Titania speaks:
"First rehearse this song by rote;
To each word a warbling note,
Hand in hand with fairy grace
Will we sing and bless this place."
Then all the fairies, joining hands at the command of Oberon, dance and sing:
"Every fairy take his gait,
And each several chamber bless;
Through this palace with sweet peace,
All shall here in safety rest
And the owner of it blest,
Trip away, make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day!"
Then mischievous little Puck flies to the front, makes his final bow and speech, concluding the play of "Midsummer Night's Dream":
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended—
That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear;
And this weak and idle theme
No more yielding but a dream;
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon we will mend.
And, as I am honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck,
How to escape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call,
So good night unto you all,
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends!"
Unanimous cheers rang through Windsor forest at the conclusion of this mystic play, and Queen Elizabeth called up Theseus (William), Hippolyta, Oberon, Titania and Puck, presenting to each a five-carat solitaire diamond—a slight token of Her Majesty's appreciation of dramatic genius.
It was after two o'clock in the morning when a thousand sky rockets filled the heavens with variegated colors, indicating for fifty miles around, that "Midsummer Night's Dream" had been successfully launched on the ocean of dramatic imagination!