I. Om. Qq. Act V, Sc. iii. Fleay. 2. Egeus and his Lords.] and Philo-

[The Palace. Theob. The Same. A strate. Qq.
State-Room in Theseus’s Palace. Cap. Egeus] Egseus Ff (throughout).
3. y] what Pope + .
3. y] For examples of the omission of the relative, see Shakespeare passim , or Abbott, § 244 ; and see § 307 for examples of ‘ may ’ in the sense of can , as The¬ seus uses it the next line.
4-23. Roffe ( Ghost Belief, &c., p. 40) : [In this speech every line] is sceptical, yet the conduct of the play falsifies the Duke’s reasonings, or, as they should rather be called, his assertions. Hippolyta having observed to him, ‘ ’Tis strange, my The¬ seus, that these lovers speak of,’ he replies, paying no attention, be it observed, to the fact that Hippolyta is speaking from the testimony of four persons; a very artful stroke on the part of Shakespeare at the sceptics. To this speech [11. 4-23] Hippo¬ lyta very justly answers that [11. 24-28]. Here again Shakespeare shows his nice observation of the sceptical mind. Every one who has conversed on any subject with persons predetermined, on that subject, not to believe, must have observed how common it is for the latter, when fairly brought to a stand-still, to lapse into a dead silence, instead of saying, as the lover of truth would do, ‘ What you have alleged is very reasonable, and I will now examine.’ They can say no more, nor may you. Accordingly, to the incontrovertible speech of Hippolyta, Theseus makes no reply. It is a truly noteworthy and significant fact that to the sceptical Theseus should have been allotted by Shakespeare the sceptical idea concerning the poet, namely, as being the embodier of the unreal, and not as being the copyist of what is true. It is exactly in character that the doubting Theseus should thus speak of the poetic art, and thence we may be sure that the poet who wrote the lines for him, thought precisely the very reverse. Owing, however, to the general doubt concerning the supernatural, and the consequent assumption of Shakespeare’s disbelief [in it], this point seems never to have been considered, and it may be safely affirmed that nine hundred and ninety- nine readers out of every thousand would gravely quote the lines upon the poet as containing Shakespeare’s own idea, although, only five lines previously, Theseus has placed the poet in the same category with the lunatic. From the purely dramatic cha¬ racter of his works, Shakespeare can never speak in his own person, but he can always act ; that is, so frame his story as that scepticism shall be shown to be entirely at fault. [Be it observed that the essay, privately printed in 1851, from which the foregoing is extracted, was written on the assumption that ‘ ghost-belief, rightly under¬ stood, is most rational and salutary,’ and that ‘ the ghost-believing student ’ will deem that ‘ it must have had the sanction of such a thinker as Shakespeare.’ — Ed.] — Julia Wedgwood ( Contemporary Rev. Apr. 1890, p. 583): In the attitude of Theseus
201
ACT v, sc. i.] A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS D REA ME
Thefe anticke fables, nor thefe Fairy toyes,
Louers and mad men haue fuch feething braines , Such fhaping phantafies, that apprehend more Then coole reafon euer comprehends.
The Lunaticke, the Louer, and the Poet,
Are of imagination all compact.
One fees more diuels then vafte hell can hold ; That is the mad man. The Louer, all as franticke, Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egipt.
5. anticke ] antique Q„ Cap. Dyce, Sta. Cam. White ii. antic k F3F4, Rowe + . antic Coll. Hal. White i, Ktly.
7. more ] Transposed, to begin the next line, Theob. et seq.
8-10. Two lines, ending lunatick...
compadi. Qf.
8. coole] cooler Pope.
12. That is the mad man] The mad¬ man. While Pope + . That is, the mad¬ man Cap. et seq.
13. Egipt] Adgypt Qt.
towards the supernatural there is something essentially modern. It is very much in the manner of Scott, or rather, there is something in it that reminds one of Scott him¬ self. . . . Scott thought that any contemporary who believed himself to have seen a ghost must be insane ; yet when he paints the appearance of the grey spectre to Fear- gus Maclvor, or, what seems to us his most effective introduction of the supernatural, that of Alice to the Master of Ravenswood, we feel that something within him believes in the possibility of that which he paints, and that this something is deeper than his denial, though that be expressed with all the force of his logical intellect. . . . Theseus explaining away the magic of the night is Scott himself when he drew Dousterswivel, or when he describes the Antiquary scoffing at a significant dream. . . . To paint fthe supernatural] most effectually it should not be quite consistently either disbelieved or believed. Perhaps Shakespeare was much nearer an actual belief in the fairy mythology he has half created than seems possible to a spectator of the nineteenth century. And yet Theseus expresses exactly the denial of the mod¬ em ■world. And we feel at once how the introduction of such an element enhances the power of the earlier views ; the courteous, kindly, man-of-the-world scepticism somehow brings out the sphere of magic against which it sets the shadow of its demand. The belief of the peasant is emphasised and defined, while it is also inten¬ sified by what we feel the inadequate confutation of the prince.
6, &c. Sigismund (‘ Uebereinstimmendes zwischen Sh. und Plutarch,’ Sh. Jahr- buch, xviii, p. 1 70) refers to the ‘ noteworthy ’ correspondence between this passage and the comparison of love to madness in Plutarch’s Morals, where the resemblance, as he thinks, is too marked to be overlooked.
6. seething] Steevens : So in The Temp. V, i, 59: ‘thy brains, Now useless, boil’d within thy skull.’— Malone : So also in Wint. Tale, III, iii, 64: ‘Would any
but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather?’ _ Delius:
See also Macbeth, II, i, 39 : ‘A false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.’