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In compliance with current
copyright law, Cornell University
Library produced this
replacement volume on paper
that meets the ANSI Standard
Z39.48-1992 to replace the
irreparably deteriorated original.

2001
 

Gorvnell Aniversity Library

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF
Henry WW. Sage

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ALBTISS . _28/5thre.

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ON

HE SOURCES OF SHAKESPEARE’
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

DISSERTATIO INAUGURALIS
QUAM
AD SUMMOS IN PHILOSOPHIA HONORES
AB ,
AMPLISSIMO PHILOSOPHORUM ORDINE

IN

ACADEMIA FRIDERICIANA HALENSI
CUM VITEBERGENSI CONSOCIATA

RITE IMPETRANDOS
SCRIPSIT

LUDWIG PROESCHOLDT,

SALZUNGENSIS.

HALIS SAXONUM

TYPIS KARRASIANIS
MDCCCLXXVII.
WK Perv
I.

I is a remarkable fact that the opinions about the edu-
eation and learning of Shakespeare have differed at all times,
since the days of the poet down to our own. While some saw
in him a man well versed in almost every branch of learning,
others persisted in thinking him to have been totally unlettered
and scarcely to have possessed the common amount of education.
Now, in the age of Queen Elizabeth classical education being
so widely spread, the knowledge of Greek and Latin was con-
sidered as learning by distinction. The oft-quoted words of
Ben Jonson that Shakespeare had small Latin and less Greek,
have, therefore, become as it were a warery for a literary feud
which has lasted upwards of two centuries. It would be so
much the more useless to enumerate the names of all the com-
batants that have run a tilt in this quarrel, as now-a-days
we do no longer inquire after the classical learning of Shake-
speare, but rather after his education and knowledge, that is
to say after the whole compass of his attainments, apart from
those gifts and talents which were bestowed upon him by
nature.‘) Casting a glance at his dramas, we must needs
own that the author of these works cannot but have been
possessed of a considerable stock of detailed knowledge. And,
indeed, Shakespeare was conversant with the literature of his
time. Though in all probability he never attained to the
faculty of reading a Roman classic with ease, though the
different engagements of his busy life will hardly have left
him Icisure to study the works of the French and Italian poets
in the originals, yet the treasures of ancient and modern

1) See K. Elze, William Shakespeare. (Halle, 1876) pp. 421 seq.

|
2

literature were not shut up to him. He was not obliged to
resort to the originals: for a great number of translations of
the most important ancient and modern authors had already
been added to the treasures of his own vernacular tongue.)
These translations and the original works written in his mother
tongue were the books which Shakespeare read and re-read,
and’ with which he was as intimately acquainted as any of
his contemporaries. Popular and legendary lore, and history
derived from the numerous chronicles produced in England,
were the two principal sources of Shakespeare’s knowledge
and learning. What a close acquaintance Shakespeare had of
Legends, Romances, Tales and Ballads, what an extensive use
he made of them, is shown on almost every page of his plays.
Under these circumstances, it would be greatly surprising, if
Shakespeare should have overlooked the splendour of the brightest
star in the poetical sky of Old England, I mean Geoffrey
Chaucer. And, undoubtedly, he did not overlook him, but on
the contrary could boast of an intimate acquaintance with the
works of this greatest poet that England had produced before his
own appearance. Drake®) thinks it even highly probable that
our bard alludes to Chaucer in the following lines of his 106‘
sonnet:

»When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,

In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights:
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have express’d
Even such a beauty as you master now.“

Shakespeare’s acquaintance with the works of Chaucer is best
proved by the circumstance that in several of his plays we meet
with subjects that cannot but be taken from Chaucerian stories.
One of those plays built for the greater part upon stories of Chaucer,

?) See Drake, Shakspeare and his ‘Times (Paris 1843) pp. 235 seq.
and Elze, 1. ¢., p. 429 seq.
3) Drake, l.c., p. 386.
3

is the Midsummer Night’s Dream which to compare to its
sources will be the subject of the following essay.

In the Midsummer Night’s Dream the imagination of Shake-
speare is exhibited in all its fervid and creative power; this
play is — as Drake says*) — ‘a fabric of the most buoyant
and aérial texture, floating as it were between earth and
heaven, and tinted with all the magic colouring of the rain-
bow.’ It would, however, be an error to think, that Shake-
speare in writing his Midsummer Night’s Dream did merely
give the rein to his redundant fancy; quite on the contrary,
he had recourse to more solid materials and was obliged to
make use of the critical faculties of his mind, in order to com-
bine the different groups of which this play is composed, to
that harmonious and perfect shape which it bears now.

Among the persons of our play three groups are strictly
to be distinguished:

1) Theseus and Hippolyta with their followers to whom
Egeus and his daughter, Hermia, the two lovers, Lysander
and Demetrius, and Helena may be added;

2) Oberon and Titania with their fairies and elves;

3) The crew of Athenian mechanics performing the inter-
lude of Pyramus and Thisbe.

‘The characters in the Midsummer Night’s Dream are
classical, says an English critic, but the costume is strictly
Gothic, and shewes that it was through the medium of Romance
that [Shakespeare] drew the knowledge of them.’5) This medium
was given to Shakespeare by the works of Chaucer, where
the outlines of all the chief persons of the Midsummer Night’s
Dream have been drawn. But since Shakespeare found them
in several tales which have no reference to one another, we
must not be surprised that the figures in Shakespeare differ
in many points from their prototypes in Chaucer. For without
undergoing slight changes they could not possibly have been
brought together in one and the same play: the task of the
dramatist was not only to make the actions of the different

4) Drake, 1. c., p. 488.
5) Letter on Shakespeare’s authorship of the Two Noble Kinsmen,
quoted by Halliwell; An Introduction to Shakespeare’s Midsummernight’s

Dream (London 1841), p. il.

 

1*
4

groups of persons tend to a common aim, and to combine
them so as to form a well-proportioned whole, but he was
also in want of several additional personages with whom Chaucer
did not furnish him. Which characters were invented and
added by Shakespeare, and which causes required their invention
will be shown in a later part of this essay.

I.

The chief personages in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s
Dream are undoubtedly Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and
Helena, who form the centre of the play. And yet they must
not be the first on whom we fix our attention; for the threads
of their fates are so variously interwoven that, if we should
begin our essay with them, we should hardly be able to explain
the close connection of the whole plot. The broad basis of
the drama is rather formed by the characters of Theseus and
Hippolyta. They are opposed to all the other personages in
so far as the latter for the most part are subject to the wanton
or troublesome influence of the elves, whilst Theseus and
Hippolyta are distinguished by the even composure and calm
temperateness which beseems so well the dignity of a sovereign.
The elves dazzled with the princely splendour, do not dare to
molest them with their tricks: both Theseus and Hippolyta are
becomingly separated from the other persons of the play by
their independence from the goblins of nature. Therefore, the
whole of their situation lies so clearly displayed before us that
a comparison of the Midsummer Night’s Dream to its sources
in this respect does not afford considerable difficulties.

The opinions of the Shakespearean critics which only in
rare cases are in unison with one another, widely differ as to
the sources from which Shakespeare may have taken his Mid-
summer Night's Dream. Professor Ward®), for instanco, considers
it as more probable that Shakespeare has been indebted to
North’s Plutarch for the figures of Theseus and Hippolyta, than
that he should have drawn them after the description given in

8) A. W. Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature to the
Death of Queen Aune. (London 1875) 2 vols. — I. p. 381.
5

Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. Lloyd?), on the other hand, is
convinced that the group of Theseus and Hippolyta corresponds
with the tale of Palamon and Arcite in Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales. The circumstance that a scholar like Delius has adopted
the latter opinion, cannot but increase its argumentative weight,
and give a nearer approach to truth than the former.’) It
is not easily to be understood how Shakespeare, having access
to the detailed Knight’s Tale of Chaucer, may be said to have
chosen a source like that of Plutarch which furnished him hardly
with more than the names of Theseus and Hippolyta and with
the fact that once upon a time Theseus had conquered the
realm of the Amazons. It is true, the life of Theseus, as
described in Plutarch, would have left Shakespeare at liberty
to make a choice out of various versions as to the victory
over the Amazons and even as to the very name of their queen
whom Theseus takes back with him to Athens: In one passage
Plutarch records a military expedition which Theseus under-
takes, accompanied by Hercules, and it is Hercules who takes
queen Antiopa prisoner and bestows her upon him; in another
we are told that Theseus invades the country of the Amazons
for a second time, and now it is he himself who overpowers
the queen and takes her prisoner; in a third passage the
Amazonian queen is no more called Antiopa, but bears the
name of Hippolyta, and it is by her interposition that the
hostilities between the Amazons and the Athenians are settled.
This is the sum of incidents related by Plutarch which may
be brought into comparison with Shakespeare’s Midsummer
Night’s Dream; the few words, which Plutarch bestows upon
Hippolyta, beside what has been mentioned, refer to her death
or to other circumstances that have no relation to our play. —
All the rest of hints which Shakespeare gives with regard to
Theseus and Hippolyta are not to be met with in Plutarch.
Now, should it be indeed a mere accident that, whenever
Shakespeare deviates from, or adds to the version of Plutarch,

7) W. W. Lloyd, Critical Essays on the Plays of Shakespeare (Lon-

don 1875) p. 91.
8) See Shakspere’s Werke, ed. by Nic. Delius. Third edition (Elber-

feld 1872) vol. I. p. 273.
6

he always agrees with Chaucer?) It would, however, be
underrating the importance which Plutarch had for Shakespeare,
if I should pass over in silence a passage In our play which
doubtlessly shows an allusion to Plutarch’s Life of Theseus.
I mean the following lines:

How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,

Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,

Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

 

 

°) The following lines give all that is to be found in Plutarch con-
cerning the relations between Theseus and Hippolyta: .

‘Touching the voyage he (i.e. Theseus) made by the sea Major,
Philochorus, and some other hold opinion, that he went thither with
Hercules against the Amazons: and that to honour his valiantness, Her-
cules gave him Antiopa the Amazon. But the more part of the other
historiographers, namely, Hellicanus, Pherecides, and Herodotus, do
write, that Theseus went thither alone, after Hercules’ voyage, and that
he took this Amazon prisoner; which is likeliest to be true..... Bion
also the historiographer, this notwithstanding, saith, that he brought her
away by deceit and steaith. For the Amazons (saith he) naturally loving
men, did not fly at all when they saw them land in their country, but
sent them presents, and that Theseus enticed her to come into his ship
who brought him a present: and so soon as she was aboard, he hoised
(i. e. hoisted) his sail, and so carried her away.’

In the description of the war between the Athenians and the
Amazons he continues: ‘But so it is, that both armies lay a great time
one in the face of the other, ere they came to battle. Howbeit at the
length Theseus, having first made sacrifice unto Fear, the goddess,
according to the counsel of a prophecy he had received, he gave them
battle in the month of August, on the same day in the which the
Athenians do even at this present solemnise the feast which they call
Boedromia. .... Afterwards, at the end of four months, peace was
taken between them by means of one of the women called Hippolyta.
For this historiographer calleth the Amazon which Theseus married
Hippolyta, and not Antiopa. Nevertheless, some say, that she was slain
(fighting on Theseus’ side) with a dart, by another called Molpadia .....
We are not to marvel, if the history of things so ancient be found so
diversly written. For there are also that write that Queen Antiopa sent
those secretly which were hurt then into the citie of Caleide, where
some of them recovered and were healed, and others also died, which
were buried near to the place called Amazonian. Howsoever it was, it
is most certain that this war was ended by agreement’. (Cp. Shake-
speare’s Plutarch, ed. by Walter W. Skeat (London 1875) pp. 286 —88;
and Shakespeare’s Library, ed. by W. Carew Hazlitt. Second edition.
(London 1875) Part I, vol.I, pp. 37, 39, 40.)
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Alglé break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?
M.S. N’s. Dr. II, 1. I. 74— 81.

In these lines, the names of Perigenia, Atglé, Ariadne and
Antiopa are surely borrowed from Plutarch, where Perigouna
occurs (Skeat) p. 279, 1.26, Aigles, p. 284, 1. 28, Ariadne, p. 283,
1.18 and. Antiopa p. 288, ll. 2. 4. (Cp. Skeat, Shakespeare’s
Plutarch, Preface, p. XIII.)

Upon entering into a comparison of the Knights Tale
with the Midsummer Night’s Dream, we find that in Chaucer
as well as in Shakespeare Theseus does ‘little more than
furnish the relief of stateliness to the vivacious scene. He
sweeps over the stage as through the poem with sublime
superiority, allowing himself the princely privilege of forgetting
and being reminded, is just with an air of graciousness, is
indulgent magnificently, and on his wedding-day consents to
be amused even without offensive condescension’. 1°) Chaucer’s
tale and Shakespeare’s play open in the same manner: Theseus
returns from the glorious conquest of the realm of the Amazons.
Though his brave soldiers have vanquished those war-like
females, yet, on the other hand, Theseus has been defeated
himself by the beauty of Hippolyta, the queen of Scythia, whom
he has led along with him to Athens as his bride. ‘At the
crisis in either story, he appears with his ladies in a hunting
party in an opening of the forest and surprises the rival lovers,
and, lastly, the common conclusion is with solemnity and
celebration at his ducal court’.t!) As to details we may mention
that Shakespeare borrowed the name of Philostrate 1?) from
Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, where ‘doing observance to a Morn
of May’ is made an Athenian custom just as in Shakespeare's
Midsummer Night’s Dream.

0) See Lloyd, l.c., p. 91. 11) ib.

2) Chaucer, in his turn, was indebted for the name of Philostrate
to Boccaccio, whose epic poem on Troilus and Cressida is entitled
Filostrato.
The beginning both of the poem and the play may find

here a place. 1%)

Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,

Ther was a duk that highte Theseus.

Of Athenes he was lord and governour,

And in his time swiche a conquerour,

That greter was ther non under the sonne.

Ful many a riche contree had he wonne.

What with his wisdom and his chevalrie,

He conquerd all the regne of Feminie,

That whilom was ycleped Scythia;

And wedded the fresshe quene Ipolila,

And brought hire home with him to his contree,

With mochel glorie and gret solempnitee,

And eke hire yonge suster Kmelie.

And certes, if it nere to long to here,

I wolde have told you fully the manere,

How wonnen was the regne of Feminie,

By Theseus, and by his chevaltrie,

And of the grete bataille for the nones,

Betwix Athenes and the Amasones ;

And how asseged was Ipolita,

The faire hardy quene of Scythia;

And of the feste, that was at hire wedding,

And of the temple at hire home coming.

C. T. ll. 861— 886.

Shakespeare introduces his Midsummer Night’s Dream in quite
the same manner, only omitting the sister of Hippolyta, fair
Emelie. Theseus says:

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial 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.

M.S. N’s. Dr. I, 1, IL 1~—6.

8) All the passages of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are quoted
from the edition of Tho. Tyrwhitt (London 1874).
9

Hippolyta solaces Theseus by the reflection that ‘four days
will quickly steep themselves in nights’, and that four nights
will be dreamt away still quicklier. Theseus continues:

Go, Philostrate,
Stir up th’ Athenian youth to merriments ;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth:
Turn melancholy forth to funerals,
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my snord,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries,
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph, and nith revelling.
M.S. N’s. D.1, 1, IL. 11—19.
Another passage in the Knight’s Tale:
Duk Theseus, with all his compagnie
Is comen home to Athenes his citee,
With alle blisse and gret solempnitee
C. T. IL 2702—5,
bears too remarkable a resemblance to what Theseus says in
the Midsummer Night’s Dream, to have been accidental:
Away with us to Athens; three and three
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity. 14)
M. 8. N’s. Dr. IV, 1., Il. 181, 182.
So much for Theseus and Hippolyta. After having seen
what an inferior part they act in our play, we are by no
means astonished to find their characters not so well drawn
as to afford us full-length portraits of their persons. They
represent rather types than individuals. Though the Midsummer
Night’s Dream, compared to other plays of Shakespeare is
somewhat defective in the delineation of characters, yet we
find the characters of Lysander and Demetrius, of Hermia and
Helena far more distinctly developed than those of Theseus
and Hippolyta. Malone, it is true, asks if ‘a single passion be
agitated by the faint and childish solicitudes of Hermia and
Demetrius, of Helena and Lysander, those shadows of each
other ?’ 15) Other critics, however, find those characters beauti-

 

 

4) See Halliwell, An Introduction ete., p. 12.
3) Cp. Drake, 1. c., p. 488.
10

fully drawn and finely contrasted; and, surely, in their dia-
logues ‘the chords both of love and pity are touched with the
poet’s wonted skill’. 16)

First we must try to answer the question whether Shake-
speare found prototypes in Chaucer also for Lysander, Deme-
trius and Hermia, or whether they are creations of his own
invention. As yet, the latter alternative has generally been
adopted: it is a common opinion that these characters are due
to the poet’s own inventive genius. One of the latest critics,
Gerald Massey !7), believes to have decided the matter by esta-
blishing the Earl of Southampton, Lady Rich and Lady Vernon
to be the prototypes of Shakespeare’s Demetrius, Hermia and
Helena. This may, perhaps be something more than a mere
fancy; at least it has met with the approbation of a scholar
like Elze, who says: 18) ‘Gewiss ist es nicht ohne Grund, wenn
Gerald Massey in Hermia und Helena die Bildnisse der Lady
Rich und der Elisabeth Vernon, nachmaligen Grifin Southampton,
erkennen will; gewiss hatten diese und andere Frauengestalten
Shakespeare’s ihre Vorbilder im wirklichen Leben’. Nevertheless,
this opinion does not exclude the supposition that Shakespeare
may have found a tale in Chaucer which suggested situations
of such a kind that he could assimilate them without diffi-
culty to the relations existing between the Earl of Southampton
and the two above-mentioned ladies. At all events I shall
try to bring forward reasons to the effect that the figures of
Lysander, Demetrius, and Hermia were not created solely by
the invention of Shakespeare, but that they were suggested to
him by the same story of Chaucer which furnished the poet
with the characters of Theseus and Hippolyta.

Chaucer tells us in his Knight’s Tale that Emelie, ‘doing
honour to May’, approaches to a strong tower, the dungeon
of Theseus’ castle, in which Palamon and Arcite are imprisoned ;
when the sorrowful Palamon, walking up and down in his
jail and often complaining of his woful destiny, once looks
out of the strongly trellised windows of his cell, his eyes fall

16) Cp. Drake, 1. ¢., p. 488.
7) Gerald Massey, Shakspeare’s Sonnets ete. [London 1866] p. 473 seqq.
'®) See Jahrb. der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft III. pp. 165 seq.
11

upon the shape of the lovely Emelie. He is so enraptured by
her beauty that he cannot help thinking her to be a super-
natural apparition, a goddess, nay Venus herself. He utters a
cry of astonishment so that his companion Arcite, supposing
this ery to be caused by his friend’s grief at their imprisonment,
approaches and andeavours to solace him. But after having
perceived the object of Palamon’s surprise, Arcite too is sorely
wounded by the beauty of the young lady. He does not fancy
her to be a supernatural vision, but instantly considers her as
an earthly woman and therefore says:

The fresshe beautee sleth me sodenly
Of hire that rometh in the yonder place.
And but I have hire mercie and hire grace
That I may seen hire at the leste way,
1 wam but ded; ther wis no more to say.
C. T. ll. 1120 — 25.

Palamon, growing exceedingly angry, replies:
Whether sayest thou this in ernest or in play?
C. T. 1 1127,

When Arcite has solemnly assured him that his words were
spoken in good earnest, Palamon goes on to say:

And now thou woldest falsly ben aboute
To love my lady, whom T love and serve,
And ever shal, til that min herte sterve.
Non certes, false Arcite, thou shalt not so,
I loved hir firste, and tolde thee my wo
As to my conseil, and my brother sworne
To forther me as I have told beforne.
For which thou art ybounden as a knight
To helpen me, if it lie in thy might,
Or elles art thou false, 1 dare well sain.
C. T. I. 1144 —54,

But Arcite answers wrathfully

Thou shalt, [quod he], be rather false than I.
And thou art false, 1 tell thee utterly.
For par amour I loved hire first or thou.
12

What wolt thou sayn? thou wisted nat right now
Whether she were a woman or @ goddesse.
Thin is affection of holinesse,

And min is love, as to a creature.
Cc. T. I. 1155 — 1161.

When, thus, we find in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale the two prisoners
desperately in love with the beautiful Emelie; when we listen
to their quarrel about their claims to Emelie’s love’; when we
meet even with the accidental circumstance that Emelie is seen
for the first time by the two prisoners, when doing observance
to May: are we not then involuntarily reminded of the characters
of Lysander, Demetrius and Hermia? We see these two young
gentlemen in the same way smitten with violent love for
Hermia, we listen to their quarrel — though it rises from other
causes than in Chaucer's tale — about their claims to Hermia’s
love, and perceive that Lysander, at least, gets the first sight
of Hermia, when she on a beautiful morning at break of day
goes a-maying in a forest near Athens.

We are easily convinced that those personages correspond
to each other. Though Hermia is no longer the sister of
Hippolyta, but the daughter of an Athenian citizen, yet she
unquestionably resembles Chaucer's Emelie. Iust as easy it
scems to show that Demetrius corresponds to Arcite, Lysander
to Palamon. On a closer inspection of these four personages
-we meet with an exceedingly striking circumstance. At first
sight we are at a loss to understand why Shakespeare gave
up the names of Palamon and Arcite, and altered them into
those of Lysander and Demetrius. But nothing affords us a
better proof than this very change of names, that Chaucer was
the source of Shakespeare. In the Knight’s Tale Palamon and
Areite intend to settle their love-affair by a single-fight: when
fighting in the wood near Athens, they are interrupted by the
arrival of Theseus with his hunters. Theseus then having
learned the cause of their combat, and not being willing to
allow their quarrel to be settled by a single combat, imposes
on either to gather a crew of a hundred knight’s, with whom
they are to contend against each other. Palamon as well as
Arcite soon find friends that are disposed to partake in the
13

fight, and when returning after the lapse of a year, Arcite has
at his side, among the rest’, ‘Emetrius, the gret king of Inde’
(Cp. C. T. Il. 2158, 2640, 2647), Palamon at his ‘Licurge, the
grete king of Trace’. (Cp. C. ‘I. IL. 2131, 2646.) 19) Is it not
a well-founded supposition that Shakespeare, not knowing
what to do with the strange name of Emetrius, conceived the
idea to alter it into the well-known name of Demetrius?
Why Shakespeare changed the name of Licurge, and how he
hit just upon the name of Lysander, I am, it is true, at a loss
sufficiently to explain. I think it just possible that the Lives
of Plutarch furnished him with the name of Lysander, which
supposition is the more corroberated as it throws at the same
time an accidental light on the name of Demetrius: Shake-
speare may have had in remembrance the two famous Greeks,
Lysander and Demetrius, whose lives are narrated by Plutarch.

To complete our comparison between Lysander and De-
metrius on one side, and Palamon and Arcite on the other,
we must add that both Chaucer in the story and Shakespeare
in the play give at last the hand of the lady to him who
has been from the beginning attached to her ‘par amour’ — as
Chaucer says — and who has not allowed himself to be
enticed by other impressions and influences. Palamon considers
Emelie at first as a supernatural being, as a goddess, Arcite,
on the contrary loves her as a woman and it is he on whom
after the long and painful imprisonment, after the anxious
troubles of a bloody combat, the hand of the beautiful Emelie
is bestowed.

We remember the quarrel between Palamon and Arcite,

19) Though Chaucer has taken the name of Licurge from his source,
La Teseida di Boccaccio, yet he has made a different use of the per-
sonage. In the Canterbury Tales Licurge belongs to the party of Palamon,
whereas in the ‘l'eseida Licurgo is a friend of Arcitas (cp. Teseida VI. 14.)
As for the name of Emetrius, it seems to be an invention of Chaucer,
and I was for a long time unable to discover a means that might help over the
difficulty of finding out its origin, until I met twice with the name of Lrimeteo
in Boceaccio’s Teseida (VIII. 82. 84). Boccaccio’s Erimeteo, itis true, is nota
king, but a knight fighting by the side of Palemone. Surely we must consider
Chaucer’s Emetrius as a mere metamorphosis of Boccaccio’s Erimeteo,
and it is obvious that Chaucer, having made Licurgo fight by the side
of Palamon, was obliged to assign Erimeteo to the party of Arcite.
14

and must own that such a quarrel cannot but be idle, because
as long as both are imprisoned, they are destitute of all
means to ascertain, which of them, when set at large, will win
the love of Emelic. Shakespeare, therefore, could not make
use of imprisonment as an obstacle for the two lovers in the
Midsummer Night’s Dream, but was obliged to look -for an-
other, that he could throw into their way. For that purpose
he introduced the character of Egeus, the father of Hermia2°):
Now, Lysander, although sure of the affectionate love of
Hermia who ardently longs to be married to him, cannot
succeed in obtaining the paternal consent; Demetrius, on the
other hand, though favoured by the father, fails to excite the
slightest interest in the daughter. Thus Shakespeare rendered
the quarrel both more natural and more dramatic; for either
of the two lovers urges his claims and persists in them, hoping
that it will be he, whose wishes will be crowned with success.
But what is related by Chaucer in the broad and detailed
style of epic poetry, is told by Shakespeare in a few lines of
the liveliest dramatic turn:

Demetrius. Relent, sweet Hermia, and, Lysander yield
Thy crazed title to my certain right.
Lysander. You have the father’s love, Demetrius,
Let me have Hermia’s; do you marry him.
M.S. N.’s Dr. L, 1, ll. 91—95.

According to the Athenian laws Demetrius is better off
than Lysander; for in all matters concerning marriage a
daughter must yield to the will of her father, or else abjure
for ever the society of men. Hermia, therefore, has only the
alternative, either to choose Demetrius for her husband, or to
abjure marriage for ever. Yet Hermia bids defiance to the
austerity of the law; she likes better to remain a maiden for

7°) In Chaucer we also meet with an Egeus (C. T. Il. 2158, 2840,
2907); but here he is — in conformity with history — the father of The-
seus. It is most characteristic that Shakespeare in a point in which
Chaucer’s version corresponds with that of Plutarch, deviates from both
of them, and this circumstance proves, what an unrestrained use he made
of his sources: Finding the name of Egeus and being in want of a
Laie to his heroine, he changed the father of Theseus into that of

exinia,
15

all her life than to contract a marriage with one whom she
cannot love. Lysander, however, finds out a means to elude
the rigorous laws of Athens, and to become the husband of
his beloved Hermia. He makes her the proposal of flying
with him to which she willingly consents. Now, in the
appointment which he gives her, we find the allusion to the
place where Lysander saw Hermia first:

If thou lov’st me, then,
Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night,
And in the wood, a league without the tonn,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena
To do observance to a morn of May,
There nill I stay for thee.
M.S.N’s Dr. I, 1, I. 163—168,

In Chaucer the fates of the two lovers are ruled by Mars
and Venus over whom, however, Saturn stands as an umpire,
or as it were as the highest court of appeal. Arcite pays
homage to Mars, Palamon to Venus; accordingly Mars strives
to confer the victory upon the former, Venus, on the contrary,
upon the latter. Since both of them obstinately persist in
their will, Saturn does not know a better expedient than to
bestow the victory and with it the hand of Emelie first upon
Arcite, but — by way of doing justice to Venus and her client
too — to make him die a few days after, and then to marry
Emelie to Palamon.

Shakespeare in his play has laid the settlement of the
disputes into the power of Oberon which circumstance alone
sufficiently proves that he did not wish the rivalry between
Lysander and Demetrius to be settled by Mars, the god of
war. And what a rough contrast should the two rivals have
formed to the graceful and airy essence of the elves, to the
figure of Puck and to the whole imaginary world of our play,
if they should have appeared, armed cap-a-pie, in a dreadful
fray! Would it not have spoiled all the deliciousness which
breezes through the play? Shakespeare, therefore, could not
develop the plot in the same way as Chaucer had done;
obliged to avoid a deadly struggle between Lysander and
Demetrius, he was to discover a means by which the two
16

lovers could not only be saved, but by which he could also
manage that at the end of the play no spark of envy and
hatred subsided and either party was satisfied. In order to
attain this aim, Shakespeare introduced another female charac-
ter, Helena, who is represented as the former love of De-
metrius.?) Though this fickle youth has perfidiously turned
away from her and bestowed his love upon Hermia, she con-
tinues to be attached to him with matchless tenderness. This
simple contrivance, connected with the supernatural influence
of Oberon, provided Shakespeare with the means to settle the
threatening rivalry between Lysander and Demetrius and thus
to comply at the same time with the wishes of Hermia: Oberon
again infuses love for Helena into the heart of Demetrius, so
that he is by no means sensible of the loss of Hermia, but
rather finds full recompense in the tender love and matchless
faithfulness of Helena.

What an astonishing skill Shakespeare had in making a
free and ingenious use of his sources, nowhere appears more
clearly than in his recasting of the subject transmitted to him
by Chaucer, and especially in the happy removal of the fight
between Palamon and Arcite. In the play just as well as in
Chaucer’s tale Theseus and Hippolyta go a-hunting in the
wood near Athens, and meet with the two rival lovers, but
these are not engaged in a bloody fight, but lying asleep on
a green lawn — close by Hermia and Helena. Theseus and
Hippolyta arrive just in time, for if they had set out on their
hunting party only a little earlier, they could have witnessed
the dispute between Hermia and Helena, or the quarrel be-
tween Lysander and Demetrius, who were about to decide
their affair by the sword. But instead of a fight the poet
introduces that delightful scene how Puck at the command of
Oberon prevents the struggle by imitating the voice now of
the one now of the other, so that either of them imagines to
hear the challenges and invectives of the other whom he
fancies to pursue, whilst, in fact, both are far distant from

*) It is highly probable that Shakespeare was led to this invention
by a scene in Jorge de Montemayor’s novel Diana, Cp. Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Shakespeare - Gesellschatt, XI, pp. 231 seygq.
17

each other, and Puck hunts them round about in the forest,
until they are overpowered by weariness and fall asleep. Now
Puck, according to the directions of Oberon, makes use of the
miraculous flower, Love-in-Idleness, and the two rivals, when
awaking, do no more find any cause for envy and hatred, but
see all their wishes realized. Thus Theseus and Hippolyta
arrive in the wood, when the dispute has already been settled,
and Theseus, highly pleased with the happy unravelling of
the plot and not caring for the opposition of pouting Egeus
says:

Lgeus, I will overbear your nill;
For in the temple, by and by, with us
These couples shall eternally be knit,
And for the morning now is something worn,
Our purposed hunting shall be set aside.
Away nith us to Athens! three and three
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
M. 8. N’s. Dr. IV, 1, ll. 176—182.

Hl.

After having thus delineated the relation existing between
the first group of persons in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s
Dream and Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, I shall now turn to the
second group, that of Oberon and Titania.

Oberon and Titania with their elfin train ‘have been
truly denominated the favourite children of Shakespeare’s
romantic fancy’??), and, perhaps in no part of his works his
pencil has been more creative than in drawing ‘these airy
nothings’. He shows, indeed, an extraordinary originality in
sketching them; for, purposely omitting the darker shades of
character which they bore in popular mythology, he has cast
them, so to say, in an entirely new mould. He altogether
dismisses in his play the fairies of a malignant nature, and
clothes those of a benevolent character ‘with a more fascinating
sportiveness and with a much larger share of unalloyed good-

22) Drake, 1. ¢., p. 502.
18

ness’.23) A comparison of the principal features would show the
great contrast existing between the fairies of Shakespeare and.
those of popular superstition; Shakespeare has decorated those
phantoms ‘with grace, amenity and beauty’,?4) and has added
‘an exuberant store of novel imagery’.25) Nevertheless, in-
genious and inventive as he may have been in drawing his
fairy figures, yet he has derived their general types from old
sources, and a great number of critics have supposed Chaucer’s
Wife of Bathes Tale to have been the basis on which he founded
the charming description of fairy life in his Midsummer Night’s
Dream. On looking however more narrowly into this tale, we
shall be satisfied that it contains nothing but the statement
that in the days of King Arthur the whole country was still
crowded with fairies and elves, and that

The Elf-quene with hire joly compagnie
Danced ful oft in many a grene mede.
C. T. Il. 6452. 53.

Then Chaucer goes on to relate that a knight, when riding along
a forest, saw twenty four young ladies performing a dance;
at his approach they vanished and all that remained was
an ugly old woman sitting beside the way. By her good
advice she saved the knight from a great danger. She then
persuades him to marry her, whereupon she is transformed
into a beautiful young girl.

We hardly need be possessed of a critic’s skilful eye, in
order to discover that the relations between Chaucer’s Wife of
Bathes Tale and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, if
at all existing, are very slight; nor does it appear that Shake-
speare followed that tale in his description of fairy life. But
it might be objected that Shakespeare did not want, after all,
a source for a description of fairy life; for, on the one hand,
he had only to give the rein to his poetical imagination, and
on the other, the belief in the fanciful, and pleasant activity
of goblins and elves was in his times still spread over the
whole country, so that he had only to listen to what was in

23) Cp. Drake, lc. . 503. >) ib. 28) ib.
19

everybody's mouth, in order to be provided with matter sufficient
for a sketch of fairy life.26)

Nevertheless all critics are agreed in supposing Shake-
speare to have based his description on an earlier source; and
though it is doubtful whether they are entitled to consider the
Wife of Bathes Tale as the chief source for the second group
of personages in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, yet
it is more than probable that Shakespeare also in this part of
his play had a story of Chaucer’s before his mind’s eye.
When in a tale of Chaucer's we find not only a fairy king
with his queen, when we see these fairy consorts engaged in
a conflict similar to that which exists between the fairy king
and his queen in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, it may be
well worth while to inquire whether Shakespeare did not derive
from this source the outlines of his Oberon and Titania. The
tale to which we allude, is the Marchantes Tale where Pluto
and Proserpine are represented as fairy king and fairy queen:

Pluto that is king of Faérie,
And many a Lady in his compagnie
Folning his wif the queene Proserpina.
C. T. ll. 10101 —3.

Pluto finds fault with the faithlessness of women, and, indeed,
the scene which he witnesses, authorizes him to utter the
severest complaints against the sex. A young woman whose
aged husband has grown blind, has by stealth appointed her

26) How universally and intimately the English people were acquain-
ted with the traits of fairy life, especially with the mad pranks of Robin
Goodfellow, appears most clearly from the popular ballads which at the
time of Shakespeare were sung and recited throughout the country. —
Such ballads are reprinted in Percy’s Reliqgues of Ancient Poetry, pp.
246 seqq., and in Halliwell’s Introduction to A Midsummer Night's Dream,
pp. 28—45. In these ballads we meet with the same traits that Shake-
speare has introduced in a somewhat different form into his Midsummer
Night's Dream. A comparison between the fairies of the popular ballads
and those of Shakespeare is to be found in Hense, Shakespeare’s Sommer-
nachtstraum erldéutert (Halle 1851) pp. 116—119. I refer to the whole
chapter of this book which is entitled: Die Lifenmythologie (pp. 105—
131). Nor must I forget to mention the essay on fairies in Drake’s
Shakespeare and his Times, pp. 488—511.

g*
20

youthful lover into a garden, where, in presence of her husband,
she commits adultery in the most disgusting manner. 27) Pluto
gives vent to his own feelings in the following words:

My wif [quod he], ther may no wight say nay,
The experience so preveth it every day,
The treson which that woman doth to man,
Ten hundred thousand stories tell I can
Notable of your untrouth and brotelnesse.
Ne see ye not this honourable knight?
Because, alas! that he is blind and old,
His owen man shal make him cokewold.
Lo, wher he sit, the lechour, in the tree.
Now wol 1 graunten of my majestee

Unto this olde blinde worthy knight,

That he shal have again his eyen sight,
Whan that his wif wol don him vilanie,
Than shal he knowen all hire harlotrie,

Both in reprefe of hire and other mo.
C. T. IL 10111 —16, 10128 — 38.

Proserpine cannot but perceive in the complaint of Pluto an
outrage not merely on women in general, but more especially
on her own person. We are, at least, entitled to suppose so
from the angry tone with which she defends both that
adulterous woman endangered by Pluto’s design, and the sex in
general. She replies:

Fe, sire, [quod Proserpine], an wol ye so?
Now by my modre Ceres soule I smere,

That I shail yeve hire suffsant answere,
And alle women after for hire sake;

That though they ben in any gilt ytake,
With face bold they shul hemselve excuse
And bere hem doun that wolden hem accuse.

*7) It speaks greatly in favour of our opinion that by way of epi-
sode Wieland has introduced this tale in the sixth Canto of his ‘Oberon’
and has transformed Pluto and Proserpine into Oberon and Titania.
21

For lacke of answere non of us shal dien,
Al had ye seen a thing with bothe youre eyen,
Fet shul we so visage it hardely,
And wepe and swere and chiden subiilly,
That ye shul ben as lewed as ben gees.
C. T. 1. 10138—50.

Thus we see, Pluto and Proserpine are at variance on
the same point, on account of which Oberon and Titania in
the Midsummer Night’s Dream quarrel: on conjugal fidelity.
The only difference between Shakespeare’s Oberon and Chaucer’s
Pluto, viewed from this point, is that Oberon states in plain
terms and full particulars Titania’s misdemeanours in that
respect, whilst Pluto speaks about women’s falsehood only in
general expressions which Proserpine then interprets as an
aspersion upon her own honour.

It cannot be a matter of surprise to find that Shakespeare
did not confine himself to this quarrel, but added other causes
of dispute between Oberon and Titania; he did so by way of
heightening the vivacity of the dramatic scene. All the rest
of those dissensions, however, do not belong to our subject,
since, to all appearance, Shakespeare did not take them from
Chaucer.

Besides, considering the Marchantes Tale to have been
the immediate source from which Oberon and Titania were
derived, it is, perhaps, not out of place to interject here a
query: Should it not be more than accident that both Pluto
and Oberon have a full power over human sight? Should
not Shakespeare, on the contrary, have imitated Chaucer in
this respect? Pluto is able to remove blindness; and thus he
intends to grant the blind old knight the recovery of his
eyesight at the right moment, in order to be able to convict
his wife of the breach of her marriage-vow. Oberon, on the
other hand, is endowed with the power of fascinating every
eye; he knows the quality of the herb Love-in-Jdleness, whose
juice squeezed out on sleeping eyelids makes both man and
woman ‘madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees’,
though it should be the most horrible monster. At the same
time it depends upon Oberon to break this charm by another
22

herb, and thus to give back again a sound sight to the en-
chanted person.

At first sight it. may seem difficult to account for the
change of the names of Pluto and Proserpine into those of
Oberon and Titania; but such a change of names is only an
external and slight license which Shakespeare has allowed him-
self — as we have seen — already in the first group of personages
in our play and in which every poet of the Elizabethan era
indulged, when borrowing the plot of a drama from an old
tale. Besides we must take into consideration that in our case
such a change was the more required as in the times of Shake-
speare, nay, even long before him, the fairy king went by the
common name of Oberon.*8) Concerning the name of Titania
it is, indeed, still a problem for antiquaries ‘to decide in
what manner Shakespeare was enabled to adopt a title
for his fairy queen so happily in harmony with the time and
scene assigned to her activity. 2°) Simrock%) derives it from
Titti (children), the stealing of whom was said to be a favourite
pursuit of the elfin spirits. This etymology, however, seems
not to be very happily conceived, and it may be more consonant
to probability that the name of Titania is of Shakespeare’s in-
vention, having been suggested to him by Diana who — as

38) The English public had become acquainted with the name of
Oberon especially by the well-known and far-spread French romance
Huon de Bordeaux. Through what an astonishing number of editions
this book has gone in France, may be gathered from Brunet, Manuel
du Libraire, s. v. Huon de Bordeaux. In England it could, certainly,
not attain to general circulation, until it had been translated into Eng-
lish. This translation was made by Lord Berners, and was published
about 1588. — Still more popular, however, Oberon became in England
by the play of Robert Greene: The Scottish History of James IV., slaine
at Flodden. Entermixed with a pleasant Comedie presented by Oboram,
King of Fayeries. Though the editio princeps of this play dates from
the year 1598, yet the play itself was written some time before. For
in 1592 Robert Greene had died already, and it is supposed that the
play was finished and even performed previous to 1590, so that Shake-
Speare, at all events, was not ignorant of it. Cp. Elze, Abhandlungen
zu Shakespeare, (Halle 1877) p. 99. —

2°) Lloyd, 1. ¢., p. 90.

%) K. Simrock, Die Quellen des Shakespeare. [24 edit. Bonn 1870.]
vol. Il, p. 344.
23

king Iames I. says — among the English was called the
Phairee.*1)

As for the general traits of fairy life, finally, Shakespeare
found in the Marchantes Tale neither less nor more of them
than in the Wife of Bathes Tale; but taking into consideration
the arguments already hinted at, we cannot but conclude that
also in such bywork the former tale was the immediate
source of Shakespeare. It will be sufficient to refer for a
proof to the roundel of the fairies:

Ful often time he Pluto and his quene
Proserpina, and alle hir faerie,
Disporten hem, and maken melodie
About that well, and daunced as men told.
C. T. ll. 9912— 16.

Though it cannot be denied that Shakespeare found the
elements of his fairy world both in tradition and in popular
songs and tales, yet our comparison may have proved that he
had the poems of Chaucer and especially the Marchantes Tale
before his mind’s eye, when conceiving the figures of the fairies,
and portraying elfin life in his Midsummer Night’s Dream.

IV.

Proceeding to the third ingredient part of our comedy,
the Tale of Pyramus and Thisbe which is performed as an
interlude by a crew of Athenian mechanics before Theseus
and his court, we must keep in sight two different circumstances:
first the characters of the performers, and then the matter of
the interlude itself. Before, however, considering these two
points, it will be necessary to look for a source which, possibly,
may have furnished Shakespeare with the idea of introducing
an interlude at the end of his play. Professor Ward?) thinks
it to have been suggested to Shakespeare by the performances
of the guilds with which his native county is said to have

3!) See Ward, 1. c. vol. I, p. 381. 32) ib.
24

been specially familiar; but the humorous use to which he put
this ancient practice was probably his own. — Another and,
indeed, very ingenious conjecture has been offered by Mr. Halli-
well:33) Nearly at the end of the Knight’s Tale, he says,
Chaucer, enumerating all the solemn rites that are observed
in honour of the dead Arcite, makes also mention of plays
performed by those who watch the dead body:

The wake-plaies ne kepe I not to say:
Who wrestled best naked, with oile enoint,
Ne who that bare him best in no disjoint,
I wol not telien eke how they all gon
Hom till Athenes whan the play is don.
C. T. Il. 2962—67.

Halliwell thinks this passage to have been the first inducement
for Shakespeare, to insert an interlude in his play; and, this
conjecture seems scarcely open to any valid objection.

The performers of the interlude are chosen and shaped
by Shakespeare according to his wants; and, in this respect,
we cannot but subscribe to Professor Ward’s opinion that their
progenitors have been those craftsmen of the different guilds
who performed miracle- plays and similar pageants at Coventry
and elsewhere. By the choice of such a kind of performers
the poet does not allow us even for a moment to entertain
any doubt concerning the real meaning of his interlude. In
the mouths of such clumsy fellows as Bottom, *) the weaver,
Quince, the carpenter, and their companions even the most
delicate and grave play must be degraded to coarseness and
ridicule; and Shakespeare has treated the tale of Pyramus
and Thisbe just as a joiner or a carpenter would represent
it; he has set the words just as a weaver or a tinker would
speak them. What the poet intended by this treatment is to

38) Halliwell, An Introduction ete. p. 11 seq. :

*) As for the well-suggested name of Bottom, see Halliwell, An
Introduction etc., p. 20. A ballad reprinted in the same book treating
of the transformation of the ears of Midas, is considered by Halliwell as
the source which furnished Shakespeare with the notion of causing a
similar change to take place in the appearance of Bottom, the weaver;
see l. ¢., pp. 17 seqq.
25

be guessed without great difficulty: Shakespeare intended a satire
against those insipid and ridiculous dramas, those pompous
but hollow interludes which were written and performed before
and during his age. In how admirable a manner Shakespeare
attained his aim, is obvious to every reader of the Midsummer
Night’s Dream, however superficially he may be acquainted
with the state of the English stage at Shakespeare’s times.
Besides the discussion of the Interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe
is a field of research already trodden by so many writers of
established reputation that it is no easy task to enter it. Nor
is it necessary to repeat here the whole mass of arguments
given by the most learned Shakespeareans, it may suffice to
refer to Hense, 1. c, pp. 86—105, where a detailed enumeration
of the satirical and parodical elements of the interlude is to
be found.3°)

As for the subject of the interlude itself, Shakespeare had
different sources at his disposal. Hense**) enumerates no less
than four, viz. the tale of Tisbe of Babilon in Chaucer’s Legends
of Good Women; the Metamorphoses of Ovid; an ancient English
ballad, entitled The Panges of Love and Love’s Fittes,*") and
an old Drama, Pyramus and Thisbe.

To begin with the last, Hense is much inelined to suppose
Shakespeare to have made use of this drama which no doubt
preceded our poet. But the arguments by which he maintains
his opinion, are all but decisive. It cannot be denied that
Shakespeare was fond of taking up a subject already made
use of by a former poet, that he availed himself of old poems
as well as of old dramas. He seldom originated a plot, but
took his outline or framework where he found it, developing
and filling it up from the inexhaustible resources of his ima-
gination. We must own that Shakespeare’s humoursome satire

35) Although it cannot be denied that the Interlude of Pyramus and
Thisbe has a satirical tendency, yet this is no argument in favour of
Mr. E. Hermann, who in his essay ‘Ueber Shakespere’s Midsummernight’s
Dream. Eine Studie von ***. Wernigerode 1874’ pronounces the whole
play to be an allegory. Cp. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Ge-
sellschaft, IX. pp. 314 seqq., X. pp. 373 seqq.

36) See Hense, 1. c., pp. 86 —105.
37) Cp. Halliwell, An Introduction etc. pp. 16 seq.
26

may have been provoked by the ridiculous and shallow inter-
ludes of his time, and that the title of his Pyramus and Thisbe
sounds very much like a mockery. We must even allow that
the representation of an old, well-known play, ridiculed by
Shakespeare would have necessarily produced a great effect,
but nevertheless the very basis is wanting to Hense’s argu-
ments: for as long as our knowledge of the old play of Pyramus
and Thisbe is confined to the mere title, and we are consequently
unable to compare its beauties or its defects to those of Shake-
speare’s interlude, all hypotheses concerning the relation .of
the two pieces are at -best ingenious guesses.

Nor can it be stated in how far the old ballad of The
Panges of Love and Love's Fittes may have influenced Shake-
speare. — Without any doubt the two remaining versions of
our story, that is to say Tisbe of Babilon in Chaucer’s Legends
of Good Women, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (in Golding’s
translation 1567) have had a greater importance for Shake-
speare’s Interlude. But before pointing out the relations existing
between Shakespeare and Chaucer on the one hand, and
Shakespeare and Golding on the other, I cannot forbear making
a short digression concerning the connection of both versions
with the original of Ovid.

Chaucer, no doubt, derived the incitement of writing the
Legends of Good Women from Boccaccio, whose collection of
a hundred and five stories De claris mulieribus, told in Latin
prose, includes nearly all those women celebrated by Chaucer.38)
Unhappily I have not succeeded in getting a sight of Boccaccio’s
Latin original, but have only been able to compare Chaucer’s
Legends with an Italian translation of Boccaccio’s work.)
From this comparison I cannot but draw the conclusion that
Chaucer, though being furnished with the greater part of his
stories by Boccaccio, yet followed another source in his Tale
of Pyramus and Thisbe, viz. the Metamorphoses of Ovid, as it
seems to be proved by the very first lines of his version:

38) See H. Morley, A First Sketch of Engl. Lit. (3¢- ed.) pp. 148 seq.

3°) Libro Di M. Gio. Boccaccio Delle Donne Illustri. Tradatto per
Messer Giuseppe Betussi etc. Venetia 1547.
27

This yonge man mwas cleped Piramus
Tisbe hight the maide (Naso saith thus.)
L. of G. W. IL. 724, 25.

Indeed, Chaucer’s Zisbe of Babilon is an accurate, now and
then expanded and amplified translation from Ovid, in which
the original has been adapted to the style of English epic
poetry as closely as it is possible without servility. The course
of the whole tale in Chaucer is just the same as in Ovid’;
there is no essential deviation, even all the sentences, yea
several striking constructions are retained. That one line of
Ovid in the shorter metre of Chaucer was often expanded into
two, is all but astonishing; in general, line after line in Chaucer’s
version runs parallel to the original. In order to show this
strict parallelism, we must find room for some of the most
striking examples: 4°)

1) Ovid: ubi dicitur altem
Coctilibus muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem.
B. IV. WW. 57. 58.
Chaucer: the quene Semiramis
Let dichen all about, and walles make
Full hie, of harde tiles well ibake.
L. of G. W. Il. 706—9.
2) O. taedae quoque jure coissent,
Sed vetuere patres.
B. IV. Il. 60. 61.
Ch. Ther might have been betwixt hem mariage,
But that hir fathers wolde it not assent.
ll. 729. 730.

3) O. Ex aequo captis ardebant mentibus ambo.
B. IV. 1. 62.
Ch. And both in love ylike sore they brent.
1. 731.
4) 0. Quoque magis tegitur, tectus magis aestuat ignis.

B. IV. 1. 64.

40) The lines of the Metamorphoses are quoted from the edition of
R. Merkel, Leipzig 1858 (B. G. Teubner).
28

Ch.

5) 0.

Ch.

6) 0.

Ch.

7) 0.

Ch.

8) 0.

Ch.

9) 0.

Ch.

As wrie the glede, and hotter is the fire.
L 735.

Ouid non sentit amor?..
B. IV. 1. 68.

But what is that, that love cannot espie?
1. 742,

Postera nocturnos aurora removerat ignes,

Solque pruinosas radiis siccaverat herbas.
B. IV. Il. 81. 82.

Till on a day, whan Phebus gan to clere
Aurora with the stremes of her hete
Had dried up the dew of herbes mete.
ll, 773 — 76.

Pervenit ad tumulum, dictaque sub arbore sedit:
Audacem faciebat amor.
B. IV. ll. 95. 96.

And to the tree she goes a full good pace
For love made her so hardy in this case,
And by the well adoun she gan her dresse.
ll. 803 —6.

ee cet »Una duos“, inquit, ,nox perdet amantes*.
B. IV. 1. 108.

This 0 night woll both us lovers slay!
L. 835.

Illa redit, juvenemque oculis animoque requirit.
B. IV. 1. 129.

And out she cometh, and after him gan espien
Both with her herte and mith her eien.
ll. 859. 860.

The most strange instance of a construction transferred
from the original to the translation is the following:

0.

primi vidistis amantes
Et vocis fecistis iter, tutaeque, per illud
Murmure blanditiae minimo transire solebant.
B. IV. I. 68 — 71.
29

Ch. Ve lovers two, if that I shall not lie
Ve founden first this little narrow clift,
And with a sound, as soft as any shrift,
They let their wordes through the clifte passe.
ll. 743 — 47.
This short comparison seems sufficient to establish the
close connection existing between Chaucer's Tisbe of Babilon
and Ovid’s Metamorphoses; but the examples, as given in the
preceding lines could easily be trebled; only in order not to
stray too far from my subject, I have confined myself to so
smalla number. Yet they furnish the proof that Chaucer translated
Ovid in his Tisbe of Babilon. To this positive side of our proof,
however, we must add a negative one, viz. that Chaucer cannot
have derived his tale from Boccaccio. Boceaecio’s story of
Pyramus and Thisbe is a most free translation of Ovid, only
in rare cases a sentence being rendered, and, even then, in a
deviating form; and — what is more cogent — a great many
sentences, that are to be read both in Ovid and in Chaucer,
‘are not to be found in Boccaccio. — In the very beginning,
for instance, no mention is made of Queen Semiramis nor of
the walles full hie, of harde tiles well ybake; then, the sentence
Quoque magis tegitur, tectus magis aestuat ignis is not translated;
likewise the question But what is that, that love cannot espie?
is omitted; Boccaccio has further passed over the phrase
Audacem faciebat amor! and the complaint of Pyramus Una
duos nox perdet amantes is wanting. With how little faithfulness
Boceaccio’s translation has been executed, may be concluded
from passages like the following. The lines of Ovid:
Pyramus et Thisbe, juvenum puicherrimus alter,
Altera, quas oriens habuit, praelata puellis!
B. IV. IL 55. 56.
which Chaucer translates:
that one man had a sonne (i.e. Pyr.)
Of all the lond one of the lustiest,
That other had a daughter, the fairest
That esitward in the world was tho dwelling.
I. 715—19.
are given by Boccaccio in the few words: essendo tutti due
bellisimi. Another passage, corresponding to Ovid, B. IV. ll.
30

772—85 runs thus: Finalmente cressendo le fiamme tennero
consiglio di fuggirsi, ordinando la seguente notte tosto che
ciascuno di loro potesse ingannar i suoi partirsi di casa, g Tun
Paltro se alcuno prima se n’andasse, aspettarsi in un bosco vicino
alla citi appresso un fonte vicino alla sepultura di Nino. [Delle
Donne Illustri, Trad. per Messer Giuseppe Betussi, Venetia
1547, p. 174), ;

Where is to be found in this prose that strict adherence
to the original which forms so prominent a feature of Chaucer's
tale? — Only one passage may be quoted that bears a closer
likeness to the corresponding lines in Ovid, viz. the lines

Ad nomen Thisbes oculos jam morte gravatos
Pyramus erexit, visaque recondidit illa.

B. IV, ll. 145. 146.
which in Boceaccio’s prose version have been rendered thus:
il nome della amata Donzella, ne pati di negarle ultima domanda,
et gli occhi aggravati dalla morte aperse riguardando quella che
lo chiamava. [p. 17>].

A second point of the highest argumentative weight is
that in Boccaccio’s prose the fluent course of the tale is nowhere
interrupted by a soliloquy or a discourse, such as are most
frequent in Ovid as well as in Chaucer, who in this regard
entirely adapts his tale to that of Ovid, with the exception of
a single passage where he inserts a discourse, whilst Ovid
continues in the tone of narration.

Turning to the Matamorphoses of Arthur Golding, it may
be well to say some words about the relation in which
they stand to their original. Golding’s translation seems to
have been held in great repute with contemporary and later
critics. Puttenham, f. i, in his Arte of English Poesie*) com-
mends Golding for a learned and well-connected verse; Pope 4?)
cannot but style the translation a good one, considering the
time when it was written; and Warton4*) says: ‘His style is
poetical and spirited, and his versification clear; his manner
ornamentel and diffuse, yet with a sufficient observance of
the original’.

 

 

41) See Allibone, A Critical Dictionary, etc., s. Golding. 42) ib.
43) Warton, History of English Poetry (London 1840) III, 332.
31

Nevertheless, Golding met already among his contempo-
raries with adversaries, the most implacable of them being
Roger Ascham who censured Golding’s translation as barbarous
and rude Ryming. In our days it has excited something like
contempt in the austere critics, so that Hallam‘*) does not
hesitate to say: ‘The translations of ancient pocts by Phair,
Golding, Stanihurst, and several more, do not challenge our
attention; most of them, in fact, being very wretched per-
formances’.

And, indeed, Golding’s Metamorphoses may hardly claim
the title of a translation, but are rather a paraphrase in every
sense of the word. Golding interpolates; his style is diffuse,
and as for his diction and tono those who read his translation
had better not remember Ovid. His verse is rhymed, of
fourteen syllables which, in a manner, corresponds to the Latin
hexameter. But, at the same time, it is not free from monotony,
and we cannot but agree with Hense4>) who gives it as his
opinion that several passages in Golding’s translation make an
impression no less comic and ridiculous than the words of the
actors in ‘The most lamentable Comedy and most cruel Death
of Pyramus and Thisbe’.

As an example the death-scene of Pyramus may be
quoted : 46)

And when he had bewept, and kist the garment which he knen,
Receive thou my blood too (quoth he); and theremithall he drew
His sword, the which among his guts he thrust, and by and bie
Did draw it from the bleeding wound, beginning for to die,
And cast himselfe upon his backe, the blood did spinne on hie,
As when a conduite pipe is crackt, the water bursting out

Doth shote itseife a great way off, and pierse the ayre about,
The leaves that were upon the tree, besprinkled mith his blood,
Were died black. The roote also bestained as it stood,

A deepe dark purple colour straight upon the berries cast etc.

Though Golding’s translation bears a somewhat strange
character, nay, perhaps even because it bears such a strange

 

““) Hallam, Introduction to the Literary History of Europe IJ, 197.
45) Hense, 1. c., p. 88, footnote.
46) See Halliwell, An Introduction etc., p. 14.
32

character, it seems to have become the source of Shakespeare’s
Interlude. Delius,4’) it is true, thinks it more probable that
Shakespeare resorted to Chaucer’s Legends of Good Women;
and, indeed, it cannot be denied that some passage or other
in the Interlude calls to mind the Legend of Tisbe of Babilon.
Thus, e. g., Pyramus’ address to Wall:
O wicked wall, through whom TI see no bliss
M. S. N’s. Dr. V, 1. 1. 178.

bears a most remarkable resemblance to what we read in
the Legend of Tisbe of Babilon:
Thus wold they say ‘Alas! thou wicked wail,

Through thine envie thou us lettest all’!
ll. 756. 757.

Professor Ward’s 48) opinion, however, is contrary to that
of Delius; though not denying that Shakespeare was acquainted
with Chaucer’s Legends of Good Women, he thinks the story
of Pyramus and Thisbe to have been taken directly from
Golding’s Metamorphoses. In our opinion this latter notion
comes certainly nearer to truth than the former. Although
Shakespeare was indebted to Chaucer for two parts of the
plot of his Midsummer Night’s Dream, and although he found
the third part too in the works of the same poet, yet he did
not follow him in this third part. Chaucer relates the love-
affair of Pyramus and Thisbe in too serious a tone, he sym-
pathizes too much with his heroes as to inspire us with the
belief: that his version should have induced Shakespeare to
caricature that old love-tale. The case is different with
Golding’s translation; it tastes already of ridicule, and Shake-
speare had not much to add, in order to produce a caricature.

This is the internal evidence according to which Golding,
and not Chaucer is to be considered as the immediate source
of Shakespeare’s Interlude; there may still be added an ex-
ternal circumstance which points very distinctly to Golding.
Shakespeare’s Pyramus and Thisbe cite Schafalus and Procrus
(V, 1, I. 197, 198), misconceptions for Cephalus and Procris,
whose story is related in the Metamorphoses. Two more

47) Delius, 1. ¢., vol. I., p. 274.
48 Ward, 1. ¢., vol. I. p. 380.
33

ancient persons, Leander and Helena, are mentioned by the
names of Limander and Helen.

Lastly it will be necessary to add a few words about a
metrical test. — The complaints of Pyramus and Thisbe in
Shakespeare are written in short lines, three of which always
form, as it were, a stanza; the two first lines consist of four
syllables, the third consists of six, so that the three lines to-
gether make up the sum of fourteen syllables. Now, as the
fourteen syllabic verse of Golding has a pause after the eighth
syllable, the syllables before the pause may be considered as
corresponding to the first two lines, and those after the pause
as corresponding to the third line of this stanza, if it may be
so termed. Thus Shakespeare was furnished with a metre
for this part of his interlude by Golding. He had only to divide
the eight syllables before the pause into two rhyming lines,
and to make the six syllables after the pause form a sub-
stantial longer line. The whole flow of the metre remaining
the same as in Golding, the two rhyming lines have no other
effect than to add another and new element of ridicule and
monotony to those already contained in Golding’s translation.
To show the truth of this opinion, we need only compare the
words which accompany the death of Pyramus in Shakespeare
with the corresponding passage in Golding as cited above:

Come, tears, confound,
Out, sword, and wound,

The pap of Pyramus. —
Ay that left pap,

Where heart doth pop

Thus die I, thus, thus, thus!
Now am I dead,

Now am I fled,

My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light,
Moon, take thy flight,

Now die, die, die, die, die!

V.

Finally to sum up the results of the preceding essay, I

think to have proved that Chaucer is to be considered as the
3
34

direct source for the first group of personages in Shakespeare’s
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Though Shakespeare was not only
very familiar with North’s Plutarch, but even availed himself
of it for a few incidents in our play, yet the characters of
Theseus, Hippolyta, Lysander, Demetrius and Hermia have no
doubt been derived from Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, which also
suggested to Shakespeare the person of Egeus. Only the
character of Helena is due to Shakespeare’s own invention.

As for the second group, it cannot be denied that Shake-
speare, when describing the life of the fairies, partly made use
popular songs and tales, whereas, on the other hand, the
figures of Oberon and Titania bear so striking a resemblance
to Pluto and Proserpine that we cannot but think the former
to have been drawn after the latter.

The third ingredient part of the Midsummer Night’s Dream,
the Interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe, has its source not in
Chaucer’s Legends of Good Women, but in Golding’s Meta-
morphoses.
Vita.

Natus sum Ludovicus Ernestus Adolphus Proescholdt Sal-
zungiae, in oppido Thuringo, a. d. VII. Cal. Mart. anno LIV,
patre Carolo, matre Johanna, e gente Motziana, quos parentes
carissimos praematura morte mihi ereptos magnopere lugeo.
Fidem profiteor evangelicam. Litterarum elementis imbutus
partim in schola patriae urbis, partim in reali quam vocant
schola Meiningensi, rectoribus Knochenhauer et postea
H. Emmerich ad studia academica praeparatus sum. Testi-
monio maturitatis impetrato a. LXXIII studio philologiae me
dedi recentioris in Universitate Lipsiensi, ubi per quatuor
semestria scholas adii vv. ill. Brandes, Braune, Drobisch,
Ebert, Hermann, Hildebrand, Mayer, Paul, Voigt,
Wuelcker, Zarncke. Deinde Halas Saxonum me contuli,
ibique per duo semestria scholis interfui virorum doctissimorum
Elze, Schuchardt, Ulrici. Munere praeceptoris in familia
Voerste unum per annum functus, Halas Saxonum redii. Bene-
volentia vv. dd. Elzii et Schuchardtii mihi contigit, ut per
unum annum seminarii Anglici et Romanici sodalis essem.
Societati suae Anglicae interesse liberaliter mihi permisit
Richardus Wuelcker Lipsiensis, itemque Suchierus, ut
exercitationum seminarii Romanici per unum semestre particeps
essem benigne concessit. Illis omnibus viris clarissimis et
doctissimis, qui studia mea moderati sunt, quantum debeam,
grato animo tenebo.
 

x eS
ee Oe ae ee —/ a faa ee