Страница 11 из 205
—Act II, scene i, lines 64-68
It is not moderns only who long for a simpler past and who imagine a world of country joy and pastoral pleasures. The city folk of Shakespeare's time, and for that matter, those of ancient times, likewise turned away from what they conceived to be the corrupting influence of city life and longed for a magical land of shepherds and milkmaids ("Arcadia") that never really existed.
Pastoral plays and poetry were a fad in Shakespeare's time and one conventional name for the shepherd-hero was Corin. Indeed, Shakespeare makes use of that name for a shepherd in his own pastoral play As You Like It (see page I-568). As for Phyllida, that is a version of "Phyllis," a traditional name for a pastoral heroine, and a good one too, since it means "leafy" in Greek.
Titania accuses Oberon, further, of having arrived in Athens from India only to be at Theseus' wedding because he himself has been a past lover of Hippolyta.
Accusations like these make us think of Oberon and Titania as full-sized. To be sure, they can take any shape they wish (Oberon made love to Phyllida "in the shape of Corin") but it is difficult to think of them being lovingly interested in coarse humans if they themselves are dainty enough to fit in an acorn cup.
Oberon, furious at Titania's scandalous allegations, accuses her in turn of being in love with Theseus and having caused him to betray earlier loves of whom she had been jealous. Oberon says:
-Act II, scene i, lines 77-80
These were women whom Theseus met in the course of his adventures. Thus, Perigenia was the daughter of Sinis, a wicked bandit who lived at the Corinthian Isthmus. Sinis would bend the tops of pine trees to the ground and tie some luckless traveler's right foot to one pine tree, and left-foot to the other. He would then release the trees, which would spring upright, tearing the traveler in two.
Theseus wrestled with him and killed him, then discovered the bandit's daughter hiding in terror. She fell in love with him at once. Theseus had a child by her, but then gave her to one of his companions.
Aegles and Antiopa are two other loves of Theseus. In fact, Antiopa (Antiope) is the name of the Amazonian Queen, for which Shakespeare substituted the name "Hippolyta."
By all odds, the most famous of the forsaken maidens is Ariadne. She was the daughter of King Minos of Crete, who, when Theseus was a youth, held Athens under tribute, demanding seven youths and seven maidens each year. These were sacrificed to the Minotaur, a bull-headed monster. (This is a legendary memory of the time, prior to 1400 b.c., when Crete was the greatest naval power in the Mediterranean, and when bull worship was an important factor in its religion.)
Theseus had himself selected as one of the seven youths and sailed to Crete to place an end to the tribute once and for all.
The Minotaur was hidden in the center of a labyrinth so intricate that no one entering could expect to find his way out even if he were so fortunate as to kill the monster. (This may well have been a Grecian memory of the great palace at Knossos, the Cretan capital, which had so many rooms that the unsophisticated Greeks of the day must have wondered how anyone could find his way around within it.)
Minos' daughter, Ariadne, having fallen in love with Theseus, gave him a magic ball of twine which would unwind before him, leading him to the Minotaur, and which he could then trace back for the return. Theseus followed the twine, killed the Minotaur, and returned.
The Athenian had promised to make Ariadne his wife in return and when he left Crete, he took her with him. They landed on the Aegean island of Naxos and while she slept, Theseus and his party stole away and made for Athens without her. Why he deserted her the myths don't say, though Mary Renault has a fascinating conjecture concerning it in her novel The King Must Die.
Titania, womanlike, dismisses the charges scornfully as fantasies born of jealousy. She speaks bitterly of their quarreling as having caused the very seasons to have grown confused (a dear reflection of the role of the fairies as nature spirits):
—Act II, scene i, lines 111-14
The interest here lies in that some critics see this to be a contemporary reference. The years 1594-96 were horrible, from the standpoint of weather, in England, and if the play had been written in 1595, Shakespeare might have been referring to the weather at this time.
Oberon points out that to end the quarreling, all that need be done is for Titania to give up the Indian changeling, but this Titania flatly refuses to do, and they part.
The chafed Oberon decides to teach Titania a lesson. He calls Puck to him and reminds him of a time they listened to a mermaid (see page 1-12) sing. Oberon says:
—Act II, scene i, lines 152-54
This represents the romantic belief that even inanimate nature responds to beautiful music. This is most commonly aired in co
The Greeks supposed that the stars possessed a sphere of their own. The stars do not move relative to each other (they are "fixed stars" as opposed to the planets) and all were affixed to a single sphere, therefore. Shakespeare, however, mistakenly supposes each star to have its individual sphere and therefore says the stars shot madly from their "spheres."
The thought that a star could leave its sphere arises from the sight of "shooting stars," which are not stars at all, of course, but fragments of matter, often no larger than a pinhead, which in their travels about the sun collide with the earth and are heated to white brilliance by friction with the air.
Oberon goes on:
—Act II, scene i, lines 155-58