Certain New Elucidations of Shakespeare 41 



The Fourth Act is properly, and in Shakespeare always, a pre- 

 paring-time. Titania resigns her changeling, and is restored to 

 sanity, and the fairies break up their game at dawn. Horns 

 sound, and Theseus and Hippolyta, who have somehow kept 

 Egeus for three days with them, come upon and annex the middle 

 party. These two couples, from the wonder of their fortunes, 

 are invited to the temple, where, not much after sunrise, the 

 triple weddings are dispatched. Thus are all preliminaries com- 

 pleted, and the * solemnities,' on which our consummation is 

 based, and by which Hippolyta sets such store, put in prospect 

 for the concluding act. 



The scene is set again, as at opening, in the palace. Theseus 

 and Hippolyta, on their thrones of state, are still discussing the 

 adventures told by their partners of the wedding ceremony, and 

 how Demetrius's ' love to Hermia melted as the snow.' No- 

 where else does Shakespeare exalt a character through endow- 

 ments of thought and speech as he exalts Theseus now : 



Hippolyta. 'T is strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of, 



Theseus. 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. 



This, if not the language of the gods, is couched and phrased in 

 the dialect at least of demigods. These superior beings were 

 perhaps strangers to the promptings of gallantry. This may be 

 the reason why Theseus, as in full character of master and lord 

 he scans the report of Philostrate to select the opening sports, 



143 



