Moore: The Transformation of Bottom 
47 
they had no heads; and so they went forth unto certain of their neigh- 
bours, at which sight the people were most wonderfully afraid, and 
as the use of Germany is, that wheresoever a mask entreth, the good 
man of the house must feast them; so as these maskers were set to their 
banquet, they seemed again in their former shape with heads, insomuch, 
that they were all known who they were; and having sat, and well eat 
and drank, Dr. Faustus made that every one had an ass’s head on, 
with great and long ears, so they fell to dancing and to drive away 
the time until it was midnight, and then everyone departed home, and 
as soon as they were out of the house, each one was in his natural shape, 
and so they ended and went to sleep . 4 
But even here the differences are great: the students were 
not unwilling or apparently unconscious victims of the 
magician, but were so much pleased with this and the rest 
of “Faustus’s jesting tricks’’ that 
Dr. Faustus was invited unto the students that were with him the 
day before, where they had prepared an excellent banquet for him. . . . 
Dr. Faustus asked leave to depart, but they would in no wise agree to 
let him go, except that he would promise to come again presently . 5 
In all of these analogues it will be observed that two es- 
sential features of the transformation of Bottom are never 
found: the hero does not remain the unwitting victim of a 
trick, and he is not led to expose himself still further by the 
seductions of feminine beauty. 
Both of these elements are fairly well represented in the 
moralities and interludes, where it sometimes happens that 
the hero is lulled to sleep (usually by singing) in the midst 
of a company of beautiful women; and that while he is still 
in slumber, or is otherwise under their influence, he is sub- 
jected to gross indignities, or is even transformed by means 
of a false head. 
Something of this sort is implied by a stage direction in 
Ane Satyr e of The Three Estaitis: 
Heir sail the Ladies sing ane sang, the King sail ly doun 
amang the Ladies, and then Veritie sail enter . 6 
In The Marriage of Wit and Science Idleness sings Wit to 
sleep in her lap, and then causes her son Ignorance to ex- 
change garments with him. On awaking thus metamor- 
phosed, Wit has great difficulty in establishing his own 
4 The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus, chap, 
xliii. Early English Prose Romances, ed. William J. Thoms, 2d ed., London, 1858, Vol. III. 
5 Ibid., chap. xliv. 
6 The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay. ed. by David Laing, Edinburgh, 1879, 
II, 58. 
