Shakespeares Christmas Gift to Queen Bess | Page 4

he is behind the scenes, an anxious and watchful partner with the machinist in securing the proper working of these new mechanical appliances, and the smoothness of the scene shifting. The Queen is a connoisseur in these matters, and there must be no bungling.
The stage is divided horizontally between the roof and floor, the upper part concealed from the audience, while the lower section represents the interior of a royal palace at Athens. Three soundings of the cornet announce the opening of the play with its stately dialogue, in which Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, anticipate their approaching nuptials. Egeus enters with his daughter Hermia to bring complaint to the Duke that she will not marry Demetrius, the husband he has selected for her, but is bewitched with love for Lysander. The Duke reasons with Hermia; but the maiden is still obdurate and demands to know the worst that may befall if she refuses to wed Demetrius. The Duke pronounces sentence:--
"Either to die the death, or to abjure Forever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires. Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon, Thrice blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness."
[Illustration: Queen Elizabeth listening to the Play]
The tributes to the "maiden pilgrimage" and "single blessedness" win from the Queen's countenance a glow which age has had no power to diminish. The highway to favour with the Virgin Queen, as every courtier and every writer knows, lies through praises of her voluntary state of celibacy.
Thus threatened, Hermia is urged by Lysander to a clandestine marriage:--
"If thou lov'st me then, Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night, And in the wood, a league without the town, Where I did meet thee once with Helena To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee."
[Illustration:
"In the wood, a league without the town To do observance to a morn of May." ]
Hermia, hearing these words, feels her heart leap with joy. She tries to answer soberly, in the same measure used by her lover; but as her words become impassioned she breaks into rhyme.
My good Lysander! I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage green, When the false Trojan under sail was seen; By all the vows that ever men have broke, In number more than ever woman spoke, In that same place thou hast appointed me, To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
A scene of homely prose follows. The tradesmen and tinkers of Athens are planning to turn actors and to play "Pyramus and Thisbe" for the Duke's wedding feast. It is full of "local hits," which are not lost upon the audience. In the practical jokes, the melodrama, the ranting bombast, and Bottom's ambition to play "a tyrant's vein," they recognise a satire on the amateur theatricals of the trades-guilds, the clownish horseplay of the "moralities" so-called. These crude plays, once so popular, have become the jest of an audience who pride themselves on a drama of higher ideals and greater art.
A sudden fall of the upper curtain, and the lower stage is concealed, the upper one breaking upon the view of the delighted spectators and announcing Act II of the play. It is a night scene in a wood near Athens; mossy banks and green trees; clouds and twinkling stars in the heavens; forms of fairies sitting about like humming birds, or resting in nodding fern leaves. They sing in quick, short rhymes, suiting the tempo to their actions:--
[Illustration: Woods near Stratford
"Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind." ]
Over hill, over dale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the Fairy Queen, To dew her orbs upon the green.
The fairy Queen and King appear, engaged in a very human quarrel. Titania, like any mortal woman, is little disposed to yield to the demands of her lord and master one of her cherished treasures. They part in anger, and Oberon summons Puck, the arch mischief maker, and sets on