Shakespeares Christmas Gift to Queen Bess | Page 4

Anna Benneson McMahan
of your graces and your gifts
to tell."
And through the patronage of this man--the gracious Karl of
Southampton--the actor-author was first brought to the Queen's notice,
finally leading to the present distinction at her hands.
[Illustration: Earl of Southampton]
But now the stage compels attention. The silk curtains are withdrawn,
disclosing a setting of such elaboration and illusion as never before has
been witnessed by sixteenth century eyes. Never before has the frugal
Elizabeth consented to such an expenditure for costumes, properties,

lights, and music. In vain the audience awaits the coming of the author;
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
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