A Midsummer Night's Dream Theseus Quotes

Yikes! In the play's opening scene, we discover that Theseus and Hippolyta are about to be married because Theseus conquered Hippolyta and her people (the Amazons). Although Hippolyta seems pretty pleased with the engagement, we're left with the uneasy feeling that Theseus sees love as something that can be won by sheer force.  This idea resurfaces again just a few moments later when Theseus determines that a young woman must marry (against her will) the man her father has chosen for her. Otherwise, she'll face the death penalty or life as a celibate nun. 

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the seemingly natural course of love ends in marriage. (This is true of all Shakespearean comedies; head over to the "Genre" section for all the deets.) Here, Theseus's wedding day has finally arrived and the two sets of Athenian lovers have been paired up, despite Egeus's objections. Still, this seemingly happy ending leaves us a little nervous, if not skeptical. After all, the only reason Demetrius loves Helena is that he's under the spell of the magic love juice.  

Here, Theseus orders his Master of the Revels to drum up some entertainment and a general party atmosphere.  In Shakespeare's day, the Master of the Revels was the title of the royal court's official party planner.  He was in charge of hiring entertainers and deciding which plays could be performed on public stages in and around London.  He also had the authority to censor plays that were offensive or potentially rebellious in theme or content. 

After hearing the young Athenians' stories, Theseus says that madmen, lovers, and poets have a lot in common—they're all highly imaginative and also a little nuts. 

A lot of literary critics have pointed out that, in terms of plot, the craftsmen's actual performance of Pyramus and Thisbe (Act 5, Scene 1) isn't even necessary because, by the time the Mechanicals perform their play, Shakespeare has already wrapped things up by marrying off all of his couples and assuring us of a happy ending.  So, why does Shakespeare bother with the Mechanicals' performance?  Is it just to torture his newly married couples by delaying their wedding night?  Something else? 

When Philostrate refers to the Mechanicals as men who have "never labour'd in their minds till now," he suggests the craftsmen are incompetent actors because they're uneducated.  Is this the play's overall attitude toward acting and the theater?  It certainly seems that way, because the Mechanicals are clueless about common theatrical conventions (basic staging, use of props, and so on) and butcher the names of classical places and figures during the performance.  Is Shakespeare being a snob or, is he depicting his profession as a craft that requires skill and intelligence?

Here, we're reminded that, even though the amateur actors are pretty lousy, they certainly mean well.  We can also see that, if you want to be an actor (like Bottom and Peter Quince do), then you've got to put yourself out there and be willing to humiliate yourself in the process. 

Theseus believes love has the transformative power to change him from Hippolyta's enemy to her lover and to change Hippolyta from an Amazon Queen to a happy wife.

This is weird and kind of random, don't you think?  When Theseus gripes about having to wait so long for his wedding night with Hippolyta, he compares the moon to a greedy stepmother ("step-dame") or widow ("dowager"), spending all of her son's inheritance.  Theseus's complaint seems directed at women in general, so we're immediately aware that the play will dramatize some gender tension.

It turns out that Theseus and Hippolyta are getting hitched because Theseus conquered Hippolyta's people, the Amazons. As we know, the Elizabethans were fascinated by classical myths about Amazons, women who cut or burned off their breasts so they could shoot a bow and arrow more efficiently, raised their daughters to be warriors, dominated their husbands, and treated their sons badly by sending them away, making them do "girlie" housework, and/or by killing them. 

Why does this matter?  Well, because Amazons dominate men, they flip the traditional European gender system on its head.  In Shakespeare's play, though, men regain their positions of power over women. (Theseus marries the Amazonian Queen he won in battle and, also, Oberon humiliates Titania and takes away her foster child). At least that's how literary critic Adrian Montrose sees it. He  argues that A Midsummer Night's Dream "eventually restores the inverted Amazonian system of gender and nurture to a patriarchal norm."

Brain Snack: In one of Shakespeare's major sources (Plutarch's "The Life of Theseus"), Theseus easily beats the Amazons in battle and captures Hippolyta after luring her onto his boat.  (According to Plutarch, Theseus is the McLovin of the ancient world, so Hippolyta could hardly resist his charms.)  You can read the story here.

Theseus says that fathers are like "gods" and daughters are like globs of wax.  (This is a pretty common idea in 16th-century literature, where kids are often said to look like their fathers because they're "imprint[ed]" by their dads' images, much humans are said to be made in God's image.)  Here, Theseus's metaphor is sinister because he says that, because Egeus had the power to make Hermia in his own image, he also has the "power" to "disfigure" her (body/face) if he feels like it. 

Hermia is left with very few choices if she refuses to marry the man her father has chosen for her.  Here, we learn that she must either wed Demetrius or choose from the following: 1) become a nun, or 2) die.  It seems that Egeus and Theseus attempt to control Hermia's sexuality by trying to force her into an unwanted marriage or, alternatively, a nunnery, where she will be forced to live a life of "austerity." 

Theseus points out that there is no single reality, but different realities depending on your perspective.  In particular, the lover, the madman, and the poet all suffer from too much imagination, which distorts their versions of reality. The implication is that Theseus is without imagination, and so his version of reality is more practical and thus closer to the truth. Still, we know from Oberon's earlier speech that Titania has helped Theseus on more than one occasion, so he is as subject to magic as anyone else and might be more foolish than the lover, madman, and poet for not being able to see reality as broader than his narrow worldview would have it.

All of the possible entertainments are art in some form or another, a retelling of "true" events for a different purpose. In this list, we see that art might also be the act of presenting different versions of reality. It is entertaining for the mind to stretch this way, to consider more than what comes naturally to one's own version of reality.

Theseus explains to Hermia what her options are, but thinks that a vow of chastity would be a poor choice.  For Theseus, choosing love over practicality is foolishness.