...intrigued by what the lovers have been saying about the previous night, but Theseus will have none of it: Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such...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...

...the merely unconventional in manners to envisage the more vital incongruities in personality itself. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such...devils than vast hell can hold, That is the madman: die lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy...

...backwards and watch others watching the action : — Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. —More strange than true : I never may believe These...apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. (V. i. r-6) And not content with likening a lover's truth to that of a madman, Theseus equates these...

...andiamo! Escono Bottom e gli amici VI Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, lords, and attendants HIPPOLYTA 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers...compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold. 10 That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. The poet's...

...from Inigo Jones' stage design that reason controls, while still being part of the physical world: More strange than true. I never may believe These...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...

...Night's Dream lra|pW2.^H ' (Bottom) (Theseus) ft HESS*! — SoIfflMp rffi -f Is?. «£* «^tf £ It I never may believe These antique fables, nor these...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...

...both of which he recognizes as akin to the poet's imaginative capacity to body forth a new reality: Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such...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...

...and in one of the play's most remembered speeches philosophizes on the fallacies of the imagination: I never may believe These antique fables, nor these...comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. (5.1 .2—8) (Theseus himself is so antique and fabulous a hero that...

...imagination have a classic debate towards the end of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Vi1-8, 14-17): HIPPOLYTA: 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers...comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. . . . And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown,...

...Theseus, that these lovers JL speak of. THESEUS. More strange than true: I never may believe These antick If you did, I care not. CASSIUS. When Caesar lived...me. MARCUS BRUTUS. Peace, peace! you durst not so Jiell can hold, — That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of...