The Wykehamist erous eyes, to gouge the balls fro their sockets— the power was lent by her anger.’( XIII. 559-562)
finally exacting her revenge on Polymestor, the murderer of her son, a captive queen returned to power in her grief.
However, in situations other than extreme grief and the assumed subsequent madness, female rulers and queens in Shakespeare’ s plays follow traditions found in Ovid’ s poetry which require them to either become passively submissive once married, or become villainised and feared for their uncontrollable nature. The similarities between Titania, queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’ s Dream, and Juno, queen of the gods in the Metamorphoses, is striking, since both refuse to bend to the wills of their, often errant, husbands, resulting in violent quarrels. On the other hand, the results of such quarrels often have different consequences in Ovid and Shakespeare: when Juno loses her bet to Jupiter in the Metamorphoses, she lashes out against the unfortunate Tiresias, blinding him, but Jupiter can’ t negate her actions,
‘ As gods are never allowed to undo each other’ s work’( III. 336)
affording Juno some degree of individual power, no matter how cruel her use of it may be. Contrastingly, when Titania attempts to punish Oberon for frustrating her plans,
‘ And never, since the middle summer’ s spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By pavèd fountain, or by rushy brook, Or in the beachèd margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport … … And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension.
We are their parents and original.’( II. i. 83-88 … 116-118)
she is later drugged and publicly humiliated by Oberon and Puck’ s trickery, leading her to submit to her husband in her shame, and once more play the part of the loyal wife. This is an idea which is mirrored among the mortals of A Midsummer Night’ s Dream in Hippolyta, to whom Theseus proudly admits,
‘ I wooed thee with my sword, and won thy love doing thee injuries’,( I. i. 17)
seeing no shame in having to force his queen into submission. As a recognised mythological character, Shakespeare uses the figure of Hippolyta to show how even the strongest women in the Classics can be controlled by the men around them, limiting her power by effectively removing her from the story— Hippolyta, a mythical persona, has just 35 lines, fewer even than Egeus, the fiercely constrictive and traditionalist( but otherwise not noteworthy) father of one of the play’ s central lovers. Shakespeare takes Ovid’ s narrative of a querulous wife who irritates her husband, but is ultimately ignored where possible, and adapts it to fit the Elizabethan mould of what makes a good wife, and possibly even a good queen: male influence. In light of Elizabeth I’ s unmarried status and the crisis of succession which was prevalent in England at the time, Shakespeare’ s portrayal of a woman’ s dangerous and overly emotional use of power being curbed by a husband implies an underlying hope for Elizabeth’ s marriage.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it is clear that Shakespeare’ s reception of Ovid’ s Metamorphoses and Heroides had a profound effect on his portrayal of women in his plays: Shakespeare
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