encountered by Egyptian armies adventuring southward, for, in the time of their stronger dynasties, the Egyptians controlled regions far into what is now the Sudan. Individual pygmies were very likely brought back as prisoners and rumors of such human beings, with the shortness exaggerated, would then serve as the basis for the Greek legend.
The Daughter also sings a sad song which deals with a maiden who searches for her love, and then, worn out and weary, she adds:
O for a prick now like a nightingale,
To put my breast against! I shall sleep like a top else.
- Act III, scene iv, lines 25-26
The nightingale's song can be heard all night long and it was a common folk belief that it had to lean against a thorn so that the pain would keep it awake and singing.
... Meleager and the boar
The countrymen have now worked out a dance with which to amuse and please Theseus and Hippolyta, who are out hunting. (This is reminiscent of the play Pyramus and Thisbe which entertained the same couple in A Midsummer Night's Dream.)
The countrymen are under the direction of a pedantic schoolmaster who interlards his speech with unnecessarily learned allusions. Thus, he tells them all to hide in the thicket and come out on signal to surprise Theseus:
/ fling my cap up-mark there-then do you,
As once did Meleager and the boar,
Break comely out before him...
- Act III, scene v, lines 17-19
Meleager, in the Greek myths, was a king of Calydon in Aetolia. He is best known in connection with a monstrous boar who had been sent by Diana (Artemis) to ravage the Calydonian countryside. A huge expedition was organized to track down and kill the "Calydonian boar," and, as a matter of fact, Theseus and Pirithous were among the heroes present on the occasion.
At one point in the hunt, the boar came dashing out of the thicket at Theseus, whose hastily thrown javelin went wide. He might have been killed but for the fact that Meleager, who was on the spot, threw more accurately, diverted the beast, then killed him.
Under the circumstances, the schoolmaster's allusion is most inappropriate.
... dance a morris
As the countrymen take their places, it turns out that one girl is missing. For a moment, it looks as though all is ruined, but the Jailer's Daughter, quite mad, wanders onto the scene and she is at once pressed into service.
Theseus and his party are now coming. The countrymen hide and the schoolmaster confronts Theseus, saying:
We are a merry rout, or else a rabble
Or company, or by a figure Chorus,
That 'fore thy dignity will dance a morris.
- Act III, scene v, lines 105-7
The "morris dance" was part of the May Day celebration. In its origins it was probably some kind of magical rite, involving men in the guise of animals, who are shot at. This may have been a way of ensuring successful hunting, and there may also have been included some general fertility rituals, involving a King and Queen of the May.
Indeed, the schoolmaster mentions them when he enumerates the company. He himself appears first, he says, and then:
The next the Lord of May, and Lady bright,
- Act III, scene v, line 124
There were other characters as well, including one at least who made the fertility nature of the celebration unmistakable. He was a farcical fool called the "Bavian" who was equipped with a tail which perhaps showed his descent from the tailed satyrlike fertility spirits of the wildwood. The schoolmaster, in preparing his muster earlier, was concerned lest the fool go too far, for he said:
Where's the Bavian?
My friend, carry your tail without offense
Or scandal to the ladies;
- Act HI, scene v, lines 33-35
But it is clear that the tail is not the only appendage the Bavian has. He has a phallus too, and a prominent one, which can scarcely avoid giving offense if the ladies are in the least delicate. Nevertheless, the schoolmaster in introducing the company before Theseus and his party officiously points out what needs no pointing out:
... and next the Fool, The Bavian
with long tail, and eke long tool,
- Act III, scene v, lines 130-31
Perhaps to lessen the pagan character of the May Day celebration and reduce churchly opposition, new and popular characters were introduced in the form of Robin Hood and Maid Marian (as the King and Queen of the May) together with other members of his band. After all, Robin hunted deer and so completely lived in the forest as to be considered almost a spirit