Theseus has but a brief role in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Theseus is first of all the representative of order and reasonableness and rational
thought. He is the Duke of the province and responsible for settling legal disputes.
Such disputes can even be of the sort between family members such as Egeus brings before
him in I.i, that of how to get Hermia to marry Demetrius when she is in love with
Lysander. At the end of the play, and Theseus appears only in the beginning and ending,
Theseus, though he sympathizes with the young couples discovered asleep in the forest
and rules in their favor, discredits their talk of fairies and enchantments as
fantasies:
More strange than true: I never may
believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy
toys.
Fairies oppose rational
thought, thus Theseus's rejection of the couples' story underscores his representation
of rational thought, a representation first developed in Act 1. That he is also
reasonable and not dogmatic is shown when he chooses in IV.i to rule in favor of Hermia
and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, instead of Egeus:
Fair lovers, you are fortunately met:/ ...
/
Egeus, I will overbear your will;
For in the temple by and by with
us
These couples shall eternally be knit:
Theseus's most famous
speech, "The lunatic, the lover and the poet / Are of imagination all compact [are made
completely of imagination]" (V.i), further underscores his representation of order,
reason, and rational thought. He ends his speech by describing the extremes wrought by
imagination: On the one hand, if imagination can think of a joy to be had, it
immediately identifies someone through whom that joy can be delivered. On the other
hand, in a fearsome dark night, if imagination fears, it immediately finds cause for
fear in a bush that is "supposed a bear":
That if it would but apprehend some
joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night,
imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a
bear!
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