ardly be doubted that
Shakespeare took the name of Philostrate from Chaucer; Egeus he would find
also in North's Plutarch as the name of the father of Theseus; and it is
possible that Chaucer's names for the champions, Ligurge and Emetreus, may
have suggested Lysander and Demetrius. Finally, there are two or three
minor indications; Lysander and Demetrius fight, or attempt to fight, for
Helena, in the "wood near Athens," just as Palamon and Arcite fight for
Emilia in the grove[18]; Theseus is a keen huntsman both in the poem and in
the play[19]; and he refers[20] to his conquest of Thebes, which, as we
have seen, is described in _The Knightes Tale_.

Apart from these details, I do not think Shakespeare is indebted to
Chaucer. It is conceivable that the story of Palamon and Arcite affected,
but did not supply, the plot of the four lovers in _A Midsummer-Night's
Dream_; but Shakespeare has added a second woman. This completion of the
antithesis is characteristic of his early work; with a happy ending in
view, the characters must fall into pairs, whereas with Palamon, Arcite,
and Emilia, one of the men must be removed. There is nothing to prevent the
supposition that Shakespeare was acquainted from boyhood with Chaucer's
story--either in Chaucerian form or possibly in the shape of a
chap-book--and that he constructed a first draft of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_
quite early in his career as a playwright, subsequently laying it aside as
unsatisfactory, and, in his declining years, collaborating with another or
others to produce the play on that theme.

* * * * *

Sec. 2. THE GROTESQUE PLOT: BOTTOM AND THE ASS'S HEAD:
WITH THE INTERLUDE OF _PYRAMUS AND THISBE_

"But, for I am a man noght textuel,
I wol noght telle of textes never a del;
I wol go to my tale."--_Chaucer_.

* * * *

II

The second portion of our study will not detain us long, as there are no
literary sources for the "rude mechanicals," and their interlude of Pyramus
and Thisbe is derived from a well-known classical story. Shakespeare draws
them from life, and from his own observation of Warwickshire rustics, as he
drew the two Gobbos, Launce, Christopher Sly, and a host of minor
characters. Doubtless he had met many of the crew of patches, perhaps
beneath the roof of "Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot," where we
may suppose him to have made merry with "Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of
Gr