'Tis
strange my Theseus, that these
lovers
speak of.
Theseus:
More
strange than true: I never may believe
These
antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers
and madmen have such seething brains,
Such
shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More
than cool reason ever comprehends.
The
lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are
of imagination all compact:
One
sees more devils than vast 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 fine frenzy rolling,
Doth
glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And
as imagination bodies forth
The
forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns
them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A
local habitation and a name.
Such
tricks hath strong imagination,
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!
Hippolyta:
But
all the story of the night told over,
And
all their minds transfigured so together,
More
witnesseth than fancy's images
And
grows to something of great constancy;
But,
howsoever, strange and admirable.
-
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, i