Bottom’s monologue in act 4.1.211 line 205- 207 states the following:
“ The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was!”
If we compare this to the King James version (1611) of 1 Corinthians 2: 9-10 we can see, to a large extent, that they are extremely similar and is indeed a parody:
“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit: for the spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God”
The Geneva Bible (1557) however renders the last verse in the following ways:
“ The Spirite searcheth all thinges, ye the botome of Goddes secrettes.”
It is thus highly likely that Bottom received his name from Paul’s letter in old versions of Scripture that were used during Shakespeare’s time. And Bottom himself, so to speak, would be from ‘top to bottom’, the ‘Bottom translation’ of God’s secrets. (Brook p58)
Furthermore the weaver both ‘overwrites’ and ‘underwrites’ the text of Corinthians and in doing so, he weaves a new garment from the old text, incarnating the Scripture and the word of God.
It is then almost inconceivable to assume that Bottom does not serve a far deeper and more meaningful context within the play. A further point to consider is Bottom’s deviation from the Scripture. Bottom states in his monologue referred to above: [That] man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive…” The Scripture on the other hand states: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard…” There is a subtle difference between the two; Bottom’s use of “not able” seems to spell out the inability of the human being’s more emphatically exploiting heart. It is the driving seat of some sort of secret or even mystical knowledge. (Diana Akers Rhoads, Shakespeare’s defence of poetry)
The idea that Bottom is trying to portray is that the human being consists of more than just a head with a mind and a pair of eyes. He explicitly emphasises the heart as an organ of knowing. In his monologue discussed above, Bottom only mentions for out of the five senses, the fifth being the heart. Smell, however is a constant theme within the play: “odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds” (II 1; 110) and “Sweet musk roses”. It is then unsettling so consider as to why Bottom did not speak of smell and it is discovered that ‘fault smelling’, or to discover one’s own faults, as we cannot, so to speak smell a fault, is something exclusively reserved for God. (Kallay p7)
In concluding it is clear that Bottom stresses the inadequacy of human sensation concerning certain “most rare visions” (IV 1; 200) and that he is wise in his own foolishness and foolish in his wisdom. It is thus that through his foolishness he has the capability to mutter: “It shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom.” (IV 4; 208) Alluding to the fact that it has no foundation and is unfathomably profound.
Work Cited
Kallay, Geza. “Fundamental Measurements and perception from St Paul to Shakespeare’s Bottom.
Shakespeare, William. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The Cambridge University Press. General Edition. 1984
The Geneva Bible. 1560 edition
King James Bible. 1611
The oxford English Dictionary
CF Kott, p 31-33
Frank Kermode, “The mature comedies” In early Shakespeare. (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1961)
