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III. Theseus's Power

In act 1, we find the kinsmen discussing the nature of Creon's power in Thebes. They call him "a most unbounded tyrant" and prepare to exile themselves, when the approach of warring Theseus revives their political loyalty to Creon: "we must / With him stand to the mercy of our fates / Who hath bounded our last minute" (1.2.63, 101-3). Such is the tyrant's character. He has a boundary problem, exceeding his own and contracting or violating the boundedness of others. Theseus displays exactly this fault, insisting upon a relationship of intimacy with persons over whom he has absolute power.⁴⁵ Both the kinsmen and both the Amazons are less than subjects in Theseus's dukedom. They are captives, prisoners of war, lives to be disposed of by decrees. This specifically political circumstance does not register in readings of the play that are concerned with individualistic or exclusively private meanings of love and sexuality....

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1. Introduction
2. I. Chastity and the Space Of Female Friendship
3. II. Improvisations On the Friendship Form
4. III. Theseus's Power
5. IV. Emilia's Choice
6. V. Conclusion
7. Copyright