THESEUS        My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind:

So flewed, so sanded, and their heads are hung

With ears that sweep away the morning dew;

Crook-kneed, and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls,

Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,

Each under each. A cry more tunable

Was never holloed to nor cheered with horn

In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.

Judge when you hear. But soft: what nymphs are these?   (4.1.118-126)

Dog details! It can be read as competitiveness from Theseus, well, MY dogs are every bit as good as Hercules and Cadmus’s dogs, if not better, but it’s more fun if he realises that this is something that he and Hippolyta have in common, can really share: a love of big dogs! My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind! YES I have Spartan hounds too, just like the ones you’re talking about. Then he (largely incomprehensively, slightly ridiculously, when one tries to picture it) details all their pedigree features: they are so flewed—with big wobbly jaws and cheeks—so sanded, sandy-coloured, yes—and their heads are hung with ears that sweep away the morning dew. They have these really long floppy ears! Their ears touch the grass as they trot along! And they are crook-kneed, and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls, slow in pursuit—little stumpy legs, a bit bowed outwards, SUPER-cute, not fast, but persistent, lots of staying power, with those outsize dewlaps, wobble wobble again, oh YES! Don’t you just love them? (Hippolyta might well be nodding along, yes, we both know what you’re talking about, we both like dogs like these, hooray!) And the best thing is, they are matched in mouth like bells, each under each: they howl in harmony! they bark in actual chords! A cry more tunable was never holloed to nor cheered with horn in Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. The sound they make is more musical than any other hunting dogs you’ll hear anywhere. Anywhere at all! Obviously, judge when you hear, don’t take my word for it, but you’re going to LOVE them. (Partly this little passage, the hunting, recalls Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. But the evocation of the hounds perhaps also echoes, just, the cataloguing of Actaeon’s hounds in the Metamorphoses, the hounds who fail to recognise him when he has been transformed into a stag and rip him to pieces. Bottom—still asleep on stage—has been a version of Actaeon, but the scene here is far more benign.)

Theseus’s canine raptures are interrupted, however: but soft: what nymphs are these? He spots the sleeping lovers: well well well, what’s been going on? who’s this?