“But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.”

— John Dryden , The Tempest

The Tempest, Prologue.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he." by John Dryden?

John Dryden 196

English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700

Charles de Lint (1951) author

Source: Into the Green (1993), Ch. 36 p. 233
Context: He had seen trances before — wise men far in the east, who could feign death; a herbwife as she bent over her patient, searching for invisible hurts.
But this was different. He could sense something here, within the circle cast by the light of the fire. A presence.
Presences...

“They would place their hands together inside the circle so that they could walk in each other's dreams. It forged a bond that could not be broken. The circle represents love in eternity. For there is no beginning and no end.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

“We do not escape our boundaries or our innermost being. We do not change. It is true we may be transformed, but we always walk within our boundaries, within the marked-off circle.”

Ernst Jünger book The Glass Bees

The Glass Bees (1957)

“The square is spiritually charged. It is the product of mankind, it is not copied from nature like the circle.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Het vierkant is een geestelijk geladen ding. Het is het product van de mens, het is niet afgekeken van de natuur zoals de cirkel.
Quote of Raveel, from his interview in the Dutch newspaper N.R.C., 1991; as cited by Din Pieters in 'Raveel: het vierkant als onbeschreven blad' https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/1996/01/05/raveel-het-vierkant-als-onbeschreven-blad-7294323-a1018022, in N.R.C.-online, 5 Jan. 1996 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1990's

“We are magic. It is magic that we're walking around.”

Donovan (1946) Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist

Interview in Rolling Stone (9 November 1967)
Context: We are magic. It is magic that we're walking around. It's fantastic magic. Some people would call it miracles; I like to call it magic. … Yes, I'm very aware of this. Yes, the more aware I get, the more I can understand how big it is, how big it will get. It'll be harder to comprehend; that's why I have to go along with it, 'cause its so vast. To say to somebody that God is everything that lives and ever has lived and ever will live, and you're never going to touch and see, smell and be everything that is God. Magic is very hard to comprehend. <!-- Everyone's on their own, but they're not.