A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT 3, SCENE 1
The play is really about love, but not in the ordinary sense. It more or less bursts past reality- why else would one of the protagonists end up with an ass' head. What sets this particular scene apart, though, is that Shakespeare, in his inimitable way is satirizing some of the playwrights who specialized in "love scenes" and in heroic sword fights. Of course, he had covered the same subjects in some of his other plays (and will continue to do so). But, in this particular scene, with the faerie queen, Titania in a deep sleep nearby, six weird characters, Athenian craftsmen and artisans- Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flutem Snout and Snarveling (sort of Dickensian names!) come to prepare and rehearse the play, Pyramus and Thisbe (spelled Thisby in this text), which they plan to stage in these woods. But, Bottom û here satirized as if he were one of Shakespeare's producers at the Globe Theatre, claims "There are things in this comedyà.that will never please" (line 9-`10). One can see a real-life producer ask Shakespeare to do a re-write.
Why did Shakespeare and his characters choose this particular play? It fits the story of lovers forbidden to love by their parents who felt each one was not good enough for the other. The original story is thousands of years old: "told 1500 years before by the poet Ovid, who got it from the Greeks, who got it from the near east. According to Ovid the couple grew up in Babylon in adjoining houses and fell in love against their parents' will" (Estevez 1).
The Athenian craftsmen are preparing to rehearse and present the play at a magnificent wedding, but the complications for that wedding involve two couples who love not their intended, but the intended of the other couple, and then there are Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the Faeries who have made this forest their temporary home. What makes the choice of this play so odd is that, ...