A Midsummer Night's Dream Act V Scene i

Act V Scene i

Theseus and Hippolyta enter with their attendants and Philostrate. Hippolyta remarks at the wondrous tale the lovers have told them but Theseus doesn't quite believe the account. He says that poets, madmen, and lovers all have an overactive imagination that can show them all wondrous things. Hippolyta points out that despite the fantastical nature of the account, all the lovers had maintained a surprising consistency. The other two couples then join Theseus and Hippolyta and are warmly greeted by Theseus. He then summons Philostrate to find out about the entertainment for the evening.

Philostrate hands over a parchment with the list of amusements available for the night, and Theseus goes through them one by one until he discovers the blurb for the play Bottom and his friends are preparing. The contradictory nature of the summary incites his interest and although Philostrate tries to warn him that the actors have but little skill, Theseus insists that he would see the play for the hard-working and dutiful men of Athens comprise its cast.

Quince comes on stage and begins with his prologue and does a poor job of it. In his nervousness, Quince doesn't quite pause at the right times so much so that the meaning of the prologue is rendered comically disastrous. In the play, Pyramus and Thisbe separated by a wall plan to meet at a tomb by moonlight. Thisbe is the first to arrive, but she is confronted by a lion with a bloody maw, she flees but leaves behind her mantle. The Lion rends the mantle with his bloody maw so that when Pyramus arrives he perceives the mantle and believes that Thisbe is killed. He stabs himself with his sword and dies, soon after when Thisbe returns, she too takes her life in the grief of her lover's death. The cast enacts a poor version of the play and breaks the fourth wall many times to respond to the comments of Theseus and his company. Bottom as Pyramus is particularly comical for he makes many mistakes in his dialogue. The play ends and the married couples retreat to their beds.

At a later hour in the night, Puck arrives to clean up before his kind arrives. The fairies visit the palace of Theseus and Hippolyta. Oberon commands that the fairies dance through all the passages of the house and bless the happily married couples so that they may never have misfortune.

In the epilogue, Puck asks that if any of the viewers were offended by the contents of the play then they need only remember that it was all just a dream.

Analysis

This last act serves to develop the theme of a play within a play, as some features of the action in the previous acts are mirrored in the play of Pyramus and Thisbe that Bottom and the other workmen perform. Pyramus and Thisbe are kept apart due to parental disapproval very much like Hermia and Lysander. Pyramus's mistake in believing that Thisbe has been slain by a lion is reminiscent of Puck's mistake in bewitching Lysander instead of Demetrius.

Pyramus and Thisbe is an important play of the time during which A midsummer night's dream was written, and also shares a lot of similarities with Romeo and Juliet, another famous play written by Shakespeare.