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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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(c.1596)
Play by *Shakespeare in which three very different sets of characters intermingle in a wood near Athens. The king of the fairies, Oberon, is angry with his queen, Titania, because she will not give up to him a changeling Indian boy. He employs his spirit servant *Puck to play a trick on her. As she sleeps, Puck squeezes into her eyes the juice of a wild pansy (love-in-idleness); she will now fall in love with whoever she first sees on waking.
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The third group is from the Athenian court. The duke, Theseus, is about to marry Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. Two young couples (Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius) enter the wood. Puck with his magic flower spins them through a labyrinth of misplaced affections before all comes right. As part of the wedding celebrations Bottom and his fellows perform their spectacularly incompetent play of Pyramus and Thisbe.
In 1960 the play was used as the basis for an opera of the same name by Benjamin Britten.
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Another group has come into the wood to rehearse a play. They are Athenian craftsmen – Quince the carpenter, Snug the joiner, Flute the bellows-mender, Snout the tinker, Starveling the tailor and the irrepressible Bottom the weaver. Puck puts an ass's head on Bottom ('Bless thee, Bottom... thou art translated', says Quince), and it is he whom Titania sees and dallies with when she wakes.
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