Comparing Nick Bottom's Pyramus And Thisbe

Only the finest entertainment can be honored with the King’s viewing, or so it seems. Everyone in all of Athens is begging to know what King Theseus chose to watch at his nuptial ceremonies. The answer may shock you! For the King chose a play that could possibly by deemed the worst performance of Athenian culture in all of Greek history. The name of this horrendous play is “A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus and his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth,” (147). The name itself is something to be criticized. It creates a paradox. How can something be “’merry’ and ‘tragical’? ‘Tedious’ and ‘brief’?” (147). The name reveals nothing about the play and leaves the audience with more questions. However, the questions don’t stop there. As the play
Words are inappropriately used to simply create the classic line sequence of eight and eight. Any word they can think of would be used just to make the lines rhyme. The writing was obviously scribed by the “hard-handed men the work in Athens here, which never labored in their minds till now,” (147). These actors butchered the intense plot of Pyramus and Thisbe. Things of no importance were given spotlight roles. While Nick Bottom played Pyramus and Francis Flute played Thisbe, the rest of the four men were used to represent the most obscure and unimportant objects of the play, completely neglecting the roles of Pyramus’s father, Thisbe’s mother and father, and Ercles. Snug the joiner played the lion; Tom Snout represented the wall, which separated the two lovers; Robin Straveling represented Moonshine, and Peter Quince recited a prologue in the beginning. This is an insult to the play
Luckily, do not fear, loyal subject of King Theseus, for our King has a sense of humor. At the nuptial ceremonies, the three couples brutally mocked the atrocious performance to their wits end. They humorously believed that “if we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men,” (159). They were fully entertained by the performance and found it hilarious. However, “I must confess... more merry tears the passion of loud laughter never shed,” (147). I, respectfully, do not agree with the King’s philosophy. Yet, we all agree that this play will leave you begging for “no epilogue... For [their] play needs no excuse... For when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed,”