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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 1Scene 2
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“our company”
Wordplay
Act 1,
Scene 2
Lines 1-3

An explanation of the mechanicals’ names in Act 1, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

[Enter a group of six people who, judging from their dress and speech, are poorly educated laborers. They have decided to contribute to Theseus’ wedding festivities by staging a play which one of them, Quince, has written for the occasion.]

Quince

Is all our company here?

Bottom

You were best to call them generally, man by
man, according to the scrip.

Shakespeare has given each worker a name that relates to his trade:

  • Quince the carpenter — a quoin or quoine is a wooden wedge used by carpenters in the construction of buildings.
  • Snug the joiner — a joiner is a woodworker who snugly joins the wooden parts of furniture together. 
  • Bottom the weaver — a bottom is the reel on which a supply of yarn is wound.
  • Flute the bellows-mender — he repairs bellows, which are mechanical air pumps used to blow air into furnaces. A flute is the valve that allows the air to only flow in one direction. 
  • Snout the tinker — he repairs pots and pans. A snout is the spout of a kettle.
  • Starveling the tailor — the stereotype of a tailor was a frail, skinny man.