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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 1Scene 2
Back to the Play
“The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe”
Cultural Context
Act 1,
Scene 2
Lines 8-12

An explanation of the title of Quince’s Pyramus and Thisbe play in Act 1, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Bottom

First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on,
then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a
point.

Quince

Mary, our play is The Most Lamentable Comedy and
Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.

The play that Quince has written for his companions to perform is based on the tragic love story of Pyramus and Thisbe. Although Quice seems to be the only one of his group who knows this story, anyone in Shakespeare's audience with a minimum of formal education would have been familiar with this classic tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The audience would also have recognized a reference to Shakespeare’s recent hit play The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, except they would have chuckled at Quince’s paradoxical description of his play as a "lamentable (sad) comedy".