A Midsummer Night's Dream Notes | Act 3, Scene 1: "The same spot in the wood"

As Titania sleeps in her bower, her fairy lair, the group of common players (Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling) enters the same spot in the woods, planning to rehearse their play. Quince the director tries to tell everyone where to go and what to do, but Bottom continues to interrupt with his prima-dona disposition, wanting to direct the play. They provide the comic relief to this play. Bottom claims that there must be a prologue in which they will tell the audience that Bottom as Pyramus does not truly die and that there must be a person to play the Wall that separates Pyramus and Thisbe before they die. The men then begin to get into position, directed by Quince, and rehearse. Puck enters behind them, watching their humorous spectacle and shocked at their close presence to Titania. They begin their enactment of Pyramus and Thisbe, with Bottom as Pyramus.

Topic Tracking: Love's Foolishness 8

Puck is amused by Bottom's performance and follows him to another place in the woods. The rest of the company continues the rehearsal until Bottom re-enters the scene transformed with the head of a donkey, followed by an invisible Puck. The players, shocked at this appearance of a monster, flee the scene (followed by Puck), leaving a confused, ignorant Bottom alone. Snout and Quince return momentarily to tell him that "Thou art translated," to which Bottom responds with confusion, "You see an ass-head of your own, do you?" Act 3, Scene 1, lines 120-121 Bottom is unaware of his transformed state.

Topic Tracking: Magic 6

Titania awakens from her slumber to see a donkey face. Since Oberon placed the magic flower juice on her eyelids, she immediately falls in love with Bottom, transformed into a donkey, and asks him, "What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?...On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee" Act 3, Scene 1, lines 132, 144. Titania offers him fairy servants to wait on him and feed him with fruit and decorate him with flowers. The fairies surround him, following Titania away. He asks them for their names so he knows who is pampering him.

Topic Tracking: Love's Foolishness 9
Topic Tracking: Dreams/Sleeping 7