What happens in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Theseus, Duke of Athens, counts down four days to his wedding with Hippolyta when an angry father interrupts the calm. Egeus drags his daughter Hermia before the court and demands she marry Demetrius, the man he has chosen. Hermia loves Lysander instead. Athenian law is brutal here: obey your father, enter a convent, or die. Theseus gives Hermia until the next new moon to decide. Rather than submit, Hermia and Lysander plan to slip out of the city and marry at his aunt’s house in the woods. They tell their friend Helena, who still loves Demetrius even though he has thrown her over for Hermia. Hoping to win him back, Helena betrays the plan to Demetrius, and all four young people end up chasing one another into the same forest.

That forest belongs to the fairies, and they are quarreling too. Oberon and Titania, the fairy king and queen, are fighting over a stolen Indian boy that Titania refuses to give up. To punish her, Oberon sends his servant Puck for a magic flower whose juice makes a sleeper fall in love with the first creature they see on waking. Oberon plans to anoint Titania’s eyes. He also pities Helena, so he orders Puck to dose the scornful Athenian man as well. Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius and squeezes the juice on the wrong eyes. Lysander wakes, sees Helena, and abandons Hermia on the spot.

Meanwhile a band of Athenian tradesmen rehearse a play for the duke’s wedding. Their loud, confident leading man, Bottom the weaver, wanders off, and Puck claps an ass’s head on him as a joke. The others flee in terror. Titania, freshly enchanted, wakes to Bottom’s braying song and falls helplessly in love with the monster. She crowns him with flowers and sets her fairies to wait on him while he calls for hay and a good scratch.

The lovers’ night turns to chaos. Oberon, furious at Puck’s error, doses Demetrius too, so now both men adore Helena and both scorn Hermia. Helena is certain she is being mocked. Hermia, baffled and betrayed, turns on her oldest friend, and the two women trade insults while the men march off to fight a duel. Puck, gleeful, leads the rivals in circles through the dark in different voices until all four collapse, exhausted, and sleep. Quietly he drops the cure onto Lysander’s eyes alone, so that morning will set things right.

Oberon, having won the changeling boy from the besotted Titania, releases her from the spell. She wakes loathing the ass she loved. The duke’s hunting party stumbles on the four sleepers at dawn. Lysander loves Hermia again; Demetrius, still gently enchanted, now truly loves Helena. Theseus overrules Egeus and declares all three couples will marry together that day. The lovers stagger back to Athens half-convinced the whole night was a dream. Bottom wakes alone, his own head restored, and vows to have a ballad written about his “most rare vision.”

The weddings done, the tradesmen finally perform their tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe before the court. It is gloriously, helplessly bad, and the newlyweds heckle it with affection. Two clumsy suicides later, the play ends and midnight strikes. The mortals go to bed, and Oberon, Titania, and their fairies steal into the palace to bless the marriages and the children to come. Puck steps forward last, alone, and asks the audience to think of the whole thing as a dream, and to pardon the shadows if any offense was given.