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THE THREEFOLD MASK

If the central action of the play be considered as virtually concluded with the fourth Act, what office is performed by the fifth Act?

Notice that in it the three groups of characters constituting the play--the court group with the lovers; the 'rude mechanicals' and their 'tedious brief scene,' and the fairy train--are in this Act all brought upon the stage, the whole spectacle being set in the palace at Athens, in celebration of the wedding festivities of the ducal pair, which, as before noticed, is used as a sort of decorative frame for the play as a whole.

Examine the working-out of this unified presentation of all the personages. How are we to account for the silence of the women who were made to do so much towards the institution of the action? Show the poetic reasons for the entrance of Puck and the fairies last of all, and when the stage is empty.

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