QUINCE: Marry, our play is, the most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.
BOTTOM: A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
– William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. Nick Bottom calls the Mechanicals’ play a very good piece of work and a happy one for a wedding night. The self-important and ridiculous weaver is full of it and doesn’t know what he is talking about much of the time. Far from being "merry," the play is a tragedy about the death of two lovers. Bottom has a tendency to take over and act like he is the expert, note how he cannot help but give directions to the director, who will have his hands full trying to keep Bottom in line. The play’s director Peter Quince for his part is guilty of butchering the language, calling the play a "lamentable comedy." He presumably meant to say it was a lamentable tragedy. But he turns out to be ironically right without knowing it. For the version of the Pyramus and Thisbe story we get to see turns out to be lamentably bad, poorly acted and hilariously comic. It is also ironic that the craftsmen choose a play about a pair of ill-fated lovers for such a happy occasion as a wedding.