Plot Summary:Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is engaged to be married to Hippolyta. One of the Duke's courtiers has a daughter, Hermia, who, for business reasons, he decides shall marry Demetrius: but she is in love with Lysander. Her father appeals to the Duke and he decrees that Hermia must obey her father or forever remain unmarried. The lovers decide to elope and they are followed by the rejected suitor, Demetrius, and Helena, who loves him in vain. On the night of the elopement a number of townspeople are rehearsing in the woods a play which they intend to present at the wedding of Duke Theseus. The eloping lovers, followed by Demetrius and Helena, wander to the same part of the forest that the players frequent. Meanwhile among the fairies of the forest a little love episode has ended in a tiff and Oberon, the king of the fairies, sends his messenger, Puck, for an herb, which, when placed upon the eyes of a sleeper, will cause him or her to love the first creature seen upon awakening. The ...