THESEUS                    Go, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;

Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth,

Turn melancholy forth to funerals.

The pale companion is not for our pomp. [Exit Philostrate.]

Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,

And won thy love doing thee injuries;

But I will wed thee in another key,

With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.       (1.1.11-19)

Theseus is determined that his wedding is going to be an occasion of general celebration: Go, Philostrate, he instructs his—steward? chamberlain? PA?—stir up the Athenian youth to merriments. Tell them they’re going to have a party, and they’re damn well going to enjoy it. Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth—cheer up, it might never happen! fun fun FUN!—turn melancholy forth to funerals. Enough of the long faces, buck up: the pale companion (melancholy) is not for our pomp. It’s my PARTY and everyone else needs to be HAPPY for me. Organise the street parties, hang the bunting, make sure that this spontaneous outbreak of public goodwill and shared celebration happens in a timely fashion.

OK I’m labouring it a bit, and it’s perhaps distorting to bring it out in performance, setting such a dark tone, but Theseus is speaking, it seems, in the immediate aftermath of war, in a city that’s shell-shocked, grieving, perhaps mutinous. And his fiancée can damn well cheer up too, although here Theseus has the option of striking a slightly more conciliatory note, albeit a pretty dark one: Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword, and won thy love doing thee injuries. You’re the spoils of war, darling, and all this is mostly just putting a gloss on it, and a ring. The darkness of this can be undercut with a bit of mutual sexual crackle; this is a couple who have met their match in each other, for whom sparks can fly in good ways too. And that seems to be what Theseus is promising, with a good musical conceit, but I will wed thee in another key (not the drums and trumpets of the battlefield; something more harmonious and concordant), with pomp, with triumph, and with revelling. It’s still going to be a big party, though, and revelling in particular suggests disguise, masking, transformation. Bit of drama.