PUCK  The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale

Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;

Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,

And ‘Tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;

And then the whole choir hold their hips and laugh,

And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear

A merrier hour was never wasted there.

But room, fairy. Here comes Oberon.

FAIRY  And here my mistress. Would that he were gone.  (2.1.51-59)

And, and, says Puck, that’s not all, I do other hilarious things too: the wisest aunt telling the saddest tale sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me! She’s in the middle of her tear-jerker, right, really serious stuff, and goes to sit down without looking, and it’s not a stool she sits on, it’s ME pretending to be a stool! Then slip I from her bum,—BUM—down topples she, I tip her off, so that she falls on her BUM (ageing women everywhere have a sympathetic twinge in the coccyx), then this blameless woman, who after all was just a bit preoccupied, ‘Tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough (so many different glosses of tailor, but the best conclusion seems to be, this is unbecoming language for a respectable woman in her middle years), and she coughs, splutters, to cover up her shock and distress. And then the whole choir hold their hips and laugh, and waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear a merrier hour was never wasted there. Everyone laughs at her, shaking with it, hands on hips—Puck conjures a whole room full of hysterical women, howling with laughter, having a grand time at the expense of one unlucky friend, who’s left without a shred of dignity—and they say they’ve never had such a good time! That was me too!

But room, fairy. Here comes Oberon. A sudden change of tone, of pace: get out of the way, it’s HIM. Oberon. The fairy’s not being cowed, or perhaps she thinks they both should be on their guard: and here my mistress, she’s here too. Would that he were gone; HE’s the one who’d better watch out, your precious Oberon; he’s the one who should make a swift exit.