Why does Puck say "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" in Act 3 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Puck is an ever-happy sprite who divinely intervenes, yet also observes from afar. He himself makes observations of all of the complicated love stories and mayhem around him. His line is not said in disgust, but in gladness that he can be observe from afar and not have the "drama" that the others have. "Lord What Fools These Mortals Be."
Puck's statement is somewhat ironic, for if ever there were a fool, it would be Puck here. He has just royally messed up the task Oberon set for him and made all the wrong people fall in love. Oberon has just fixed things so that all of the right people are supposed to fall in love. Puck is a trickster. He's the one who plays with people in order to get them to do stupid things so he can laugh at their expense. Not one to fall in love himself,...
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he is utterly enjoying the way the mortals are behaving. To him, the lovers' antics are like a comic event. When he says these lines to Oberon, he is saying he wants to watch:
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be
Love makes mortals more foolish than any trick he could devise. To Puck, this is entertainment at its finest.
Puck is talking about everyone. Love makes fools of us all, acting in ways that we would never consider doing when not under its "spell." Puck, immune from the chaos he inflicts, watches in bemused fascination as the lovers run about and generally go to pieces all over the desire to love and be loved.
What is the meaning and irony behind Puck's statement "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" in A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Puck calling mortals fools is ironic because he is the one causing them to act foolish and because the fairies Titania and Oberon also act very foolish.
There are a couple of reasons that Pucks’s condemnation of mortals is ironic. First of all, he is the one causing a lot of the foolishness. The people he is anointing cannot control their behavior. It is a result of a magic spell. So Puck is laughing at people for acting just the way he is forcing them to act.
PUCK
Then will two at once woo one;
That must needs be sport alone;
And those things do best please me
That befal preposterously. (Act 3, Scene 2)
However, the other aspect of the people being fools has nothing to do with magic. Love makes people do foolish things, as the play demonstrates. The irony is that the mortals are not the only ones acting foolish. Titania and Oberon certainly engage in their share of foolish behavior. They fight and make up, and they drag the whole forest into their mayhem.
Titania and Oberon fight over their jealousies. Oberon is jealous about the changeling Titania has. He is also jealous because he thinks she has something for Theseus and Titania is jealous because she thinks he has something for Hippolyta .
TITANIA
These are the forgeries of jealousy:
And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. (Act 2, Scene 1)
Titania’s mood is not good for the forest. I would consider her behavior foolish, and Oberon’s too. They both kept pushing each other’s buttons, even though as fairy king and queen their behavior affected the entire forest.
In the end, foolishness abounds in this play for both mortals and fairies. Magic or not, people in love sometimes act in ways that make no sense. Jealousy can hit anyone, mortal or not.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, does Puck's statement "what fools these mortals be" also apply to the fairies?
While the fairies in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream are not technically mortals, they are certainly fools, just like the mortal humans in the play; therefore, Puck's statement about fools can certainly be applied to fairies and humans alike. Let's look at some examples.
We'll start with the fairies. Oberon and Titania have a disagreement about an Indian prince. Oberon wants to make the boy a knight, but Titania refuses. Oberon, wanting to get even with Titania, sends Puck to get some love potion from a flower to put on Titania's eyelids as she sleeps. Titania opens her eyes and falls in love with the silly Bottom, whom Puck has given a donkey's head. The whole situation is extremely foolish in all respects, but it is also quite funny.
The mortals in the story also behave foolishly. Egeus, Hermia's father, is foolish when he does not allow his daughter to marry the man she loves, namely, Lysander. Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius instead. Demetrius jilts Helena with the thought of marrying Hermia, another foolish act. Hermia and Lysander run away together, and Helena, in her jealousy, foolishly tells Demetrius about it.
All four young people end up in the forest where Puck makes the mistake of putting love potion on Lysander's eyes rather than on Demetrius' eyes. Lysander awakens to fall in love with Helena. Then Puck, trying to correct his mistake, anoints Demetrius' eyes as well, and he also falls in love with Helena. Puck then has to work very hard to get the right couples together. This makes us wonder, as it is supposed to, if Puck himself is not really the greatest fool in the play.