IF Shiikespeare's Hamlet is remarkable for the wholesale slaughter of its denouement then A Midsummer Night's Dream must take first prize for the complexity of its romantic entanglements.
Everyone falls in love with the wrong person, under the mistaken impression that they are somebody else entirely, and only with generous applications of a special magic potion is life restored to something near normality. But, in fact, the whole concept of Midsummer's Night is complex and confusing: there are different views on which date marks the beginning, the middle and the end of summer.
Today, June 24th and St John's Day, is traditionally known as Midsummer's Day. It was one of the four "Quarter Days" of the year, the others being Lady's Day on March 25th, Michaelmas on September 29th, and Christmas Day which falls, of course, on December 25th.
In bygone times Quarter Days were dreaded or eagerly awaited - depending on your position on the economic ladder: they were the dates on which rents became due, and on which all manner of other financial and legal transactions were carried out.
But by another reckoning summer has only begun. Astronomers, who follow a system originally laid down by Germinus of Rhodes 2,000 years ago, think of summer as beginning at the solstice, and lasting until the autumnal equinox in late September.
The summer solstice is that point in the year when the sun is at its greatest distance north of the equator - when the inclination of the Earth's axis is such that the noonday sun shines directly down on the Tropic of Cancer at 23 north latitude. This year's summer solstice occurred at 2 p.m. GMT last Friday, June 21st.
Others, however, who could be said to have a certain logic on their side, would maintain that Midsummer's Day should be the summer solstice itself. It is, after all, the day on which the sun reaches the most northerly point of its seasonal oscillations and is the longest day of the year throughout the northern hemisphere.
Meteorologists, unsurprisingly, base their ideas on these matters entirely on the weather. If temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are averaged, the warmest time turns out to be in mid July, so it has seemed sensible to define the summer as the quarter of the year centred on this period.
Being of a practical turn of mind, meteorologists have also come to the conclusion that it makes sense to stick to the calendar months when defining the seasons of the year. Thus June, July and August are, for us, the summer months, and Midsummer Day falls on July 15th - which, to add to the confusion, turns out to be St Swithin's Day as well.