Peter Quince

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In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Quince is a carpenter that works in Athens. He is one of the six workmen (the rude mechanicals) that will put on a play for Theseus and Hippolyta at their wedding. He meets Nick Bottom the weaver, Francis Flute the bellows-mender, Tom Snout the tinker, Starveling the tailor, and Snug the joiner in the woods. Quince directs their play of Pyramus and Thisbe. In the play, he recites the prologue, but struggles to fit his lines into the meter and to make them rhyme. The Nobles interject to point out his errors. In the rehearsals he is seen in a managerial role even though most people believe Nick Bottom to be the more knowledgable individual.

His name is derived from “quines” or “quoins,” which are wooden wedges used by carpenters.

The character is obliquely alluded to in the title of a Wallace Stevens poem, "Peter Quince at the Clavier."