The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents)

by William Shakespeare

Mer. O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agot-stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomi Over men’s noses as they lie asleep. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out a’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, Her traces of the smallest spider web, Her collars of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams, Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick’d from the lazy finger of a [maid]. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; [O’er] courtiers’ knees, that dream on cur’sies straight; O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees; O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breath with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail Tickling a parson’s nose as ’a lies asleep, Then he dreams of another benefice. Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus f...