Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year by Allie Esiri

Author:Allie Esiri [Esiri, Allie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction
ISBN: 9781529000726
Google: CbGNDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1509890327
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2019-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

July 10 | Romeo and Juliet | Act 1 Scene 4

This speech is truly legendary. It is given by the electric Mercutio, who sets about dispelling Romeo’s ominous dream to the effect that if they crash the Capulets’ party there will be tragic consequences. Having told Romeo ‘that dreamers often lie’, he goes on to explain how Queen Mab, the fairies’ midwife, gives out dreams corresponding to the dreamer’s desires: hence, for example, a parson dreams of obtaining a lucrative parish, and a lover of love. His description of Queen Mab as a tiny creature helped to establish the fairy image we recognize today.

MERCUTIO

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Over men’s noses as they lie asleep.

Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.

Her wagon 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 watery beams;

Her whip, of cricket’s bone: the lash, of film;

Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Pricked 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 curtsies 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 breaths 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, ambuscados, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plaits the manes of horses in the night

And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes.

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage.

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