From Romeo and Juliet: Queen Mab

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)


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 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 wat'ry 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;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love.

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Things to think about:

These lines are part of a longer speech by Mercutio, a friend of Romeo's in Shakespeare's play. Romeo has just told Mercutio that he had a dream, and Mercutio, perhaps judging from the way that Romeo is looking all starry-eyed, figures out that it's a dream of love.

Mercutio warns him that dreams can be very strange. He suggests that "the fairies' midwife," Queen Mab, is responsible for putting the strange images in our heads.