Page 3151 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

MERCUT IO

Why, may one ask?

ROMEO

I dreamt a dream tonight.

MERCUT IO

And so did I. [50]

ROMEO

Well what was yours?

MERCUT IO

That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUT IO

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 [55]
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 hazelnut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, [60]
Time out o’ 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 watery beams, [65]
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 [70]
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;