Page 3152 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues [75]
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; [80]
Then dreams he 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 [85]
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, [90]
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.
This is she -

ROMEO

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace. [95]
Thou talk’st of nothing.

MERCUT IO

True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos [100]
Even now the frozen bosom of the north
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

BENVOLIO

This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:
Supper is done and we shall come too late. [105]