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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 {555} On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep; Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, {560} The traces of the smallest spider's web, The 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 so big as a round little worm {565} Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid; Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night {570} Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'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, {575} 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, {580} 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, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon {585} 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 plats the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, {590} 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:
MERCUTIO:
--William Shakespeare, |
Myth's Notes
Shakespeare's Queen Mab probably orignates in Celtic folklore. Her name derives from the Irish Maeve/Maebhe and/or Welch Mabb, but she's an entirely different character than the heroine/Goddess in Celtic folklore.
Yet, William Shakespeare drew on Elizabethan English folklore about faeries in crafting Mercutio's speech.
Faeries were spirits, with some physical substance, and could appear either as large or small. Even when these faeries of folklore appeared small in Elizabethan England they were not "darling" as they were later supposed to be in Victorian England. There was something uncanny about the Faerie in Elizabethan lore.
For example, Queen Mab communicates in dreams. Yet, those dreams which Queen Mab brings by riding in her diminutive hazel-nut chariot, with spider-leg wagon-wheel spokes, are not very sweet or delightful. Some dreams are satirically humorous, "Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,/And then dreams he of smelling out a suit..." Some dreams are far less humorous, "Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,/And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats..."
The sleeping soldier is in fact awakened by by the battle dream "...at which he starts and wakes,/And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two..."
This faery-spirit, Mab, is "That plats the manes of horses in the night,/And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs..." She tangles and ties knots, called elf locks, in the hair of horses during the night. In English folklore, faeries and elves were often accused of tying these elf locks in the hair of horses and humans.
If you are wondering why a faerie queen is called a midwife-- "midwife" was sometimes a euphemism for "witch." Thus, "Queen Mab...the fairies' midwife" is *Queen Mab...the fairies' witch.* Interesting, yes?
At the end of the speech, Mercutio identifies Mab with the nightmare hag that rides sleepers at night leaving them feeling ill and haggard in the morning. "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..." In English and European folklore, the nightmare hag spirit sat on the sleepers chest at night, paralyzing the sleeper and making it hard her/him to breath.
However, Shakespeare has added a strange sexual element. Mercutio comments that young maids, sleeping on their backs, are "pressed" by the spirit of the fairies' midwife. Mab "learns them first to bear,/Making them women of good carriage."
Many scholars have said that last line is a reference to bearing children and carrying a child via pregnancy. Mab is scandalously bringing dreams of sexual intercourse and becoming pregnant to young virgins.
All this was penned long before Freud "discovered" that many nightmares have a sexual root to them.