Queen Mab Speech
Storyboard Text
- O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comesIn shape no bigger than an agate stoneOn the forefinger of an alderman,Drawn with a team of little atomiesOver 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 gray-coated gnat,Not half so big as a round little wormPricked 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 nightThrough lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;On courtiers’ knees, that dream on cur’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 plaguesBecause 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 he 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, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,Of healths five fathom deep, and then anonDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakesAnd, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or twoAnd sleeps again.
- This is that very MabThat plats the manes of horses in the night And bakes the elflocks 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. This is she-
- Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace.Thou talk’st of nothing.
- Making them women of good carriage. This is she-That presses them and learns them first to bear,This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,Which once untangled much misfortune bodes.That plats the manes of horses in the nightAnd bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,This is that very MabThis is she-
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