She rides her carriage, which is pulled by tiny little creatures, over men’s noses as they lie sleeping. She’s the fairies’ midwife, and is no bigger than the stone on the ring of a city councilman. 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 that very Mab That plaits the manes of horses in the night And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes. 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 Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. 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 gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love On courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies 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, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Her chariot is an empty hazelnut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, Her traces of the smallest spider’s web, Her collars of the moonshine’s watery 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 worm Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid. 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 atomi Over men’s noses as they lie asleep.
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