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Queen Mab Close Reading Exercise

Mercutio describes Queen Mab, a fairy who visits people as they sleep. She is tiny, riding in a vehicle made of spiderwebs and insects pulled by atoms. As she rides through dreams at night, she influences what people dream about depending on their occupation - lovers dream of love, courtiers of flattery, lawyers of legal fees. Sometimes her visits plague people with blisters or frighten them awake. Mercutio claims Mab is responsible for weaving horse manes at night and untangling elflocks, and teaches young women how to behave by pressing down on them as they sleep.

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1K views2 pages

Queen Mab Close Reading Exercise

Mercutio describes Queen Mab, a fairy who visits people as they sleep. She is tiny, riding in a vehicle made of spiderwebs and insects pulled by atoms. As she rides through dreams at night, she influences what people dream about depending on their occupation - lovers dream of love, courtiers of flattery, lawyers of legal fees. Sometimes her visits plague people with blisters or frighten them awake. Mercutio claims Mab is responsible for weaving horse manes at night and untangling elflocks, and teaches young women how to behave by pressing down on them as they sleep.

Uploaded by

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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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R OMEO AND J ULIET ACT I, S CENE 4 M ERCUTIO ’ S Q UEEN M AB S PEECH

(M ONOLOGUE )
C LOSE R EADING E XERCISE (D RAWING )

Directions: With your group, conduct a close reading of Mercutio's description of Queen

Mab. Each group will have 10-15 minutes to draw a picture of the fairy and her carriage

based on your group's interpretation of the details in the close reading.

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
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,
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
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
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,
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,
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
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,
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--

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