The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream'/Queen Mab

Queen Mab

 * Satyr
 * This is Mab, the mistress fairy,
 * That doth nightly rob the dairy,
 * And can hunt or help the churning
 * As she please without discerning.
 * She that pinches country wenches
 * If they rub not clean their benches,
 * And with sharper nails remembers
 * When they rake not up their embers;
 * But if so they chance to feast her,
 * In a shoe she drops a tester.
 * This is she that empties cradles,
 * Takes out children, puts in ladles;
 * Trains forth midwives in their slumber,
 * With a sieve the holes to number,
 * And then leads them from her boroughs
 * Home through ponds and water-furrows.
 * She can start our franklins' daughters,
 * In her sleep, with shrieks and laughters,
 * And on sweet St. Anna's night
 * Feed them with a promised sight&mdash;
 * Some of husbands, some of lovers,
 * Which an empty dream discovers.
 * Feed them with a promised sight&mdash;
 * Some of husbands, some of lovers,
 * Which an empty dream discovers.


 * BEN JONSON, masque of A Satyr (1603).