Who+is+Queen+Mab?



In Act 1, scene 4, Mercutio delivers a dazzling speech about the fairy Queen Mab, who rides through the night on her tiny wagon bringing dreams to sleepers. One of the most noteworthy aspects of Queen Mab’s ride is that the dreams she brings generally do not bring out the best sides of the dreamers, but instead serve to confirm them in whatever vices they are addicted to—for example, greed, violence, or lust.

Another important aspect of Mercutio’s description of Queen Mab is that it is complete nonsense, albeit vivid and highly colorful. Nobody believes in a fairy pulled about by “a small grey-coated gnat” whipped with a cricket’s bone (1.4.65). Finally, it is worth noting that the description of Mab and her carriage goes to extravagant lengths to emphasize how tiny and insubstantial she and her accoutrements are. Queen Mab and her carriage do not merely symbolize the dreams of sleepers, they also symbolize the power of waking fantasies, daydreams, and desires.

Through the Queen Mab imagery, Mercutio suggests that all desires and fantasies are as nonsensical and fragile as Mab, and that they are basically corrupting. This point of view contrasts starkly with that of Romeo and Juliet, who see their love as real and ennobling. Source(s):[|http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/themes]

Mercutio jests with Romeo, musing that Mab, the bringer of dreams, has visited his lovesick friend:

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 (60)

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, (65)

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 (70)

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">And in this state she gallops night by night... (1.4.58-100)

Shakespeare's reference to Queen Mab, the well-known fairy in Celtic (Irish) folklore famous centuries before Shakespeare, was the first known reference to her in English literature. After Shakespeare introduced Mab to English poets, she became much loved, inspiring other great authors. Please see [|Shakespeare Fairies] for much more on Queen Mab and [|Act 1, Scene 4] of Romeo and Juliet for full explanatory notes. Ben Jonson recounted the tale of Queen Mab during his performance before Anne of Denmark (the wife of James I) as she journeyed from Scotland to England in 1603 (his performance was later printed as Jonson's Entertainment at Althorpe). The following is an excerpt relating to Mab: This is Mab, the mistris-Faerie,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">That doth nightly rob the dayrie;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">And she can hurt, or helpe the cherning,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">(As shee please) without discerning...

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">In 1627, Michael Drayton wrote a fairy poem called //Nimphidia//. Nimphidia, an attendant on Queen Mab, tells the poet everything that happens at Mab's court: <span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">And thou, Nymphidia, gentle fay,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Which meeting me upon the way

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">These secrets didst to me bewray,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Which I now am in telling;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">My pretty light fantastic maid,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">I here invoke thee to my aid,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">That I may speak what thou hast said,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">In numbers smoothly swelling.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">This palace standeth in the air,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">By necromancy placed there,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">That it no tempests needs to fear,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Which way soe'er it blow it.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">And somewhat southward toward the noon,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Whence lies a way up to the moon,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">And thence the Fairy can as soon

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Pass to the earth below it.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">The walls of spiders' legs are made,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Well mortised and finely laid;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">He was the master of his trade

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">It curiously builded;

The most famous work to feature Queen Mab is by the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1813, Shelley wrote a poem in nine cantos called Queen Mab. Cantos I and II focus on Mab in her time-chariot: <span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">'I am the Fairy Mab: to me 'tis given

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">The wonders of the human world to keep;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">The secrets of the immeasurable past,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">In the unfailing consciences of men,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">The future, from the causes which arise

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">In each event, I gather; not the sting

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Which retributive memory implants

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">In the hard bosom of the selfish man,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Are unforeseen, unregistered by me;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">And it is yet permitted me to rend

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Clothed in its changeless purity, may know

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">How soonest to accomplish the great end

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">For which it hath its being, and may taste

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">That peace which in the end all life will share.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Ascend the car with me!' (Canto I 167-86)

> Mabillard, Amanda. //Romeo and Juliet: Queen Mab//__Shakespeare Online__. 21 Nov. 2000. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/romeoqueenmab.html >.