Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/80

Her waggon-spokes made of long[C 1] spinners'[E 1] legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; 60 Her[C 2] traces, of the smallest spider's[C 3] web; Her[C 4] collars, of the moonshine's watery beams; Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm[E 2] 65 Prick'd[C 5] from the lazy finger of a maid:[C 6] Her chariot[E 3] is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers. And in this state she gallops night by night 70 Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; O'er[C 7] courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight; O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream[C 8] on fees; O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, 75 Because their breaths[C 9] with sweetmeats[E 4] tainted are:

1. 59. made of long] Q, F; are made of Q1.
2. 61. Her] Q, F; The Q1
3. spider's] F, spider Q.
4. 62. Her] Q, F; The Q1.
5. 66. Prick'd] Q, F; Pickt Q1
6. maid] Q1; man Q, F; woman Ff 2–4.
7. 72. O'er] Q1 (O're); On Q, F.
8. 73. dream] Q, dreamt F.
9. 76. breaths] Rowe; breathes Q1; breath Q, F.

1. 59. spinners'] spiders'. Latimer (in Fox's Acts and Monuments): "Where the bee gathereth honey, even there the spinner gathereth venome."
2. 65. worm] Halliwell (Dict.) quotes Beaumont and Fletcher, Woman-Hater III. i.: "Keep thy hands in thy muff, and warm the idle worms in thy fingers' ends." Worms were said to breed in idle fingers. Banister in his Compendious Chirurgerie (1585) describes women "sitting in the sun" pricking what "we commonly call wormes" from their fingers.
3. 67. Her chariot] Daniel places lines 67–69 after line 58, as suggested by Lettsom; the description of the chariot preceding that of its parts. These lines, not found in Q1, may have been added—Lettsom thinks—in the margin of the "copy" of Q 2, and have been misplaced by the printer. Drayton, in Nymphidia, describes Mab's chariot, with evident reminiscences of this speech.
4. 76. sweetmeats] Malone: "kissing comfits," mentioned in Merry Wives, V. v. 22.