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.
– William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. The pragmatic and cynical Mercutio dismisses the dreams of love of his dreamer friend Romeo as unreal. In his famous Queen Mab speech, he relates Romeo’s dream to the fairies’ midwife, who assists with the birth of people’s dreams. Queen Mab is described as a tiny figure who travels in a carriage made of insects’ wings and spiders’ webs. While Romeo is obsessed with Rosaline, Mercutio is trying to tell him that his love for her is mere infatuation and his romantic dreams are insubstantial and illusory.