My active Muse to light shall bring
The Court of that proud Fairy King,
And tell there of the revelling:
Jove prosper my proceeding!
And thou, Nymphidia, gentle Fay,
Which, meeting me upon the way,
These secrets didst to me bewray,
Which now I am in telling;
My pretty, light, fantastic maid,
I here invoke thee to my aid,
That I may speak what thou hast said,
In numbers smoothly swelling.
This palace standeth in the air,
By necromancy placed there,
That it no tempests needs to fear,
Which way soe'er it blow it;
And somewhat southward toward the noon,
Whence lies a way up to the moon,
And thence the Fairy can as soon
Pass to the earth below it.
The walls of spiders' legs are made
Well mortised and finely laid;
He was the master of his trade
It curiously that builded;
The windows of the eyes of cats,
And for the roof, instead of slats,
Is covered with the skins of bats,
With moonshine that are gilded.
Hence Oberon him sport to make,
Their rest when weary mortals take,
And none but only fairies wake,
Descendeth for his pleasure;
And Mab, his merry Queen, by night
Bestrides young folks that lie upright
(In elder times, the mare that hight),
Which plagues them out of measure.
Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes,
Of little frisking elves and apes
To earth do make their wanton scapes,
As hope of pastime hastes them;
Which maids think on the hearth they see
When fires well-near consumed be,
There dancing hays by two and three,
Just as their fancy casts them.
These make our girls their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, And put a penny in their shoe
The house for cleanly sweeping;
And in their courses make that round
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the Fairy Ground,
Of which they have the keeping.
These when a child haps to be got
Which after proves an idiot
When folk perceive it thriveth not,
The fault therein to smother,
Some silly, doting, brainless calf
That understands things by the half,
Say that the Fairy left this aulfe
And took away the other.
But listen, and I shall you tell
A chance in Fairy that befell,
Which certainly may please some well
In love and arms delighting,
Of Oberon that jealous grew
Of one of his own Fairy crew,
Too well, he feared, his Queen that knew,
His love but ill requiting.
Pigwiggen was this Fairy Knight,
One wondrous gracious in the sight
Of fair Queen Mab, which day and night
He amorously observed;
Which made King Oberon suspect
His service took too good effect,
His sauciness and often checkt,
And could have wished him starved.
Pigwiggen gladly would commend
Some token to Queen Mab to send,
If sea or land could ought him lend
Were worthy of her wearing;
At length this lover doth devise
A bracelet made of emmets' eyes,
A thing he thought that she would prize,
No whit her state impairing.
And to the Queen a letter writes,
Which he most curiously indites,
Conjuring her by all the rites
Of love, she would be pleased
To meet him, her true servant, where
They might, without suspect or fear,
Themselves to one another clear
And have their poor hearts eased.
"At midnight the appointed hour,
And for the Queen a fitting bower,"
Quoth he, "is that fair cowslip flower
On Hipcut hill that bloweth :
In all your train there's not a fay
That ever went to gather may
But she hath made it, in her way;
The tallest there that groweth.” ·
When by Tom Thumb, a Fairy Page,
He sent it, and doth him engage
By promise of a mighty wage
It secretly to carry;
Which done, the Queen her maids doth call,
And bids them to be ready all:
She would go see her summer hall,
She could no longer tarry.
Her chariot ready straight is made,
Each thing therein is fitting laid,
That she by nothing might be stayed,
For nought must her be letting;
Four nimble gnats the horses were,
Their harnesses of gossamer,
Fly Cranion her charioteer
Upon the coach-box getting.
Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
Which for the colours did excel,
The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning;
The seat the soft wool of the bee,
The cover, gallantly to see,
The wing of a pied butterflee;
I trow 't was simple trimming.
The wheels composed of crickets' bones,
And daintily made for the nonce,
For fear of rattling on the stones
With thistle-down they shod it;
For all her maidens much did fear
If Oberon had chanced to hear
That Mab his Queen should have been there, He would not have abode it.
She mounts her chariot with a trice,
Nor would she stay, for no advice,
Until her maids that were so nice
To wait on her were fitted;
But ran herself away alone,
Which when they heard, there was not one But hasted after to be gone,
As she had been diswitted.
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