Context A street in Verona, on the night of the Capulet feast. Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio and their fellow maskers are on their way to crash the party. Romeo is reluctant: "I dreamt a dream tonight." Mercutio answers "That dreamers often lie," and when Romeo insists that dreams can be true, Mercutio spins out Queen Mab, the fairy who delivers sleepers of the dreams they already want. The speech travels. It opens as a jeweller's miniature of insect harness and hazelnut chariot, turns into satire of lovers, courtiers, lawyers, ladies and parsons, then darkens into the soldier's dream of cutting throats, the elflocks that bode misfortune, and the hag who presses on sleeping girls. Romeo has to stop him: "Thou talk'st of nothing." Mercutio's reply calls dreams "the children of an idle brain," yet Romeo's next words are a premonition: "my mind misgives / Some consequence yet hanging in the stars." Notes fairies' midwife: she brings men's fancies to birth as dreams. agate stone: a tiny figure carved in the agate of a signet ring. atomi: tiny creatures, atoms. spinners: long-legged spiders. traces: the straps by which a horse draws a carriage. film: a gossamer thread. worm . . . maid: a folk belief that worms bred in the fingers of idle girls. joiner: carpenter; grub: the larva that bores into nuts. state: ceremonial pomp. cur'sies: curtsies, bows of courtly favour. smelling out a suit: sniffing out a petition he can be paid to promote. tithe-pig: the pig owed to the parson as tithe; benefice: a church living and its income. breaches, ambuscadoes: gaps blown in walls, ambushes; Spanish blades: fine Toledo swords. healths five fathom deep: toasts drunk to enormous depth. plats: plaits. elflocks: hair matted, it was thought, by elves; to untangle it was bad luck. the hag . . . presses them: the nightmare that sits on sleepers' chests, turned bawdy in "bear" and "carriage."