Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves, and ye that on the sands with printless foot. You demi-puppets that by moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms. This rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book.

I am that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
I am the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.

I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air