Weaving spiders come not here — meaning & origin

The line reads like a spell, and in a way it is one. Weaving spiders come not here has drifted a long way from where it started — from a fairy's lullaby in an English play to the carved motto of a secretive grove in the redwoods of California. It is a phrase about leaving your scheming at the door. Here is where it comes from, and what it has come to mean.

Where the phrase comes from

The words are Shakespeare's. They appear in A Midsummer Night's Dream, in the lullaby the fairies sing over their sleeping queen, Titania — a charm to keep biting, spinning, creeping things away from her bower:

Weaving spiders, come not here; Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!

In its original setting the line is protective and domestic: a wish for undisturbed rest, free of the small creatures that spin webs in quiet corners. The spider here is not evil so much as busy — forever weaving, forever entangling. That double sense of the word "weaving" — honest craft on one hand, quiet entanglement on the other — is exactly what later readers would seize on.

How it became the Bohemian Grove motto

The phrase found its second life with the Bohemian Club, an all-male arts club founded in San Francisco in 1872. The club's summer encampment, the Bohemian Grove, gathers artists, writers, businessmen and political figures for a fortnight among the redwoods — and it adopted weaving spiders come not here as its motto.

Read in that context, the line becomes a house rule. The "weaving spiders" are the deal-makers and power-brokers; the web is the network of business and political favour. The motto asks members to leave all of that outside the gate — to set down the scheming and simply enjoy the arts, the theatre and each other's company. Whether the rule is honoured is another matter, and the Grove's secrecy has fed a century of speculation. But the intention of the phrase is clear enough: this is a place for camaraderie, not commerce.

What the phrase means

Strip away the settings and the line carries a simple, durable idea: come here without your webs. Leave behind the plotting, the angling, the manoeuvring for advantage. Be present, be genuine, and let this be a space apart from all of that.

That reading has made it quietly popular well beyond the Grove. People use it as a motto for retreats, studios and gatherings of all kinds — anywhere the point is to step out of the transactional world for a while. It is a small piece of Shakespeare doing exactly what the best mottoes do: saying something you already half-believe, in words you cannot quite improve on.

Why it still resonates

We live more entangled than ever, and a line about setting the web down speaks to that. The modern appetite for retreats, digital detoxes and craft as a way to slow down is really the same impulse the motto names: a wish for a room where nobody is weaving anything but cloth.

There is a reason so many people arrive at this phrase through weaving itself. The loom is one of the oldest antidotes to a scheming mind — a rhythm that asks for your full attention and gives back something real. If the phrase brought you here, you might enjoy the craft it borrows its name from: start with our patient introduction to hand weaving.

In short

Weaving spiders come not here began as a fairy's charm in A Midsummer Night's Dream, protecting a sleeping queen from busy little spinners. The Bohemian Club made it a motto against deal-making and politics, a plea to leave the webs at the gate. And it endures because that plea is timeless: come as you are, without your schemes, and stay a while.

Frequently asked questions

Where does "weaving spiders come not here" come from?

It is a line from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, sung by the fairies as a protective lullaby over their queen, Titania. It was later adopted as the motto of the Bohemian Club.

What does the phrase mean?

Literally it asks spinning, weaving creatures to keep away. Figuratively — and as the Bohemian Grove uses it — it asks people to leave behind scheming, networking and business dealings, and to be genuinely present instead.

Why is it the Bohemian Grove's motto?

The Grove is meant to be a retreat from the world of commerce and politics. The motto frames "weaving spiders" as the deal-makers whose webs of influence are unwelcome there, reminding members to focus on the arts and friendship.

Is the "weaving" in the phrase about the craft of weaving?

Not directly — it refers to spiders spinning webs. But the pun is part of its charm: it borrows the honest, patient motion of the weaver's craft and turns it toward something more tangled, which is why the line sticks in the mind.