| ACT I. | |
| Scene IV. A Street. | |
| [Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers; |
| Torch-bearers, and others.] |
| Romeo. | |
| What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? |
| Or shall we on without apology? |
| Benvolio. | |
| The date is out of such prolixity: |
| We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf, |
| Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath, |
| Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper; |
| Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke |
| After the prompter, for our entrance: |
| But, let them measure us by what they will, |
| We'll measure them a measure, and be gone. |
| Romeo. | |
| Give me a torch,--I am not for this ambling; |
| Being but heavy, I will bear the light. |
| Mercutio. | |
| Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. |
| Romeo. | |
| Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes, |
| With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead |
| So stakes me to the ground I cannot move. |
| Mercutio. | |
| You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings, |
| And soar with them above a common bound. |
| Romeo. | |
| I am too sore enpierced with his shaft |
| To soar with his light feathers; and so bound, |
| I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe: |
| Under love's heavy burden do I sink. |
| Mercutio. | |
| And, to sink in it, should you burden love; |
| Too great oppression for a tender thing. |
| Romeo. | |
| Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, |
| Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn. |
| Mercutio. | |
| If love be rough with you, be rough with love; |
| Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.-- |
| Give me a case to put my visage in: [Putting on a mask.] |
| A visard for a visard! what care I |
| What curious eye doth quote deformities? |
| Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me. |
| Benvolio. | |
| Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in |
| But every man betake him to his legs. |
| Romeo. | |
| A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart, |
| Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels; |
| For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,-- |
| I'll be a candle-holder and look on,-- |
| The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done. |
| Mercutio. | |
| Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word: |
| If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire |
| Of this--sir-reverence--love, wherein thou stick'st |
| Up to the ears.--Come, we burn daylight, ho. |
| Romeo. | |
| Nay, that's not so. |
| Mercutio. | |
| I mean, sir, in delay |
| We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. |
| Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits |
| Five times in that ere once in our five wits. |
| Romeo. | |
| And we mean well, in going to this mask; |
| But 'tis no wit to go. |
| Mercutio. | |
| Why, may one ask? |
| Romeo. | |
| I dreamt a dream to-night. |
| Mercutio. | |
| And so did I. |
| Romeo. | |
| Well, what was yours? |
| Mercutio. | |
| That dreamers often lie. |
| Romeo. | |
| In bed asleep, while they do dream things true. |
| Mercutio. | |
| 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 waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs; |
| The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; |
| The traces, of the smallest spider's web; |
| The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams; |
| Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; |
| Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat, |
| Not half so big as a round little worm |
| Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid: |
| Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, |
| Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, |
| Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. |
| And in this state she gallops night by night |
| Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; |
| O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight; |
| O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees; |
| O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,-- |
| Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, |
| Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: |
| Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, |
| And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; |
| And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, |
| Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep, |
| Then dreams he of another benefice: |
| Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, |
| And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, |
| Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, |
| Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon |
| Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes; |
| And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, |
| And sleeps again. This is that very Mab |
| That plats the manes of horses in the night; |
| And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, |
| Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes: |
| This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, |
| That presses them, and learns them first to bear, |
| Making them women of good carriage: |
| This is she,-- |
| Romeo. | |
| Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace, |
| Thou talk'st of nothing. |
| Mercutio. | |
| True, 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, |
| And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes |
| Even now the frozen bosom of the north, |
| And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, |
| Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. |
| Benvolio. | |
| This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves: |
| Supper is done, and we shall come too late. |
| Romeo. | |
| I fear, too early: for my mind misgives |
| Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, |
| Shall bitterly begin his fearful date |
| With this night's revels; and expire the term |
| Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast, |
| By some vile forfeit of untimely death: |
| But He that hath the steerage of my course |
| Direct my sail!--On, lusty gentlemen! |
| Benvolio. | |
| Strike, drum. |
| [Exeunt.] |