Rom.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?

Or shall we on without apology?

Ben.
The date is out of such prolixity^{4 note}

We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath^{5 note},
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper^{6 note};
Nor no without-book prologue^{7 note}, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance^{8 note}:
But, let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure^{9 note}, and be gone.

Rom.
Give me a torch^{1 note}

Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Mer.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we* ^note must have you dance.

Rom.
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.

Mer.
You are a lover^{2 note}; borrow Cupid's wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.

Rom.
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^{3 note}

Mer.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love^{4 note};
Too great oppression for a tender thing.

Rom.
Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like thorn.

Mer.
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 visor for a visor!—what care I,

What curious eye doth quote deformities^{5 note}

Ben.
Come, knock, and enter; and no sooner in,
But every man betake him to his legs.

Rom.
A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart^{6 note}


,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels^{7 note}

I'll be a candle-holder, and look on,—
The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done^{9 note}

Mer.
Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word^{1 note}

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire^{2 note}

Up to the ears.—Come, we burn day-light, ho* ^{note 4 note}

Rom.
Nay, that's not so.

Mer.
I mean, sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day* ^{note 5 note}.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that^{6 note}

Rom.
And we mean well, in going to this mask;
But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer.
Why* ^note, may one ask?

Rom.
I dreamt a dream to-night.

Mer.
And so did I.

Rom.
Well, what was yours?

Mer.
That dreamers often lie.

Rom.
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

Mer.
O, then^{7 note}

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman^{9 note},
Drawn with a team of little atomies^{1 note}

Athwart* ^note 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 watry beams:
Her whip† ^note, 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‡ ^note:

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers.

And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On 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 sweet-meats^{2 note} tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose§ ^note,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit^{3 note}

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^{4 note}

This is the hag,
when maids lie on their backs^{7 note}

Rom.
Peace, peace,
Mercutio, peace;

Thou talk'st of nothing.

Mer.
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^{9 note},
Turning his face^{1 note} to the dew-dropping south.

Ben.
This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

Rom.
I fear, too early: for my mind misgives,

Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin* ^note his fearful date
With this night's revels; and expire† ^note the term
Of a despised life^{2 note}

Ben.

Strike, drum^{4 note}.