Capulet's house.
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other maskers, torch-bearers, and drums.
Rom.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?
Ben.
The date is out of such prolixity.
We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper:(9) note
Nor a 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.
Rom.
Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling.
Being but heavy, I will bear the Light.
Mer.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
Rom.
Not I, believe me; you have dancing shoes
-- 142 --
With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead,
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
Mer.
You are a Lover; borrow Cupid's Wings,
And soar with them above a common Bound.
Rom.
I am too sore enpearced with his Shaft,
To soar with his light Feathers: and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull Woe:
Under Love's heavy burthen do I sink.
Mer.
And to sink in it, should you burthen Love:
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?
[Pulling off his Mask.
A Visor for a Visor!—what care I,
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.
Ben.
Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,
But ev'ry man betake him to his legs.
Rom.
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.
Mer.
Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word;
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire;
Or, save your reverence, Love, wherein thou stickest
Up to thine ears: come, we burn day-light, ho.
Rom.
Nay, that's not so.
Mer.
I mean, Sir, in delay
We burn our lights by light, and lamps by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in That, ere once in our fine wits.
Rom.
And we mean well in going to this mask;
But 'tis no wit to go.
Mer.
Why, may one ask?
Rom.
I dreamt a dream to night.
Mer.
And so did I.
-- 143 --
Rom.
Well; what was yours?
Mer.
That dreamers often lie.
Rom.
—In bed asleep; while they do dream things true.
Mer.
O, then I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.(10) note
She is the Fancy's mid-wife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agat-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman;
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart mens noses as they lye asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners legs;
The cover, of the wings of grashoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watry 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,
Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
-- 144 --
Made by the joyner 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 curtsies strait:
O'er lawyers fingers, who strait dream on fees:
O'er ladies lips, who strait on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweet-meats tainted are.
Sometimes she gallops o'er a lawyer's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling the parson as he lies asleep;
Then dreams he of another Benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,(11) note
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ears, 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 cakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lye on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear;
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she—
-- 145 --
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 phantasie;
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more unconstant than the wind; who wooes
Ev'n now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
Ben.
This wind, you talk of, blows us from our selves;
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 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 suit! On, lusty Gentlemen.
Ben.
Strike, drum.
[They march about the Stage, and Exeunt.
Lewis Theobald [1733], The works of Shakespeare: in seven volumes. Collated with the Oldest Copies, and Corrected; With notes, Explanatory and Critical; By Mr. Theobald (Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch [and] J. Tonson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11201].
