Rom. ^note
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?

Ben. ^note
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 ^note;
Nor no ^note without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for ^note our entrance ^note: ^note
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. ^note

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

Rom.
Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
With nimble soles: I have a soul ^note 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 enpierced ^note with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound, ^note
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
Under love's heavy burthen ^note do I sink.

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

Rom.
Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and ^note it pricks like thorn.

Mer.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love ^note down. ^note
Give ^note me a case to put my visage in: ^note
A visor for a visor! ^note what care I
What curious eye doth quote ^note deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.

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

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 ^note, and look on.

The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done ^note.

Mer.
Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire ^note
Of this sir-reverence love ^note, wherein thou stick'st ^note
Up to the ^note ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho.

Rom.
Nay ^note, that's not so.

Mer.
I mean, sir, in delay ^note
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day ^note.
Take our good meaning, for our judgement sits ^note
Five times in that ere once in our five ^note wits.

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

Mer.
Why, may one ask? ^note

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. ^note

Mer.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' ^note midwife, and she comes

In shape no ^note bigger than an ^note agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies ^note
Athwart ^note men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long ^note spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces ^note, of the smallest spider's ^note web;
Her collars ^{note note}, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film ^note;
Her waggoner, ^note a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd ^note from the lazy finger ^note of a maid ^note:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind ^note the fairies' coachmakers ^note.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er ^note courtiers' ^note knees, that dream on court'sies ^note straight; ^note
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream ^note on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on ^note kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths ^note with sweetmeats tainted are:

Sometime ^note she gallops o'er a courtier's ^note nose ^note,
And then dreams ^note he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime ^note comes she with a ^note tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's ^note nose ^note as a' ^note lies asleep,
Then he dreams ^note of another benefice:
Sometime ^note she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths ^note five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear ^note, 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 ^note the elf-locks ^note in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled ^note much misfortune ^note bodes: ^note
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 ^note is she— ^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 ^note than the wind, who wooes

Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face ^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 ^note hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels, and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast ^note,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He, that hath the steerage ^note of my course,
Direct my sail ^{note note}! On, lusty gentlemen.

Ben.
Strike, drum. [Exeunt. ^{note note}

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