cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight. La. Cap. We follow thee.-Juliet, the county stays. Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Street.

Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO,' BENVOLIO, with five or six maskers, torch-bearers, and others.

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

Or shall we on without apology?

Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.2

4

3

We'll have no Cupid hood-winked with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,3
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.

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, 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 enpierced with his shaft,

1 Shakspeare appears to have formed this character on the following slight hint: "Another gentleman, called Mercutio, which was a courtlike gentleman, very well beloved of all men, and by reason of his pleasant and courteous behavior was in all companies well entertained.”— Painter's Palace of Pleasure, tom. ii. p. 221.

2 "Introductory speeches are out of date or fashion."

3 The Tartarian bows resemble, in their form, the old Roman or Cupid's bow, such as we see on medals and bass-relief.

4 See King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6.

5 A torch-bearer was a constant appendage to every troop of maskers. To hold a torch was anciently no degrading office.

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.

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

Rom. Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous; 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.

A visor for a visor!-What care I,

[Putting on a mask.

What curious eye doth quote1 deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows, shall blush for me.
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, Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;

For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase,-
I'll be a candle-holder,3 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.

4

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
Of this (save reverence) love, wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears.-Come, we burn daylight,5 ho.
Rom. Nay, that's not so.

1 To quote is to note, to mark.

2 It has been before observed, that the apartments of our ancestors were strewed with rushes; and so, it seems, was the ancient stage.

3 To hold the candle is a common proverbial expression for being an idle spectator. There is another old prudential maxim subsequently alluded to, which advises to give over when the game is at the fairest.

4 Dun is the mouse, is a proverbial saying, to us of vague signification, alluding to the color of the mouse, but frequently employed with no other intent than that of quibbling on the word done. Why it is attributed to a constable we know not. To draw dun out of the mire was a rural pastime, in which dun meant a dun horse, supposed to be stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the persons who played, at others, by a log of wood. Mr. Gifford has described the game at which he remembers often to have played, in a note to Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas, vol. vii. p. 282.

5 This proverbial phrase was applied to superfluous actions in general.

Mer.
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.1

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.

Rom. Well, what was yours ?

Mer.

And so did I.

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. She is the fairies' midwife; 2 and she comes

4

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,3
Drawn with a team of little atomies 1
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-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 wagoner, a small, gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid:
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:

1 The quarto of 1597 reads, "Three times a-day;" and right wits instead of five wits.

2 The fairies' midwife does not mean the midwife to the fairies, but that she was the person among the fairies whose department it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men of their dreams, those children of an idle brain. Warburton reads, "the fancy's midwife."

3 The quarto of 1597 has "of a burgomaster." The citizens of Shakspeare's time appear to have worn this ornament on the thumb.

4 Atomies for atoms.

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,1
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit: 2
And sometimes 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,3
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.

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 angered, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

1 This speech received much alteration after the first edition in the quarto of 1597; and Shakspeare has inadvertently introduced the courtier twice.

2 A place in court.

3 The quarto of 1597 reads, "counter mines." Spanish blades were held in high esteem. A sword was called a Toledo, from the excellency of the Toledan steel.

4 i. e. fairy locks, locks of hair clotted and tangled in the night.

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 his fearful date

With this night's revels; and expire1 the term
Of a despised life, closed 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.
Ben. Strike, drum.2

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.3 A Hall in Capulet's House. Musicians waiting.

Enter Servants.

1 Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher! 2 Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.

6

1 Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate.-Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.Antony! and Potpan!

2 Serv. Ay, boy; ready.

1 So in The Rape of Lucrece :

"An expired date cancelled ere well begun."

2 Here the folio adds:-" They march about the stage, and serving-men come forth with their napkins.”

3 This scene is not in the first copy in the quarto of 1597.

4 To shift a trencher was technical. Trenchers were used in Shakspeare's time, and long after, by persons of good fashion and quality.

5 The court-cupboard was the ancient sideboard, whereon the plate was displayed at festivals.

6 Marchpane was a constant article in the desserts of our ancestors. It was a sweet cake, composed of filberts, almonds, pistachoes, pinekernels, and sugar of roses, with a small portion of flour. They were often made in fantastic forms. In 1562, the Stationers' Company paid "for ix. marchpaynes xxvi, s. viii. d.”

VOL. VII.

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