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,
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 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?

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 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

Of this (save reverence) love, wherein thou stick'st. Up to the ears.-Come, we burn day-light, ho.

Rom. Nay, that's not so.

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.

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.

That dreamers often lie.

Rom. Well, what was yours?

Mer.

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; 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 wat'ry 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 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 tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:
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,
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 anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face 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 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.

Ben. Strike, drum.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

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 Sero. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.

1 Sero. 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 Sero. You are look'd for, and call'd for, ask'd for, and sought for, in the great chamber.

2 Serv. We cannot be here and there too.Cheerly, boys; be brisk a-while, and the longer liver take all. [They retire behind.

Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests, and the

Maskers.

1 Cap. Gentlemen, welcome! ladies, that have their toes

Unplagu'd with corns, will have a bout with you:— Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all

Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,

she,