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 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!

[Putting on a mask. 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 sir-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 dream'd 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; 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
Over 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 watery 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 o' mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of

love :

O'er 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 sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then he dreams 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 fadom 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 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 sail. On, lusty gentlemen.

Ben.

Strike, drum.

SCENE V.

[Exeunt.

A Banquet 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 unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.

1 Serv. Away with the join'd-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 Serv. You are looked 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.

Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! 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,
I'll swear, hath corns. Am I come near you now?

You are welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day, That I have worn a visor, and could tell

A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,

Such as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis

gone.

You are welcome, gentlemen! - Come, musicians,

play.

A hall! a hall! give room, and foot it, girls.

[Music plays, and they dance.
More light, you knaves! and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire; the room is grown too hot.
Ah! sirrah, this unlook'd for sport comes well.
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,

For you and I are past our dancing days:
How long is't now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?

2 Cap.

By'r Lady, thirty years.

Cap. What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much :

'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,

Come pentecost as quickly as it will,

Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd. 2 Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more: his son is elder, sir; His son is thirty.

Cap.

Will you tell me that?

His son was but a ward two years ago.

Rom. What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand

Of yonder knight?

Serv. I know not, sir.

Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn

bright!

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;

Beauty too rich for use, for Earth too dear!