That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him making yourself no less.
Nurse. No less ? nay, bigger women grow by men.
La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love ?

Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move;
But no more deep will I endart mine eye',
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse 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.

[Eceunt.

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

2

— ENDART mine eye,] “Engage mine eye" in the 4to, 1597, only. 3 – and others.] One of the "others” was furnished with a drum, as we learn from the corr. fo. 1632. This is material, according to the last words of Benvolio in this scene, “Strike, drum !"

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 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: [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.

5 Give me a torch ;] The character (says Steevens) which Romeo declares his resolution to assume, will be best explained by a passage in “Westward Ho!" by Decker and Webster, 1607:—“He is just like a torch-bearer to maskers ; he wears good cloathes, and is ranked in good company, but he doth nothing." Romeo wishes to take no active part in the affair.

6 You are a lover : &c.] This and the eleven next lines are not found in the 4to, 1597. Perhaps they were a subsequent addition.

- doth quote deformities?'] i. e. Note or observe deformities, as frequently before. The next three lines are not in the 4to, 1597.

8 Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels ;] Alluding to the rushes with which apartments were anciently strewed in England, a custom mentioned by innumerable writers of the time.

» Tut! dun's the mouse,] We meet with this expression in many old comic

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, 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.
Rom. Well, what was your's ?
Mer.

That dreamers often lie. Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

Mer. Oh! 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

authors; among others, in “ Patient Grissill,” by Decker, Chettle, and Haughton, 1603, (Shakespeare Society's reprint, p. 6,) where Babulo says, “and then this eye opens ; yet dun is the mouse - lie still.” It is also elsewhere used as if “ “dun were to be understood dumb. The next line, " If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire,” refers to the Christmas gambol of Dun is in the mire, the mode of playing which Gifford explains in a note to Ben Jonson’s Works, Vol. vii. p. 283. The phrase, “Dun’s in the mire,” is often met with : it occurs in “ The Woman Hater," by Beaumont and Fletcher, A. iv. sc. 2 (Dyce's Edition, Vol. ii. p. 71); and there was an old tune of that name, mentioned by Taylor, the Water-poet, in his “ Armada, or Navy of Ships," 8vo, 1627.

I Of this SAVE-REVERENCE love,] The meaning is evident, and it is only necessary to observe, that our text is that of the 4to, 1597, excepting that “savereverence" is there printed surreverence, as it was perhaps usually pronounced. The 4to, 1599, has it, “Or save you reverence love;" which is followed by the 4to, 1609: the folio, 1623, reads, “Or save your reverence love," and so it is repeated in the later folios.

– ere once in our FIVE wits.] No doubt Malone was right in reading " five wits," for "fine wits," as it stands in the 4tos, 1599 and 1609, as well as in the folio. The 4to, 1597, gives the line thus :-—"Three times a day, ere once in her right wits," so that no aid can be derived from thence. In “ Henry VI., Part II.," A. iv. sc. 10, Vol. iv. p. 96, we have had the opposite blunder, for there “fine" is misprinted five.

2

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 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 counsellor'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 dreams he of another benefice.
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

6

5 OVER men's noses] So the 4tos, 1599, 1609, and the folio : the 4to, 1597, only, “ Athwart men's noses.”

the lash, of film :] This and the two preceding lines stand as follows in the 4to, 1597 :

“ The traces are the moonshine watery beams,

The collar's cricket's bones, the lash of films." In the next line it has fly for “gnat."

7 Prick'd from the lazy finger of a MAID.] “Maid” is from the 4to, 1597, other copies reading man until the folio, 1632, which substitutes woman : the earliest 4to. also reads pick'd for "prick'd.” The corr. fo. 1632 gives the line thus:-" Pick'd from the lazy finger of a milk-maid."

8 Time out of mind, &c.] This and the two preceding lines are first found in the 4to, 1599. In the next line the 4to, 1597, reads, up and down for “ night by night.”

• O’er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees :) This line is not in the 4to, 1597, which, in the preceding line, reads, “who straight on courtsies dream."

Sometime she gallops o'er a COUNSELLOR's nose,] It is “lawyer's lap" in the 4to, 1597, and “courtier's nose" in other 4tos. and folios; but we have had “courtiers' knees” mentioned just above, and the corr. fo. 1632 instructs us to read “ counsellor's nose,” which doubtless was the poet's word. Counsellor, and suits at court have not before been introduced.

Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,) “Sometime she gallops o'er a

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.
This, is she

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 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,