And soar with them above a common bound.

Rom. I am too sore enpiercéd 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 proverbed 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,
Or, save your reverence, love, wherein thou stick'st
Come, we burn daylight, ho.

Up to the ears.

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 't is 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 forefinger 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
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;

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 sweetmeats 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 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.

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 angered, 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, 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.

[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 Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 't is a foul thing.

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.