The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man As all the world—why, he's a man of wax.

La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gentleman ?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;

Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,

And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:

The fish lives in the sea; and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide :
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. [Exit Servant.]—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:
We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'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:
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 enpiercèd 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:

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 (sir-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.

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

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 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' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er (1) 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:

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.

First Serv.(12) Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? he shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher !

Sec. Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.

First Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the courtcupboard, 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!

Sec. Serv. Ay, boy, ready.

First Serv. You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber.

Sec. Serv. We cannot be here and there too.-Cheerly, boys; be brisk awhile, 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 ye now ?—
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.—