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.-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, Torchbearers, and others.

Rom. What, shall this speech be spcke for our excuse?

Or shall we on without apology?

Ben. The date is out of such prolixity:2 We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf, Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,

(1) i. e. Is not yet caught, whose skin was want ed to bind him.

(2) i. e. Long speeches are out of fashion.

Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;1
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,2 and be gone.
Rom. Give me a torch,3-I am not for this am-
bling;

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 wo:
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 quote4 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.

(1) A scare-crow, a figure made up to frighten

crows.

(2) A dance.

(3) A torch-bearer was a constant appendage to every troop of maskers.

(4) Observe

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.2

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 atomies3
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;

(1) It was anciently the custom to strew rooms with rushes.

(2) This is equivalent to phrases in common use-I am done, for, it is over with me.

(3) Atoms

The collars, of the moonshine's watry 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 hazle-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 sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:1
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-locks2 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, this is she

Rom.

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace;

Thou talk'st of nothing.

(1) A place in court.

(2) ie. Fairy-locks, locks of hair clotted and tangled in the night.

Mer.
True, I talk of dreains;
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 woos
Even now the frozen bosem 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.

[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, 'tis 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;2 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 called for, asked for, and sought for, in the great chamber.

(1) A cupboard set in a corner, like a beaufet, on which the plate was placed.

(2) Almond-cake.