Romeo and Juliet Page #4

Servant

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.

LADY CAPULET:

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

ROMEO:

What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?

Or shall we on without a apology?

BENVOLIO:

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.

ROMEO:

Give me a torch:
I am not for this ambling;

Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

MERCUTIO:

Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

ROMEO:

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.

MERCUTIO:

You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,

And soar with them above a common bound.

ROMEO:

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.

MERCUTIO:

And, to sink in it, should you burden love;

Too great oppression for a tender thing.

ROMEO:

Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,

Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

MERCUTIO:

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.

BENVOLIO:

Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,

But every man betake him to his legs.

ROMEO:

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.

MERCUTIO:

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!

ROMEO:

Nay, that's not so.

MERCUTIO:

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.

ROMEO:

And we mean well in going to this mask;

But 'tis no wit to go.

MERCUTIO:

Why, may one ask?

ROMEO:

I dream'd a dream to-night.

MERCUTIO:

And so did I.

ROMEO:

Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO:

That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO:

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO:

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 wagon-spokes made of long spiders' 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 wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,

Not 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 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 elflocks 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--

ROMEO:

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Thou talk'st of nothing.

MERCUTIO:

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.

BENVOLIO:

This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

ROMEO:

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.

BENVOLIO:

Strike, drum.

Exeunt

SCENE V. A hall in Capulet's house.

Musicians waiting. Enter Servingmen with napkins

First Servant

Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He

shift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!

Second Servant

When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's

hands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.

First Servant

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!

Second Servant

Ay, boy, ready.

First Servant

You are looked for and called for, asked for and

sought for, in the great chamber.

Second Servant

We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be

brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.

Enter CAPULET, with JULIET and others of his house, meeting the Guests and Maskers

CAPULET:

Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes

Unplagued 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.

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

Music plays, and they dance

Rate this script:4.0 / 11 votes