Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace*!

Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.

La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of :-Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.

Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
I'd say, thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger
than you,

Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,

Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years,
That you are now a maid. Thus then, in brief ;-
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 waxt.

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 gen

tleman ?

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 margin 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,

* Favour.

+ Well made, as if he had been modelled in wax. The comments on ancient books were always printed in the margin. § i, e. Is not yet caught, whose skin was wanted to bind him.

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, 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:
But, let them measure us by what they will,
* i. e. Long speeches are out of fashion.

A scare-crow, a figure made up to frighten crows.

We'll measure them a measure*, and be gone. Rom. Give me a torcht.-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 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 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 || .

* A dance.

A torch-bearer was a constant appendage to every troop of maskers. ‡ Observe.

§ It was anciently the custom to strew rooms with rushes.

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

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 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 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 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:

* Atoms.

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 sweatmeats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit*:
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-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, 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 our-
selves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

* A place in court.

ti. e. Fairy-locks, locks of hair clotted and tangled in the night.