If thou art dun we’ll draw thee from the mire

Of—save your reverence—love, wherein thou stickest

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 lights by day.

Take our good meaning, for our judgement sits

Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

ROMEO

And we mean well in going to this masque,

But ’tis no wit to go.

MERCUTIO Why, may one ask?

ROMEO

I dreamt a dream tonight.

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.

BENVOLIO Queen Mab, what’s she?

MERCUTIO

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 atomi

Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep.

Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’ legs;

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;

Her traces, of the moonshine’s wat‘ry beams;

Her collars, of the smallest spider web;

Her whip, of cricket’s bone, the lash of film;

Her wagoner, 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 hazelnut

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 curtsies straight;

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 lawyer’s lip,

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, ambuscados, 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 plaits 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—

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 woos

Even now the frozen bosom of the north,

And, being angered, 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.

They march about the stage and ⌈exeunt⌉

1.5 ⌈Peter⌉ and other Servingmen come forth with napkins

⌈PETER⌉ Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away?

He shift a trencher, he scrape a trencher!

FIRST SERVINGMAN When good manners shall lie all in one

or two men’s hands, and they unwashed too, ’tis a foul

thing.

⌈PETER⌉ Away with the joint-stools, remove the court–

cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece

of marzipan, and, as thou loves me, let the porter let in

Susan Grindstone and Nell. Anthony and Potpan I

SECOND SERVINGMAN Ay, boy, ready.

⌈PETER⌉ You are looked for and called for, asked for and

sought for, in the great chamber.

⌈FIRST⌉ SERVINGMAN We cannot be here and there too.

Cheerly, boys! Be brisk a while, and the longest liver take all.

⌈They come and go, setting forth tables and chairs.⌉ Enter ⌈Musicians, then⌉ at one door Capulet, ⌈his Wife,⌉ his Cousin, Juliet., ⌈the Nurse,⌉ Tybalt, his page, Petruccio, and all the guests and gentlewomen; at another door, the masquers: ⌈Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio⌉

CAPULET (to the masquers)

Welcome, gentlemen. Ladies that have their toes

Unplagued with corns will walk a bout with you.

Aha, 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