LITMIR.BIZ

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shape no bigger than an agate-stone

      On the fore-finger of an alderman,

      Drawn with a team of little atomies

      Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:

      Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;

      The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;

      Her 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 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 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, 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 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 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 anger’d, puffs away from thence,

      Turning his side 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, clos’d in my breast

      By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

      But he that hath the steerage of my course

      Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen!

Benvolio

      Strike, drum.

      [Exeunt.]

      Scene V

      A Hall in Capulet’s House. Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

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 unwash’d too, ’tis a foul thing.

First servant

      Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as thou loves 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.

      [Exeunt.]

      Enter Capulet, amp;c. with the Guests

      and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.

Capulet

      Welcome, gentlemen, ladies that have their toes

      Unplagu’d with corns will have a bout with you.

      Ah 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.]

      More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,

      And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.

      Ah sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.

      Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,

      For you and I are past our dancing days;

      How long is’t now since last yourself and I

      Were in a mask?

Capulet’s Cousin

      By’r Lady, thirty years.

Capulet

      What, man, ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much:

      ’Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,

      Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,

      Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d.

Capulet’s Cousin

      ’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir;

      His son is thirty.

Capulet

      Will you tell me that?

      His son was but a ward two years ago.

Romeo

      What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand

      Of yonder knight?

Servant

      I know not, sir.

Romeo

      O,

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