Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, (9) BENVOLIO, with five or six other Maskers, and Torch-bearers.

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

a The date is out of such prolixity:] It appears to have been the custom formerly for guests who were desirous, for the purposes of intrigue or from other motives, of being incognito, to go in visors, when they visited an entertainment of the description given by Capulet, and to send a masked messenger before them with an apologetic and propitiatory address to the host or hostess. b After the prompter, &c.] This and the preceding line are

After the prompter, for our entrance:b

But, let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.
ROM. Give me a torch, (10)-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;d borrow Cupid's wings,

found only in the quarto of 1597. The word entrance here requires to be pronounced as a trisyllable, enterance.

We'll measure them a measure, &c.] For an account of this dance, see the Illustrative Comments to Act V. of "Love's Labour's Lost."

d You are a lover;] The twelve lines which follow are not found in the first quarto.

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."
MER. Tut! dun's the mouse,(11) the constable's
own word:

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire,
Or (save your reverence) love, wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears: come, we burn day-light, ho.
ROм. 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.

ROM. Well, what was yours?
MER.

And so did I.

That dreamers often lie. ROM. In bed, asleep, while they do dream things true.

MER. O then, I see queen Mab hath been with

(*) First folio, to bound.

(1) First folio, I delay

(†) Old copies, HORATIO.

(§) First folio, in vain, lights lights by day. () First folio omits an.

a Tickle the senseless rushes-] Before the introduction of carpets it was customary, as everybody knows, to strew rooms with rushes; it is not so generally known, however, that the stage was strewn in the same manner.

"on the very rushes, when the comedy is to daunce." DECKER'S Gull's Hornbooke, 1609. b The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.] An allusion, Ritson says, to an old proverbial saying, which advises to give

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;
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry 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 o' 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

straight:

on court'sies

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 sweet-meats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:4
And sometime comes she with a § tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams hell 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 is she-(12)

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 ourselves;

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 unwash'd 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; 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 look'd for, and call'd for, ask'd for, and sought for, in the great chamber.

2 SERV. We cannot be here and there too.Cheerly, boys; be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all." [They retire behind.

Exeunt.] The folio, 1623, has the following stage direction:"They march about the stage, and Serving-men come forth with their napkins'

Remove the court-cupboard-] A court-cupboard appears to have been what we now call a cabinet, and was used to display the silver flagons, cups, beakers, ewers, &c., constituting the plate of the establishment,

eSave me a piece of marchpane;] A favourite confection with our ancestors; something like almond cakes, but richer, being composed of pistachio nuts, almonds, pine kernels, sugar of roses, and flour.

d This scene first appeared in the edition of 1599.

• Will have a bout- So the quarto, 1597: the subsequent copies, and the folio, walk about.

f Welcome, gentlemen!-] The remainder of this speech, down to "More light, you knaves;" &c. was added after the printing of the 1597 quarto.

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear:
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.

(*) Quartos, 1599, &c., and folio, Ah, my mistresses!

g Good cousin Capulet,-] Unless within the degree of parent and child, or brother and sister, one kinsman usually addressed another as cousin in Shakespeare's time. Thus the King in "Hamlet" calls his nephew and step-son

which has been thought so great an improvement that it is almost invariably adopted.

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

TYB. This, by his voice, should be a Montague:

Fetch me my rapier, boy:-what! dares the slave
Come hither, cover'd with an antick face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

1 CAP. Why, how now, kinsman? wherefore storm you so?

TYB. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain, that is hither come in spite,

To scorn at our solemnity this night.
1 CAP. Young Romeo is 't?
TYB.

'Tis he, that villain Romeo.
1 CAP. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,
He bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him,
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:
I would not for the wealth of all this* town,
Here in my house, do him disparagement:
Therefore be patient, take no note of him,
It is my will; the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence, and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

TYB. It fits, when such a villain is a guest ; I'll not endure him.

1 CAP.
He shall be endur'd;
What, goodman boy!-I say, he shall ;—go to;
Am I the master here, or you? go to.

You'll not endure him!--God shall mend my soul-
You'll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop!" you'll be the man!
TYB. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.

1 CAP.

Go to, go to,
You are a saucy boy :-is 't so, indeed?
This trick may chance to scathe you ;-I know
what.

You must contráry me! marry. 'tis time—
Well said, my hearts:-you are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or more light, more light: for shame!
I'll make you quiet; what!-cheerly, my hearts.

TYB. Patience perforce,d with wilful choler meeting,

Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall. [Exit.

a You will set cock-a-hoop!-] A phrase of very doubtful origin. Some writers think it an allusion to a custom they say existed of taking the cock or spigot out of the barrel and laying it on the hoop. I rather suppose it to refer in some way to the boastful, provocative crowing of the cock, but can find nothing explanatory of its meaning in any author.

bTo scathe you ;] That is, to damage you.

You are a princox;-] A coxcomb.

d Patience perforce,-] From the old adage,-"Patience upon force is a medicine for a mad dog."

My life is my foe's debt.] He means that, as bereft of Juliet

ROM. If I profane with my unworthiest hand [To JULIET.

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand*

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JUL. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this ; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. ROM. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JUL. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROM. O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;

They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. JUL. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROM. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg'd. [Kissing her.

JUL. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROM. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd! Give me my sin again.

JUL.

You kiss by the book.

he should die, his existence is at the mercy of his enemy, Capulet. Thus in the old poem :

"So hath he learnd her name and knowth she is no geast,
Her father was a Capilet, and master of the feast.
Thus hath his foe in choyse to geve him life or death,
That scarcely can his wofull brest keepe in the lively breath."

f The sport is at the best.] This seems to mean, "We have seen the best of the sport."

g Towards.-] Approaching, near at hand.