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 would say, thou hadst sucked 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 wax.

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 gentleman?

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,
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,
We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.

Rom. Give me a torch; 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 boisterous; 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, 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.

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 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
Over 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 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 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

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 sweet-meats 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 he dreams 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,

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 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 unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.

1 Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save

Garden.

Call, good Mercutio. Mer.

Nay, I'll conjure too.Romeo, humours, madman, passion, lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh: Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied; Cry but-Ah me! pronounce but-love and dove; Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, One nick-name for her purblind son and heir, Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not; The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes, By her high forehead, and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, And the demesnes that there adjacent lie, That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him. Mer. This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle

Till she had laid it, and conjur'd it down;
That were some spite. My invocation
Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress' name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.

Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these

trees, To be consorted with the humorous night: Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree,

And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit,
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.-
Romeo, good night :-I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.
Come, shall we go?

Ben.

Go, then; for 'tis in vain

To seek him here, that means not to be found.

SCENE II.-CAPULET'S Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

[Exeunt.

Rom. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.[JULIET appears above, at a window.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!-
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.-
It is my lady; O! it is my love: