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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 burthen do I sink.

Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burthen 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.

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 sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st

Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, 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 masque;

But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer. Why, may one ask?

Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.

Mer. And so did I.

Rom. Well, what was yours?

Mer. 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 forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

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 smallest spider's web;

Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;

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

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 cursies 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.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fadom 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 elflocks 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-

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