ROMEO 25 Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, 26 Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn. MERCUTIO 27 If love be rough with you, be rough with love; 28 Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. 29 Give me a case to put my visage in, 30 A visor for a visor! what care I 31 What curious eye doth quote deformities? 32 Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me. BENVOLIO 33 Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in, 34 But every man betake him to his legs. ROMEO 35 A torch for me: let wantons light of heart 36 Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels, 37 For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase; 38 I'll be a candle-holder, and look on. 39 The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done. MERCUTIO 40 Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word: 41 If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire 42 Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st 43 Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho! ROMEO 44 Nay, that's not so. MERCUTIO 44 I mean, sir, in delay 45 We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. 46 Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits 47 Five times in that ere once in our five wits. ROMEO 48 And we mean well in going to this mask; 49 But 'tis no wit to go. MERCUTIO 49 Why, may one ask? ROMEO 50 I dream'd a dream to-night. MERCUTIO 50 And so did I. ROMEO 51 Well, what was yours? MERCUTIO 51 That dreamers often lie. ROMEO 52 In bed asleep, while they do dream things true. Summary MERCUTIO 53 O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. 54 She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes 55 In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 56 On the fore-finger of an alderman, 57 Drawn with a team of little atomies 58 Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep. 59 Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut 60 Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, 61 Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. 62 Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs, 63 The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, 64 The traces of the smallest spider's web, 65 The collars of the moonshine's watery beams, 66 Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, 67 Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, 68 Not so big as a round little worm 69 Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid. 70 And in this state she gallops night by night 71 Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; 72 O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cur'sies straight, 73 O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees, 74 O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, 75 Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, 76 Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. 77 Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 78 And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; 79 And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail 80 Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep, 81 Then dreams, he of another benefice: 82 Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, 83 And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, 84 Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 85 Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon 86 Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, 87 And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two 88 And sleeps again. This is that very Mab 89 That plats the manes of horses in the night, 90 And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, 91 Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes: 92 This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, 93 That presses them and learns them first to bear, 94 Making them women of good carriage. 95 This is she— ROMEO 95 Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! 96 Thou talk'st of nothing.
