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Romeo & Juliet
 


 
ACT I, Scene iv
Act I, Scene iv: A street. Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, and BENVOLIO, with five or six other masqueraders, torch-bearers.
ROMEO
  Shall I give a formal speech to introduce us?
Or shall we just enter without any introduction?
BENVOLIO
  Those speeches are out of fashion.
We don't want a blindfolded Cupid,
carrying his painted bow,
scaring ladies like a scarecrow.
And we don't want an impromptu prologue softly spoken
after a prompter for our entrance.
Let the people measure us as they want to;
we'll dance one dance and be gone.
ROMEO
  Give me a torch. I'm not for this leisurely dancing.
Since I'm so weighted down with sadness, I'll carry the torch.
MERCUTIO
  No, gentle Romeo, we want you to dance.
ROMEO
  Not me, believe me. You have dancing shoes
with light soles; I have a soul of lead
which holds me to the ground so I can't move.
MERCUTIO
  You are lover. Borrow Cupid's wings
and fly with them above an ordinary dance leap.
ROMEO
  I'm too painfully pierced with Cupid's arrow
to fly with his light feathers, and so bound to the ground,
I cannot leap even an inch above dull sorrow.
I'm sinking under love's heavy burden.
MERCUTIO
  And to sink in it would burden love.
That's too heavy a burden for so tender a thing as love.
ROMEO
  Is love a tender thing? It's too rough,
too rude, too rowdy, and it pricks like a thorn.
MERCUTIO
  If love is rough with you, be rough with love.
If love pricks you, prick it back, and you'll beat love down.
Give me a mask to cover my face. (Puts on a mask)
A mask for an ugly face! What do I care
if a curious eye notices my ugliness?
The beetlelike eyebrows on this mask shall cover my embarrassment.
BENVOLIO
  Come, knock, and let's go in. And when we get in,
every man is to dance.
ROMEO
  Give me a torch. Let mischievous, light-hearted men
dance over the floor coverings.
I take the advice of the old proverb which says,
"I'll be an onlooker and watch.
It's better quit the game while it's still fun!"
MERCUTIO
  Nonsense, like the sheriff says, be still as a mouse.
If you're a horse, we'll get you out of the mud,
or if you'll excuse me, out of love where you're sticking
up to your ears. Come on, we're burning daylight.
[Note: In Shakespearean language, Mercutio is here making a number of puns on the word dun: the proverb "dun's the mouse" (keep quiet); dark, done; and the proverb "Dun is in the mire" (a horse is stuck in the mud).]
ROMEO
  No, that's not true.
MERCUTIO
  I mean, sir, that by delaying,
we waste our time in vain, like using torches by day.
Take it as I mean it, for judgment is found
in correct interpretation five times before it's found once in our five senses.
ROMEO
  We have good intentions in going to this masquerade dance,
but it isn't wise to go.
MERCUTIO
  Why, may I ask?
ROMEO
  I dreamed a dream tonight.
MERCUTIO
  And so did I.
ROMEO
  Well, what was your dream?
MERCUTIO
  That dreamers often lie.
ROMEO
  . . . in bed asleep, while they dream dreams that come true.
MERCUTIO
  O, then, I see that the fairy, Queen Mab, has been with you.
She delivers babies for the fairies, and she is
no bigger than an agate stone for a ring
on the forefinger of a magistrate.
She's drawn by a team of tiny creatures
over men's noses as they lie asleep.
Her wagon spokes are made of spiders' legs;
the cover is made of the wings of grasshoppers;
the harness is made of the smallest spider web;
her steeds' collars are made of the rays of watery moonbeams;
her whip is made of cricket's bone; the lash a spider's web;
her coachman is a small, grey-coated, gnat,
not half as big as a little round worm
removed from the finger of a lazy maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut shell
made by a squirrel, or an old worm,
who, ever since anyone could remember, have been the fairies' coachmakers.
In this manner she gallops night after night
through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love.
She travels over courtiers' knees and they dream of bowing;
over lawyers' fingers, and they dream of fees;
over ladies' lips, and they dream of kisses.
Often the testy Mab puts blisters on the ladies' lips
because their breaths smell of too many sweets.
Sometimes she gallops over a courtier's nose,
and then he dreams of finding someone whose cause he can support for a fee;
and sometimes she comes with the tail of a pig owed to the church
and tickles a minister's nose as her sleeps,
so that he dreams of being given another well-paying post.
Sometimes she drives over a soldier's neck,
and he dreams of cutting foreigners' throats,
and of invasions, ambushes, Spanish knives,
and drinking toasts from glasses thirty feet deep. Then soon
he hears drums and he awakens,
and being frightened by the noise, he says a prayer or two
and goes back to sleep. This is that same Mab
who braids the manes of horses in the night,
and tangles dirty, unkempt hair
which,when untangled, means terrible misfortune.
This is the hag which presses maidens down
as they lie on their backs and teaches them to bear up
so they will have good posture.
This is the fairy woman--
ROMEO
  Stop, stop, Mercutio!
You're talking nonsense.
MERCUTIO
  True, I'm talking about dreams,
which are the children of an idle brain,
born from nothing but an empty fantasy,
which is as thin as the air
and more likely to change than the wind, who is wooing
the frozen heart of the north right now,
and, becoming angry, he puffs away from the north,
turning his face to the rainy south.
BENVOLIO
  This wind you are talking about blows us away from our purpose.
The banquet is about over, and we'll get there too late.
ROMEO
 

I am afraid we're too early, for I am afraid
that some unpleasant events, still only destined to happen
will bitterly begin to unfold
with this party tonight and bring to an end
this hateful life of mine
by some terrible, untimely death.
But God, who steers my life's course,
will give my sail direction. Let's go, merry gentlemen!
BENVOLIO
  Beat your drums.
They march about the stage and then exit.