ACT 1
Scene 4

...to happy days.
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers, Torchbearers, and a Boy with a drum.

...bear the light.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

...I cannot move.
You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings
And soar with them above a common bound.

...do I sink.
And to sink in it should you burden love—
Too great oppression for a tender thing.

...pricks like thorn.
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 cote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.

...I am done.
Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word.
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire—
Or, save your reverence, love—wherein thou stickest
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!

...that’s not so.
I mean, sir, in delay
We waste our lights; in vain, light lights by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

...wit to go.
Why, may one ask?

...a dream tonight.
And so did I.

...what was yours?
That dreamers often lie.

...dream things true.
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 atomi
Over 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 web,
Her collars of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams,
Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked 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;
On courtiers’ knees, that dream on cur’sies 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 he 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 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—

...talk’st of nothing.
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 woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north
And, being angered, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

...gentlemen. Strike, drum.
They march about the stage and then withdraw to the side.

Scene 5

...to my rest.
All but Juliet and the Nurse begin to exit.

ACT 2
Scene 1

...out. He withdraws.
Enter Benvolio with Mercutio.

...cousin Romeo, Romeo!
He is wise
And, on my life, hath stol’n him home to bed.

...Call, good Mercutio.
Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh.
Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied.
Cry but “Ay me,” pronounce but “love” and “dove.”
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim
When King Cophetua loved 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.

...wilt anger him.
This cannot anger him. ’Twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it and conjured it down.
That were some spite. My invocation
Is fair and honest. In his mistress’ name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.

...befits the dark.
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.—
O Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
An open-arse, thou a pop’rin pear.
Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.—
Come, shall we go?

...to be found.
They exit.

Scene 4

...that run fast.
Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.
Where the devil should this Romeo be?
Came he not home tonight?

...with his man.
Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,
Torments him so that he will sure run mad.

...his father’s house.
A challenge, on my life.

...will answer it.
Any man that can write may answer a letter.

...dares, being dared.
Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead,
stabbed with a white wench’s black eye, run
through the ear with a love-song, the very pin of his
heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt shaft. And
is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

...what is Tybalt?
More than prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous
captain of compliments. He fights as you sing
prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion.
He rests his minim rests, one, two, and the third in
your bosom—the very butcher of a silk button, a
duelist, a duelist, a gentleman of the very first house
of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal
passado, the punto reverso, the hay!

... The what?
The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
phantasimes, these new tuners of accent: “By
Jesu, a very good blade! A very tall man! A very good
whore!” Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire,
that we should be thus afflicted with these
strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these ’s‘”,
who stand so much on the new form
that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O their
bones, their bones!

...here comes Romeo.
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O
flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the
numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura to his lady
was a kitchen wench (marry, she had a better love
to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy,
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, Thisbe a gray
eye or so, but not to the purpose.—Signior Romeo,
bonjour. There’s a French salutation to your French
slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.

...I give you?
The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?

...may strain courtesy.
That’s as much as to say such a case as
yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.

...Meaning, to curtsy.
Thou hast most kindly hit it.

...most courteous exposition.
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

...“Pink” for flower.
Right.

...pump well flowered.
Sure wit, follow me this jest now till thou
hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole
of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing,
solely singular.

...for the singleness.
Come between us, good Benvolio. My wits
faints.

...cry a match.
Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I
am done, for thou hast more of the wild goose in
one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole
five. Was I with you there for the goose?

...for the goose.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

...goose, bite not.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
sharp sauce.

...a sweet goose?
O, here’s a wit of cheveril that stretches
from an inch narrow to an ell broad.

...a broad goose.
Why, is not this better now than groaning
for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou
Romeo, now art thou what thou art, by art as well as
by nature. For this driveling love is like a great
natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his
bauble in a hole.

...there, stop there.
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against
the hair.

...thy tale large.
O, thou art deceived. I would have made it
short, for I was come to the whole depth of my tale
and meant indeed to occupy the argument no
longer.

...sail, a sail!
Two, two—a shirt and a smock.

...My fan, Peter.
Good Peter, to hide her face, for her fan’s
the fairer face.

...good morrow, gentlemen.
God you good e’en, fair gentlewoman.

...it good e’en?
’Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of
the dial is now upon the prick of noon.

...You say well.
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’
faith, wisely, wisely.

...to some supper.
A bawd, a bawd, a bawd. So ho!

...hast thou found?
No hare, sir, unless a hare, sir, in a Lenten
pie that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent. Singing.

An old hare hoar,

And an old hare hoar,

Is very good meat in Lent.

But a hare that is hoar

Is too much for a score

When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to
dinner thither.

...will follow you.
Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell, lady, lady,
lady.
Mercutio and Benvolio exit.

ACT 3
Scene 1

...two in one.
Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, and their men.

...mad blood stirring.
Thou art like one of these fellows that, when
he enters the confines of a tavern, claps me his
sword upon the table and says “God send me no
need of thee” and, by the operation of the second
cup, draws him on the drawer when indeed there is
no need.

...such a fellow?
Come, come, thou art as hot a jack in thy
mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be
moody, and as soon moody to be moved.

...And what to?
Nay, an there were two such, we should
have none shortly, for one would kill the other.
Thou—why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that
hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than
thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking
nuts, having no other reason but because thou
hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy
out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as
an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been
beaten as addle as an egg for quarreling. Thou hast
quarreled with a man for coughing in the street
because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain
asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor
for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With
another, for tying his new shoes with old ribbon?
And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarreling?

...and a quarter.
The fee simple? O simple!

...comes the Capulets.
By my heel, I care not.

...one of you.
And but one word with one of us? Couple it
with something. Make it a word and a blow.

...give me occasion.
Could you not take some occasion without
giving?

...consortest with Romeo.
Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels?
An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear
nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick; here’s
that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!

...gaze on us.
Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

...comes my man.
But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.
Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower.
Your Worship in that sense may call him “man.”

...own, be satisfied.
O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!
Alla stoccato carries it away.He draws.
Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?

...have with me?
Good king of cats, nothing but one of your
nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and, as
you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the
eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher
by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your
ears ere it be out.

...thy rapier up.
Come, sir, your passado.
They fight.

...Tybalt! Good Mercutio!
Romeo attempts to beat down their rapiers. Tybalt stabs Mercutio.

... Away, Tybalt!
I am hurt.
A plague o’ both houses! I am sped.
Is he gone and hath nothing?

...art thou hurt?
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough.
Where is my page?—Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

...cannot be much.
No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as
a church door, but ’tis enough. ’Twill serve. Ask for
me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’
both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a
cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a
villain that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the
devil came you between us? I was hurt under your
arm.

...for the best.
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses!
They have made worms’ meat of me.
I have it, and soundly, too. Your houses!
All but Romeo exit.