SCENE 4: A STREET. — Shakespeare Retold

[Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others]

ROMEO

What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?

So, if we’re caught, this note is our excuse?

Or shall we on without apology?

Or shall we join without apologising?

BENVOLIO

The date is out of such prolixity:

It’s so unfashionable for such verboseness;

We'll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf,

We won’t dress up as Cupid in a blindfold,

Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,

Whilst carrying a cheap, toy bow-and-arrow,

Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;

Scaring the ladies like a dreadful scarecrow;

Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke

Nor will we give a predetermined speech

After the prompter, for our entrance:

When prompted as we enter in the hall.

But let them measure us by what they will;

But let them judge us how they choose to judge us;

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

We’ll judge them with a dance, and then we’ll leave.

ROMEO

Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;

Give me the torch, then I don’t have to dance;

Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Because I’m miserable, I’ll hold the torch.

MERCUTIO

Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

Oh no, dear Romeo, you have to dance.

ROMEO

Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes

I don’t, believe me: you’ve got dancing shoes on

With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead

With nimble soles; my soul is made of lead

So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

And stakes me to the ground so I can’t dance.

MERCUTIO

You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,

You are a lover: borrow Cupid’s wings

And soar with them above a common bound.

Then you will fly above where most men jump.

ROMEO

I am too sore enpierced with his shaft

I’m hurting so much, snared by Cupid’s arrow,

To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,

That I can’t fly with Cupid’s wings; I’m stuck

I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:

And cannot leap at all because of sadness:

Under love's heavy burden do I sink.

I’m sinking from the heavy weight of love.

MERCUTIO

And, to sink in it, should you burden love;

And if you sink in love, you weigh love down;

Too great oppression for a tender thing.

An awful thing to do to something tender.

ROMEO

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,

Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

Too rude and fierce, and pricks you like a thorn.

MERCUTIO

If love be rough with you, be rough with love;

If love is tough on you, get tough on love;

Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.

If love pricks you, then use your prick to beat it.

Give me a case to put my visage in:

Give me a mask that I can hide my face in:

A visor for a visor! What care I

A mask to hide my mask! What do I care

What curious eye doth quote deformities?

Which nosy people spot my face’s defects?

Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.

These black brows on this mask will do my blushing.

BENVOLIO

Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,

Let’s knock and go inside; and once we’re in,

But every man betake him to his legs.

Then all of us must promptly start to dance.

ROMEO

A torch for me: let wantons light of heart

Give me a torch: I’ll let light-hearted leches

Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels,

Cavort upon the reeds strewn on the floor,

For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase;

But I’ll obey advice from that old saying,

I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.

Abstaining, looking on, holding the candle.

The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.

The ladies never looked so fine, but I’m done.

MERCUTIO

Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:

You’re done? That’s what a policeman says. You brown mouse!

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire

If you are stuck in brown mud, we will pull you

Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st

Out of this muddy love, where you are stuck

Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!

Up to your ears. Come on, we’re wasting daylight!

ROMEO

Nay, that's not so.

It’s night-time now.

MERCUTIO

I mean, sir, in delay

I mean, we’re wasting time.

We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.

We waste our torch’s fuel, like wasting sunlight.

Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits

Act on my words as I intend them; judgement

Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

Is five times smarter than being a smartarse.

ROMEO

And we mean well in going to this mask;

We’ve good intentions at this masquerade;

But 'tis no wit to go.

But it’s not smart to go.

MERCUTIO

Why, may one ask?

Why not, I ask you?

ROMEO

I dreamed a dream to-night.

I had a dream last night.

MERCUTIO

And so did I.

ROMEO

Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO

That dreamers often lie.

That dreams are often lies.

ROMEO

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

But when asleep, these dreams seem all too real.

MERCUTIO

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

Oh, then I see Queen Mab’s paid you a visit.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

She is the fairies’ midwife, and she is,

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

In size, no bigger than a quart-cut gemstone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Worn on the finger of a counciler,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Drawn in a wagon pulled by tiny creatures

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Across men’s noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,

Her wagon’s spokes are made of spider’s legs,

The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,

The canopy is from grasshoppers’ wings,

The traces of the smallest spider's web,

The harnesses are made from spiders’ webs,

The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,

The collars from translucent beams of moonlight,

Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,

Her whip’s a thread tied to a cricket’s bone,

Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,

A small, grey-coated gnat controls the wagon,

Not so big as a round little worm

And smaller than the worm that folklore says

Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;

Lives in the blood of lazy girls, unmarried;

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut

Her chariot’s an empty hazelnut shell

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Made by a squirrel carpenter or larva,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And they have always made the fairies’ coaches.

And in this state she gallops night by night

And every night Queen Mab rides out like this

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,

On courtiers’ knees, and then they dream of curtseying,

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,

On lawyers’ fingers, then they dream of fees,

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

On ladies’ lips, who dream of being kissed,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

But often angry Queen Mab gives them cold sores,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:

Because their breath smells sweet from candied fruit.

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

Sometimes she gallops on a lobbyist’s nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

Who smells a fee by taking folk to court;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail

And tails from pigs offered to church in payment

Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,

She tickles on the parson’s nose whilst sleeping,

Then dreams, he of another benefice:

And then he dreams of holding higher office.

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

Sometimes she drives upon a soldier’s neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Who dreams of cutting foreign soldiers throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of busting walls, of ambush, swords from Spain,

Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon

And never-ending booze; and then she starts

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

A battle-drum within his ear, which wakes him,

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

And being frightened, says a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

And then falls back to sleep. This is Queen Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night,

That tangles manes of horses in the night,

And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,

Then hardens all the tangles in mess,

Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:

Which, if untied, will bring who did it bad luck.

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

It’s her, when virgin’s lay upon their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

That teaches them of sex and bearing children,

Making them women of good carriage:

Preparing them as lovers and as mothers.

This is she--

This is her…

ROMEO

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Enough, Mercutio! I’ve heard enough!

Thou talk'st of nothing.

You’re talking nonsense.

MERCUTIO

True, I talk of dreams,

Yes, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

And they are born out of a lazy mind,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

Devoid of value, stoking up the ego

Which is as thin of substance as the air

Which is devoid of substance, like thin air,

And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes

And fickler than the wind, who’s blowing now

Even now the frozen bosom of the north,

The freezing air upon us from the north,

And, being angered, puffs away from thence,

And, when blown out, begins to blow again

Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

Returning with a rainstorm from the south.

BENVOLIO

This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;

The wind you talk about blows us off course;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

They’ve finished supper and we’ll be there late.

ROMEO

I fear, too early: for my mind misgives

I fear, too early: something’s bothering me

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars

About the fate that’s written in the stars

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

That says today an awful thing will start

With this night's revels and expire the term

Within the party, shortening the time

Of a despised life closed in my breast

My breaking heart will beat within my breast,

By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

And through misfortune, I’ll die prematurely.

But He, that hath the steerage of my course,

But God, who steers me through the path of life,

Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.

Direct me! Now, full-blooded men, let’s go!

BENVOLIO

Strike, drum.

Bang the drum!

[Exeunt]