With nimble soles, I have a soul of lead

So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.


MERCUTIO.

You are a lover, borrow Cupid’s wings,

And soar with them above a common bound.


ROMEO.

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 burden do I sink.


MERCUTIO.

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

Too great oppression for a tender thing.


ROMEO.

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,

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


MERCUTIO.

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: [Putting on a mask.]

A visor for a visor. What care I

What curious eye doth quote deformities?

Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.


BENVOLIO.

Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in

But every man betake him to his legs.


ROMEO.

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.


MERCUTIO.

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.


ROMEO.

Nay, that’s not so.


MERCUTIO.

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.


ROMEO.

And we mean well in going to this mask;

But ’tis no wit to go.


MERCUTIO.

Why, may one ask?


ROMEO.

I dreamt a dream tonight.


MERCUTIO.

And so did I.


ROMEO.

Well what was yours?


MERCUTIO.

That dreamers often lie.


ROMEO.

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.


MERCUTIO.