Romeo and Juliet

Romeo

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
[Juliet places the palm of her hand against Romeo’s]
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Romeo

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?                  

Juliet

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Romeo

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

Romeo

Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
[He kisses her]
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

Romeo

What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand               
Of yonder knight?

Servant

I know not, sir.

Romeo

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear — 
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.

Mercutio

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 —

Romeo

                       Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
Thou talk'st of nothing.

Mercutio

Benvolio

Romeo

Benvolio

[Exit]

Mercutio

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 dreams he of another benefice.

Mercutio

And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies 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;

Mercutio

And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies 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.

Mercutio

Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

Mercutio

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 spiders' 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 grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid.

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, like lamps by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

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