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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
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Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 2, 1599)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Peer Reviewed
The most lamentable Tragedie
465Being but heauie I will beare the light.
Mercu. Nay gētle Romeo,we must haue you dance.
Ro. Not I beleeue me, you haue dancing shooes
With nimble soles, I haue a soule of Leade
So stakes me to the ground I cannot moue.
470Mer. You are a Louer, borrow Cupids wings,
And sore with them aboue a common bound.
Rom. I am too sore enpearced with his shaft,
To sore with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch aboue dull woe,
475Vnder loues heauie birthen do I sincke.
Horatio. And to sink in it should you burthen loue,
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Rom. Is loue a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boystrous, and it pricks like thorne.
480 Mer. If loue be rough with you, be rough with loue
Prick loue for pricking, and you beate loue downe,
Giue me a case to put my visage in,
visor for a visor, what care I
What curious eye doth cote deformities:
485Here are the beetle browes shall blush for me.
Benu. Come knock and enter, and no sooner in,
But euery man betake him to his legs.
Ro. A torch for me, let wantons light of heart
Tickle the sencelesse rushes with their heeles:
490For I am prouerbd with a graunsire phrase,
Ile be a candle-holder and looke on,
The game was nere so faire, and I am dum.
Mer. Tut, duns the mouse, the Constables own word:
If thou art dun, weele draw thee from the mire
495Or saue you reuerence loue, wherein thou stickest
Vp to the eares, come we burne daylight ho.
Ro. Nay thats not so.
Mer. I meane sir in delay
We waste our lights in vaine, lights lights by day:
500Take our good meaning, for our iudgement sits,
Fiue