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  • Title: Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)
  • Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
  • ISBN: 1-55058-299-2

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)

    The most excellent Tragedie,

    Rom: Nay thats not so. Mer: I meane sir in delay,
    We burne our lights by night, like Lampes by day,
    500Take our good meaning for our iudgement sits
    Three times a day, ere once in her right wits.
    Rom: So we meane well by going to this maske:
    But tis no wit to goe.
    Mer: Why Romeo may one aske?
    505Rom: I dreamt a dreame to night.
    Mer: And so did I. Rom: Why what was yours?
    Mer: That dreamers often lie.
    Rom: In bed a sleepe while they doe dreame things (true.
    510Mer: Ah then I see Queene Mab hath bin with you.
    510.1Ben: Queene Mab whats she?
    She is the Fairies Midwife and doth come
    In shape no bigger than an Aggat stone
    512.1On the forefinger of a Burgomaster,
    Drawne with a teeme of little Atomi,
    A thwart mens noses when they lie a sleepe.
    Her waggon spokes are made of spinners webs,
    515The couer, of the winges of Grashoppers,
    The traces are the Moone-shine watrie beames,
    The collers crickets bones, the lash of filmes,
    Her waggoner is a small gray coated flie,
    Not halfe so big as is a little worme,
    520Pickt from the lasie finger of a maide,
    And in this sort she gallops vp and downe
    Through Louers braines, and then they dream of loue:
    O're Courtiers knees: who strait on cursies dreame
    O're Ladies lips, who dreame on kisses strait:
    Which oft the angrie Mab with blisters plagues,
    Because their breathes with sweetmeats tainted are:
    Sometimes she gallops ore a Lawers lap,
    And