William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

ACT I. 4. Scene IV. A Street.

[Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers;
Torch-bearers, and others.]

Romeo.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?

Benvolio.
The date is out of such prolixity:
We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance:
But, let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.

Romeo.
Give me a torch,--I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Mercutio.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

Romeo.
Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes,
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 visard for a visard! 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.