Romeo and Juliet / Ромео и Джульетта

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;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail,

Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice:

Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscados, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;

And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,

And sleeps again.

That plats the manes of horses in the night;

And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:

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

True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

Which is as thin of substance as the air,

And more inconstant than the wind, who woos

Even now the frozen bosom of the north,

And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,

Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

Benvolio

This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

Romeo

I fear too early: for my mind misgives

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars,

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night’s revels; and expire the term

Of a despised life, clos’d in my breast

By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

But he that hath the steerage of my course

Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen!

Benvolio

Strike, drum.

[Exeunt.]

Scene V

A Hall in Capulet’s House. Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.