32
ROMEO AND JULIET
[ACT I
| Rom. | Give me a torch[E 1]: I am not for this ambling; Being but heavy, I will bear the light. |
| Mer. | Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. |
| Rom. | Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes With nimble soles; I have a soul[E 2] of lead 15 So stakes me to the ground I cannot move. |
| Mer. | You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings, And soar with them above a common bound. |
| Rom. | I am too sore enpierced[E 3] with his shaft To soar with his light feathers; and so bound,[C 1] 20 I cannot bound[E 4] a pitch above dull woe: Under love's heavy burden do I sink. |
| Mer.[C 2] | And, to sink in it, should you burden love;[E 5] Too great oppression for a tender thing. |
| Rom. | Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, 25 Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn. |
| Mer. | 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:[E 6] |
- ↑ 11. torch] Masquers and masqueraders were accompanied by their torch-bearers. Westward Hoe (Pearson's Dekker, ii. p. 292): "He is just like a torch-bearer to maskers, he wears good cloathes, and is rankt in good company, but he doth nothing."
- ↑ 15. soul] The play on the word was irresistible. Compare Julius Casar, I. i. 15.
- ↑ 19. enpierced] A variation in spelling of empierced, or impierced, to which the word was altered in the later Ff. New Eng. Dict. gives no example of enpierced except that of the text.
- ↑ 21. bound] Steevens apologises for Shakespeare by quoting Milton, Par. Lost, iv. 181: "At one slight bound high over-leap'd all bound."
- ↑ 23. burden love] Compare II. v. 79, and line 94 of the present scene.
- ↑ 29. visage in:] Theobald read in? and added the stage direction "Putting off his mask." Johnson, also reading in?, added "Putting on his mask." Capell, rightly, I think, reading in., added "taking one from an Att.," and, rightly, after visor! line 30, added "throwing it away." Mercutio, an invited guest, goes, I think, unmasked. Perhaps, as Professor Littledale suggests, we should read "visage in!"—Mercutio at once rejecting the mask.
