Original
Modern English
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without apology?
What should we say as our excuse for being here or should we enter without apologising?
The date is out of such prolixity:
It is unfashionable to provide such explanations.
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;
We are not going to introduce ourselves by having someone dressed up as Cupid, blindfolded and carrying a toy bow to frighten the ladies like a scarecrow.
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke After the prompter, for our entrance:
Neither are we going to give a speech to introduce ourselves.
But let them measure us by what they will, We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.
Let them judge us however they like. We will give them a dance and then hit the road.
Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling; Being but heavy I will bear the light.
Give me the torch. I am not here to dance. I feel sad, so let me the one to carry the lights.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
No, gentle Romeo, you must dance.
Not I, believe me, you have dancing shoes, With nimble soles,
Not me, believe me, you are the one wearing dancing shoes with nimble soles.
I have a soul of lead So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
I have a soul made up of lead. It’s so heavy that it sticks me to the ground so I cannot move.
You are a lover,
You are a lover, Romeo.
borrow Cupid’s wings, And soar with them above a common bound.
Borrow Cupid’s wings, and fly with them higher than any average man.
I am too sore enpierced with his shaft To soar with his light feathers,
His arrow has pierced me too deep, so I can’t fly high with light feathers.
and so bound, I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.
I am so heavy that I can’t leap any higher than my dull sadness.
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
I am sinking under this heavy weight of love.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love; Too great oppression for a tender thing.
If you sink, you are sinking in love with you too. Love is too tender a thing to drag down.
Is love a tender thing?
Is love a tender thing?
It is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.
It is too rough too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like a thorn.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
If love is rough with you, be rough with love.
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
If you prick love for pricking you, you will beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in: [
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A visor for a visor.
A mask for a mask.
What care I What curious eye doth quote deformities?
What do I care if any curious eyes see my flaws?
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.
Let this mask, with its black eyebrows, blush for me.
Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in
Come, let’s knock and go inside.
But every man betake him to his legs.
As soon as we enter, let’s start dancing.
A torch for me:
I will hold the torch.
let wantons, light of heart, Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;
let wontons, with light heart tickle the senseless rushes with their heels.
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase,
There is an old saying, If you do not play the game, you cannot lose.
I’ll be a candle-holder and look on,
I will be the candle-holder and watch you guys.
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.
The game was never so fair, and I am done.
Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word:
Hey! You are being a stick in the mud, cautious just a policeman on patrol.
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire
If you are a stick in the mud, we will put you out of the mud -
Or save your reverence love, wherein thou stickest Up to the ears.
I mean, we will put you out of love, if you will excuse me for being rude - where you are stuck upto your ears.
Come, we burn daylight, ho.
Come, we are wasting daylight. Let’s go!
Nay, that’s not so.
No, we are not. It is already night.
I mean sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day.
I mean, sir, we are wasting out torch light by this delay, which is as good as wasting daylight.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits Five times in that ere once in our five wits.
Try and understand what I mean, instead of trying to be clever or trusting your five senses.
And we mean well in going to this mask; But’tis no wit to go.
We mean well by going to this ball wearing masks but it’s not wise of us to go there.
Why, may one ask?
Why, may I ask?
I dreamt a dream tonight.
I had a dream last night.
And so did I.
And so did I.
Well what was yours?
Well, what was yours?
That dreamers often lie.
That dreamers often lie.
They lie in bed while they dream about the truth.
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
Oh, then, I have seen you with Queen Mab.
She is the fairies’midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman,
[MERCUTIO] - She is the fairies midwife, who is no bigger than an agate-stone on the fore-finger of an alderman.
Drawn with a team of little atomies Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
She rides around in a wagon drawn by a team of little atoms, and she passed over the men’s noses as they lie asleep.
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The spokes of her wagon are made of spider’s legs and the cover is made of the wings of grasshoppers.
Her traces, of the smallest spider’s web; The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams;
The harnesses are made of the smaller spider’s web, while the collars are made out of moonbeams.
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her whip is attached to cricket’s bone.
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her driver is a tiny bug, wearing a grey-coat, as tiny as the half of the worm that comes from the finger of a lazy girl.
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut shell, made by the carpenter squirrel or an old grub.
Time out o’mind the fairies’coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’brains, and then they dream of love;
They have been making wagons for fairies for the longest time. She rides every night through the brains of the lovers and makes them dream about love.
O’er courtiers’knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
She rides over courtiers’ and they dream about curtsying.
O’er lawyers’fingers, who straight dream on fees;
She rides over lawyers fingers and they straight away start thinking about their 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:
She rides over women’s lips, and they start thinking about kisses and at times, she puts blisters on their lips because their breath makes her mad.
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
Sometime she rides over a courtier’s nose, and he dreams of making money off of someone.
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:
Sometimes, she brings a tithe-pig’s tail, and tickles a priest’s nose as he lies asleep.
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.
Sometimes, she rides over a soldier’s neck, and he dreams of cutting the throats of enemies, of breaking down walls, of ambushes, of spanish words, and of liquor, drums in his ears so loud that he wakes up frightened that he starts praying and goes back to sleep.
This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night; And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
She is the same Mab who tangles the hair in horses manes at night and makes the tangles hard in the dirty hairs, which bring bad luck if they are untangled.
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,—
Mab is the old hag who gives false sex dreams to virgins and teaches them how to hold a lover and bear a child. She is the one -
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace, Thou talk’st of nothing.
Enough, enough, Mercutio, enough, please. You are speaking nonsense.
True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain,
True, I am talking about dreams, which are the products 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 wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.
Dreams are nothing but useless imagination, as thin as air, and even less inconsistent than the wind, which sometimes blows on the frozen north and then gets angry and blows south.
This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:
This wind you are talking of is blowing us off our course.
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
Supper is already over, and we are too late to the party.
I fear too early:
I fear, we are 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
I have a feeling within that is the start of something destined with horrible consequences, and something that will end with my own death.
By some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage of my course Direct my suit.
But whoever is in charge of steering my life can steer me wherever they want.
On, lusty gentlemen!
Onwards! lusty gentlemen!
Strike, drum.
Beat the drum.