Benvolio and Mercutio (SLOW UPDATES)

Mercutio & Queen Mab

Benvolio lead Romeo into Mercutio's home.

"Ah, dear Benvolio! What tooketh thee so long?" Mercutio inquired as they entered. "And young Romeo, too!"

"I apologise, brave Mercutio, but Romeo's humor wast out of s'rts, so I tooketh it upon myself to che'r him up." He explained.

"Another maiden?" Mercutio smirked. Benvolio nodded.

"The Capulets art holding a masque, wh're the objecteth of his affections hast been invited, so we planeth to wend, so he may examine other beauties."

"Though nay maiden is m're quaint than the fair Rosaline." Romeo retorted.

"Of course not, young Romeo." Mercutio snickered. "Well, it just so happeneth I has't been invited, so we can wend togeth'r." He showed them three masks. The first was black with a raven-like beak, Romeo grabbed that one immediately as it 'matches the despair in his soul.' The second was silver and vaguely resembled the face of a dog. Mercutio handed that one to Benvolio. The last one was gold and resembled a fox; Mercutio happily took that for his own. Mercutio lit a torch and the trio headed out for the party.

"What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?" Romeo inquired, fiddling with the tie of his mask. "Or shall we on without apology?"

"The date is out of such prolixity." Benvolio assured him. "We’ll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf, bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath, scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper, 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."

"Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling. Being but heavy, I will bear the light." Romeo announced. Mercutio gasped.

"Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance!" Romeo shook his head.

"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." He sighed.

"You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings and soar with them above a common bound!" Mercutio insisted, a grin pulling at his lips.

"I am too sore enpiercèd 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." Romeo groaned pitifully.

"And to sink in it, should you burthen love— too great oppression for a tender thing."

"Is love a tender thing?" Romeo wondered aloud. "It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn."

"If love be rough with you, be rough with love." Mercutio stated. "Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down." He turned to Benvolio. "Give me a case to put my visage in! A visor for a visor." They put on their masks and he wrapped an arm around both Montagues. "What care I what curious eye doth cote deformities? Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me." They neared the Capulets' door.

"Come, knock and enter. And no sooner in but every man betake him to his legs." Benvolio encouraged. Romeo sighed solemnly.

"A torch for me. Let wantons light of heart tickle the senseless rushes with their heels. For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase, I’ll be a candle holder, and look on. The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done."

"Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word. If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire, or—save your reverence—love, wherein thou stick’st up to the ears." Mercutio answered, freeing his companions and running forward. "Come, we burn daylight, ho!"

"Nay, that’s not so." Romeo contradicted.

"I mean, sir, in delay." Mercutio explained, "We waste our lights in vain, like lights by day. Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits five times in that ere once in our fine wits".

"And we mean well in going to this masque, but ’tis no wit to go..."

"Why, may one ask?"

"I dreamt a dream tonight." Romeo admitted.

"And so did I." Mercutio responded.

"Well, what was yours?" He inquired.

"That dreamers... often lie!" He laughed, punctuating his statement by poking Romeo's nose. Romeo shook his head.

"In bed asleep while they do dream things true!" He insisted.

"Oh, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you!" Benvolio smiled fondly. Mercutio was always going off about the infamous Queen Mab. He decided to humor him.

"Queen Mab, what’s she?" He grinned.

"She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomi over men’s noses as they lie asleep." Mercutio explained merrily. He made grand gestures as he spoke. "Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs, the cover of the wings of grasshoppers, her traces of the smallest spider’s web, her collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat, not half so big as a round little worm pricked from the lazy finger of a maid. Her chariot is an empty hazelnut made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers." Benvolio watched his friend fondly, the feeling of butterflies returning to his core. "And in this state she gallops night by night through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love..." Mercutio continued, getting bolder with each word. Romeo laughed in disbelief. "...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 he lies asleep, then he dreams of another benefice." Mercutio became more frenzied, "Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier’s neck, and then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes, 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. This is that very Mab that plaits the manes of horses in the night and bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, which once untangled, much misfortune bodes!" At this point he was shouting and shaking with anger as he continued. This isn't right... Benvolio thought. "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 grabbed Mercutio's shoulders, shaking him back to reality.

"Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talk’st of nothing." Mercutio nodded, but seemed to still be in a haze.

"True..." He murmured, "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 angered, puffs away from thence, turning his face to the dew-dropping south."

"This wind you talk of, blows us from ourselves." Benvolio responded, grabbing Mercutio, tightly to assure him he's there but not enough to harm him, and pulling him forward. "Supper is done, and we shall come too late!" Romeo seemed to hesitate.

"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 despisèd life closed in my breast by some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail." Mercutio winked towards Benvolio, wrapping an arm around him. Romeo sighed, "On, lusty gentlemen!"

"Strike, drum!" Benvolio grinned as he opened the door.