Shakespeare – No Fear – Romeo and Juliet – Translation Scene 4

What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?Or shall we on without apology? Should we make an excuse? Or should we do whatever we want, is what is being said here.
he date is out of such prolixity.BENVOLIOWe’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 spokeAfter the prompter for our entrance.But let them measure us by what they will.We’ll measure them a measure and be gone. They won’t bother with any extra stuff. They’ll just come, chill and dance, and leave. No speeches, no problems.
MERCUTIOIf 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!A visor for a visor.—What care IWhat curious eye doth cote deformities?Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me. He’s telling Romeo not to let love weigh him down, he should go hard on it. If love goes hard on him, he should go hard on love.
So, Mercutio and Romeo are about to head into the party. Romeo prefers to chillax and watch. He is still painstaking regarding his love.
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’stUp to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho! Mercutio states Romeo is holding everything back. He states that he will bring Romeo forward anyway, from the mire.
MERCUTIOI mean, sir, in delay.We waste our lights in vain, like lights by day.Take our good meaning, for our judgment sitsFive times in that ere once in our fine wits. He wants Romeo to use his own common sense, maybe not being such a smartass.
Mercutio’s long speech about Queen Mab is really annoying.
Queen Mab is very small, smaller than an alderman (government official’s) stone of their ring.
Queen’s Mab spokes of her wagon are made of spider’s legs
The cover of Queen Mab’s wagon is made of grasshopper’s wings
The harnesses of her wagon are made of the smallest spiderwebs
Queen Mab goes over men’s what as they sleep? Their noses
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 airAnd more inconstant than the wind, who woosEven now the frozen bosom of the north,And, being angered, puffs away from thence,Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. Mercutio notes that dreams are silly, and mean very little, and are inconsistent, in this case, he compares it to wind, and it’s own incosistencies.
Benvolio notes that the “wind” Mercutio is referring to is distracting them, and that they will get to the place too late.
Romeo, morbidly, notes what about the night? He fears they are coming too early. He’s scared that there is some strange consequences lying ahead.
September 2, 2019