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ROMEO AND JULIET
SCENE Verona: Mantua.
ACT I, PROLOGUE
Chorus
001: Two households, both alike in dignity,
002: In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
003: From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
004: Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
005: From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
006: A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
007: Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
008: Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
009: The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
010: And the continuance of their parents' rage,
011: Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
012: Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
013: The which if you with patient ears attend,
014: What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
ACT I, SCENE I.
Verona. A public place.
Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY, of the house of Capulet, armed with swords and bucklers
SAMPSON
001: Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.
GREGORY
002: No, for then we should be colliers.
SAMPSON
003: I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.
GREGORY
004: Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.
SAMPSON
005: I strike quickly, being moved.
GREGORY
006: But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
SAMPSON
007: A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
GREGORY
008: To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
009: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.
SAMPSON
010: A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will
011: take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.
GREGORY
012: That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes
013: to the wall.
SAMPSON
014: True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,
015: are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push
016: Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids
017: to the wall.
GREGORY
018: The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.
SAMPSON
019: 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I
020: have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the
021: maids, and cut off their heads.
GREGORY
022: The heads of the maids?
SAMPSON
023: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;
024: take it in what sense thou wilt.
GREGORY
025: They must take it in sense that feel it.
SAMPSON
026: Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and
027: 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
GREGORY
028: 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou
029: hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes
030: two of the house of the Montagues.
SAMPSON
031: My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.
GREGORY
032: How! turn thy back and run?
SAMPSON
033: Fear me not.
GREGORY
034: No, marry; I fear thee!
SAMPSON
035: Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.
GREGORY
036: I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as
037: they list.
SAMPSON
038: Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;
039: which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.
Enter ABRAHAM and BALTHASAR
ABRAHAM
040: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON
041: I do bite my thumb, sir.
ABRAHAM
042: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON
[Aside to GREGORY]
043: Is the law of our side, if I say
044: ay?
GREGORY
045: No.
SAMPSON
046: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I
047: bite my thumb, sir.
GREGORY
048: Do you quarrel, sir?
ABRAHAM
049: Quarrel sir! no, sir.
SAMPSON
050: If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.
ABRAHAM
051: No better.
SAMPSON
052: Well, sir.
GREGORY
053: Say 'better:' here comes one of my master's kinsmen.
SAMPSON
054: Yes, better, sir.
ABRAHAM
055: You lie.
SAMPSON
056: Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.
They fight
Enter BENVOLIO
BENVOLIO
057: Part, fools!
058: Put up your swords; you know not what you do.
Beats down their swords
Enter TYBALT
TYBALT
059: What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
060: Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.
BENVOLIO
061: I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
062: Or manage it to part these men with me.
TYBALT
063: What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
064: As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
065: Have at thee, coward!
They fight
Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray; then enter Citizens, with clubs
First Citizen
066: Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!
067: Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!
Enter CAPULET in his gown, and LADY CAPULET
CAPULET
068: What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!
LADY CAPULET
069: A crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?
CAPULET
070: My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
071: And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
Enter MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE
MONTAGUE
072: Thou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.
LADY MONTAGUE
073: Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.
Enter PRINCE, with Attendants
PRINCE
074: Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
075: Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,--
076: Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
077: That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
078: With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
079: On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
080: Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
081: And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
082: Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
083: By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
084: Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
085: And made Verona's ancient citizens
086: Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
087: To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
088: Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
089: If ever you disturb our streets again,
090: Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
091: For this time, all the rest depart away:
092: You Capulet; shall go along with me:
093: And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
094: To know our further pleasure in this case,
095: To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
096: Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
Exeunt all but MONTAGUE, LADY MONTAGUE, and BENVOLIO
MONTAGUE
097: Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
098: Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?
BENVOLIO
099: Here were the servants of your adversary,
100: And yours, close fighting ere I did approach:
101: I drew to part them: in the instant came
102: The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,
103: Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,
104: He swung about his head and cut the winds,
105: Who nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:
106: While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
107: Came more and more and fought on part and part,
108: Till the prince came, who parted either part.
LADY MONTAGUE
109: O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?
110: Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
BENVOLIO
111: Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun
112: Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,
113: A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
114: Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
115: That westward rooteth from the city's side,
116: So early walking did I see your son:
117: Towards him I made, but he was ware of me
118: And stole into the covert of the wood:
119: I, measuring his affections by my own,
120: That most are busied when they're most alone,
121: Pursued my humour not pursuing his,
122: And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.
MONTAGUE
123: Many a morning hath he there been seen,
124: With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.
125: Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
126: But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
127: Should in the furthest east begin to draw
128: The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
129: Away from the light steals home my heavy son,
130: And private in his chamber pens himself,
131: Shuts up his windows, locks far daylight out
132: And makes himself an artificial night:
133: Black and portentous must this humour prove,
134: Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
BENVOLIO
135: My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
MONTAGUE
136: I neither know it nor can learn of him.
BENVOLIO
137: Have you importuned him by any means?
MONTAGUE
138: Both by myself and many other friends:
139: But he, his own affections' counsellor,
140: Is to himself--I will not say how true--
141: But to himself so secret and so close,
142: So far from sounding and discovery,
143: As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
144: Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
145: Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
146: Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.
147: We would as willingly give cure as know.
Enter ROMEO
BENVOLIO
148: See, where he comes: so please you, step aside;
149: I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.
MONTAGUE
150: I would thou wert so happy by thy stay,
151: To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away.
Exeunt MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE
BENVOLIO
152: Good-morrow, cousin.
ROMEO
153: Is the day so young?
BENVOLIO
154: But new struck nine.
ROMEO
155: Ay me! sad hours seem long.
156: Was that my father that went hence so fast?
BENVOLIO
157: It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
ROMEO
158: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
BENVOLIO
159: In love?
ROMEO
160: Out--
BENVOLIO
161: Of love?
ROMEO
162: Out of her favour, where I am in love.
BENVOLIO
163: Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
164: Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
ROMEO
165: Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
166: Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
167: Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
168: Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
169: Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
170: Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
171: O any thing, of nothing first create!
172: O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
173: Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
174: Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
175: sick health!
176: Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
177: This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
178: Dost thou not laugh?
BENVOLIO
179: No, coz, I rather weep.
ROMEO
180: Good heart, at what?
BENVOLIO
181: At thy good heart's oppression.
ROMEO
182: Why, such is love's transgression.
183: Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
184: Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
185: With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
186: Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
187: Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
188: Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
189: Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
190: What is it else? a madness most discreet,
191: A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
192: Farewell, my coz.
BENVOLIO
193: Soft! I will go along;
194: An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
ROMEO
195: Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here;
196: This is not Romeo, he's some other where.
BENVOLIO
197: Tell me in sadness, who is that you love.
ROMEO
198: What, shall I groan and tell thee?
BENVOLIO
199: Groan! why, no.
200: But sadly tell me who.
ROMEO
201: Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:
202: Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!
203: In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
BENVOLIO
204: I aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.
ROMEO
205: A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.
BENVOLIO
206: A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
ROMEO
207: Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit
208: With Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;
209: And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,
210: From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.
211: She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
212: Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
213: Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
214: O, she is rich in beauty, only poor,
215: That when she dies with beauty dies her store.
BENVOLIO
216: Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
ROMEO
217: She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
218: For beauty starved with her severity
219: Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
220: She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
221: To merit bliss by making me despair:
222: She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
223: Do I live dead that live to tell it now.
BENVOLIO
224: Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
ROMEO
225: O, teach me how I should forget to think.
BENVOLIO
226: By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
227: Examine other beauties.
ROMEO
228: 'Tis the way
229: To call hers exquisite, in question more:
230: These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows
231: Being black put us in mind they hide the fair;
232: He that is strucken blind cannot forget
233: The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:
234: Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
235: What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
236: Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?
237: Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.
BENVOLIO
238: I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
Exeunt
ACT I, SCENE II.
A street.
Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant
CAPULET
001: But Montague is bound as well as I,
002: In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,
003: For men so old as we to keep the peace.
PARIS
004: Of honourable reckoning are you both;
005: And pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.
006: But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
CAPULET
007: But saying o'er what I have said before:
008: My child is yet a stranger in the world;
009: She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,
010: Let two more summers wither in their pride,
011: Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
PARIS
012: Younger than she are happy mothers made.
CAPULET
013: And too soon marr'd are those so early made.
014: The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
015: She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
016: But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
017: My will to her consent is but a part;
018: An she agree, within her scope of choice
019: Lies my consent and fair according voice.
020: This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,
021: Whereto I have invited many a guest,
022: Such as I love; and you, among the store,
023: One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
024: At my poor house look to behold this night
025: Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
026: Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
027: When well-apparell'd April on the heel
028: Of limping winter treads, even such delight
029: Among fresh female buds shall you this night
030: Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,
031: And like her most whose merit most shall be:
032: Which on more view, of many mine being one
033: May stand in number, though in reckoning none,
034: Come, go with me.
[To Servant, giving a paper]
035: Go, sirrah, trudge about
036: Through fair Verona; find those persons out
037: Whose names are written there, and to them say,
038: My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.
Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS
Servant
039: Find them out whose names are written here! It is
040: written, that the shoemaker should meddle with his
041: yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with
042: his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am
043: sent to find those persons whose names are here
044: writ, and can never find what names the writing
045: person hath here writ. I must to the learned.--In good time.
Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO
BENVOLIO
046: Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,
047: One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;
048: Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
049: One desperate grief cures with another's languish:
050: Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
051: And the rank poison of the old will die.
ROMEO
052: Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.
BENVOLIO
053: For what, I pray thee?
ROMEO
054: For your broken shin.
BENVOLIO
055: Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
ROMEO
056: Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;
057: Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
058: Whipp'd and tormented and--God-den, good fellow.
Servant
059: God gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?
ROMEO
060: Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
Servant
061: Perhaps you have learned it without book: but, I
062: pray, can you read any thing you see?
ROMEO
063: Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
Servant
064: Ye say honestly: rest you merry!
ROMEO
[Reads]
065: Stay, fellow; I can read.
066: 'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
067: County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady
068: widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely
069: nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine
070: uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece
071: Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin
072: Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair
073: assembly: whither should they come?
Servant
074: Up.
ROMEO
075: Whither?
Servant
076: To supper; to our house.
ROMEO
077: Whose house?
Servant
078: My master's.
ROMEO
079: Indeed, I should have ask'd you that before.
Servant
080: Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the
081: great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house
082: of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.
083: Rest you merry!
Exit
BENVOLIO
084: At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
085: Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,
086: With all the admired beauties of Verona:
087: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
088: Compare her face with some that I shall show,
089: And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
ROMEO
090: When the devout religion of mine eye
091: Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
092: And these, who often drown'd could never die,
093: Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
094: One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
095: Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.
BENVOLIO
096: Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
097: Herself poised with herself in either eye:
098: But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd
099: Your lady's love against some other maid
100: That I will show you shining at this feast,
101: And she shall scant show well that now shows best.
ROMEO
102: I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
103: But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
Exeunt
ACT I, SCENE III.
A room in Capulet's house.
Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse
LADY CAPULET
001: Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.
Nurse
002: Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
003: I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!
004: God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!
Enter JULIET
JULIET
005: How now! who calls?
Nurse
006: Your mother.
JULIET
007: Madam, I am here.
008: What is your will?
LADY CAPULET
009: This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,
010: We must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;
011: I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.
012: Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.
Nurse
013: Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
LADY CAPULET
014: She's not fourteen.
Nurse
015: I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--
016: And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--
017: She is not fourteen. How long is it now
018: To Lammas-tide?
LADY CAPULET
019: A fortnight and odd days.
Nurse
020: Even or odd, of all days in the year,
021: Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
022: Susan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--
023: Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
024: She was too good for me: but, as I said,
025: On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
026: That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
027: 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
028: And she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--
029: Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
030: For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
031: Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
032: My lord and you were then at Mantua:--
033: Nay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,
034: When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
035: Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
036: To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
037: Shake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,
038: To bid me trudge:
039: And since that time it is eleven years;
040: For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
041: She could have run and waddled all about;
042: For even the day before, she broke her brow:
043: And then my husband--God be with his soul!
044: A' was a merry man--took up the child:
045: 'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
046: Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
047: Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,
048: The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'
049: To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
050: I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
051: I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;
052: And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'
LADY CAPULET
053: Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
Nurse
054: Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,
055: To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'
056: And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
057: A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;
058: A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:
059: 'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?
060: Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
061: Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'
JULIET
062: And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
Nurse
063: Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
064: Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:
065: An I might live to see thee married once,
066: I have my wish.
LADY CAPULET
067: Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme
068: I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
069: How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET
070: It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse
071: An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
072: I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
LADY CAPULET
073: Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
074: Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
075: Are made already mothers: by my count,
076: I was your mother much upon these years
077: That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
078: The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
Nurse
079: A man, young lady! lady, such a man
080: As all the world--why, he's a man of wax.
LADY CAPULET
081: Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse
082: Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
LADY CAPULET
083: What say you? can you love the gentleman?
084: This night you shall behold him at our feast;
085: Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
086: And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
087: Examine every married lineament,
088: And see how one another lends content
089: And what obscured in this fair volume lies
090: Find written in the margent of his eyes.
091: This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
092: To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
093: The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
094: For fair without the fair within to hide:
095: That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
096: That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
097: So shall you share all that he doth possess,
098: By having him, making yourself no less.
Nurse
099: No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.
LADY CAPULET
100: Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
JULIET
101: I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
102: But no more deep will I endart mine eye
103: Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Enter a Servant
Servant
104: Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you
105: called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in
106: the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must
107: hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.
LADY CAPULET
108: We follow thee.
[Exit Servant]
109: Juliet, the county stays.
Nurse
110: Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
Exeunt
ACT I, SCENE IV.
A street.
Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others
ROMEO
001: What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
002: Or shall we on without a apology?
BENVOLIO
003: The date is out of such prolixity:
004: We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,
005: Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
006: Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
007: Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
008: After the prompter, for our entrance:
009: But let them measure us by what they will;
010: We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.
ROMEO
011: Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
012: Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
MERCUTIO
013: Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
ROMEO
014: Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
015: With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead
016: So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
MERCUTIO
017: You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,
018: And soar with them above a common bound.
ROMEO
019: I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
020: To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
021: I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
022: Under love's heavy burden do I sink.
MERCUTIO
023: And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
024: Too great oppression for a tender thing.
ROMEO
025: Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
026: Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
MERCUTIO
027: If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
028: Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
029: Give me a case to put my visage in:
030: A visor for a visor! what care I
031: What curious eye doth quote deformities?
032: Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.
BENVOLIO
033: Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,
034: But every man betake him to his legs.
ROMEO
035: A torch for me: let wantons light of heart
036: Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels,
037: For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;
038: I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.
039: The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.
MERCUTIO
040: Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:
041: If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
042: Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st
043: Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!
ROMEO
044: Nay, that's not so.
MERCUTIO
045: I mean, sir, in delay
046: We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
047: Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
048: Five times in that ere once in our five wits.
ROMEO
049: And we mean well in going to this mask;
050: But 'tis no wit to go.
MERCUTIO
051: Why, may one ask?
ROMEO
052: I dream'd a dream to-night.
MERCUTIO
053: And so did I.
ROMEO
054: Well, what was yours?
MERCUTIO
055: That dreamers often lie.
ROMEO
056: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
MERCUTIO
057: O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
058: She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
059: In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
060: On the fore-finger of an alderman,
061: Drawn with a team of little atomies
062: Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
063: Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
064: The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
065: The traces of the smallest spider's web,
066: The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
067: Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
068: Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
069: Not so big as a round little worm
070: Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
071: Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
072: Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
073: Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
074: And in this state she gallops night by night
075: Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
076: O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
077: O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
078: O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
079: Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
080: Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
081: Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
082: And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
083: And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
084: Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
085: Then dreams, he of another benefice:
086: Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
087: And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
088: Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
089: Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
090: Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
091: And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
092: And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
093: That plats the manes of horses in the night,
094: And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
095: Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
096: This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
097: That presses them and learns them first to bear,
098: Making them women of good carriage:
099: This is she--
ROMEO
100: Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
101: Thou talk'st of nothing.
MERCUTIO
102: True, I talk of dreams,
103: Which are the children of an idle brain,
104: Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
105: Which is as thin of substance as the air
106: And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
107: Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
108: And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
109: Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
BENVOLIO
110: This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;
111: Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
ROMEO
112: I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
113: Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
114: Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
115: With this night's revels and expire the term
116: Of a despised life closed in my breast
117: By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
118: But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
119: Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.
BENVOLIO
120: Strike, drum.
Exeunt
ACT I, SCENE V.
A hall in Capulet's house.
Musicians waiting. Enter Servingmen with napkins
First Servant
001: Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He
002: shift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!
Second Servant
003: When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's
004: hands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.
First Servant
005: Away with the joint-stools, remove the
006: court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save
007: me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let
008: the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
009: Antony, and Potpan!
Second Servant
010: Ay, boy, ready.
First Servant
011: You are looked for and called for, asked for and
012: sought for, in the great chamber.
Second Servant
013: We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be
014: brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.
Enter CAPULET, with JULIET and others of his house, meeting the Guests and Maskers
CAPULET
015: Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes
016: Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you.
017: Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all
018: Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,
019: She, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
020: Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
021: That I have worn a visor and could tell
022: A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
023: Such as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:
024: You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.
025: A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.
[Music plays, and they dance]
026: More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
027: And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
028: Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.
029: Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;
030: For you and I are past our dancing days:
031: How long is't now since last yourself and I
032: Were in a mask?
Second Capulet
033: By'r lady, thirty years.
CAPULET
034: What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:
035: 'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,
036: Come pentecost as quickly as it will,
037: Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.
Second Capulet
038: 'Tis more, 'tis more, his son is elder, sir;
039: His son is thirty.
CAPULET
040: Will you tell me that?
041: His son was but a ward two years ago.
ROMEO
[To a Servingman]
042: What lady is that, which doth
043: enrich the hand
044: Of yonder knight?
Servant
045: I know not, sir.
ROMEO
046: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
047: It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
048: Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
049: Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
050: So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
051: As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
052: The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
053: And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
054: Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
055: For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
TYBALT
056: This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
057: Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
058: Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,
059: To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
060: Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
061: To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
CAPULET
062: Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?
TYBALT
063: Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,
064: A villain that is hither come in spite,
065: To scorn at our solemnity this night.
CAPULET
066: Young Romeo is it?
TYBALT
067: 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.
CAPULET
068: Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;
069: He bears him like a portly gentleman;
070: And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
071: To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:
072: I would not for the wealth of all the town
073: Here in my house do him disparagement:
074: Therefore be patient, take no note of him:
075: It is my will, the which if thou respect,
076: Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
077: And ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
TYBALT
078: It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
079: I'll not endure him.
CAPULET
080: He shall be endured:
081: What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;
082: Am I the master here, or you? go to.
083: You'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
084: You'll make a mutiny among my guests!
085: You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!
TYBALT
086: Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.
CAPULET
087: Go to, go to;
088: You are a saucy boy: is't so, indeed?
089: This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:
090: You must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.
091: Well said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:
092: Be quiet, or--More light, more light! For shame!
093: I'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!
TYBALT
094: Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
095: Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
096: I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall
097: Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.
Exit
ROMEO
[To JULIET]
098: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
099: This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
100: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
101: To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
102: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
103: Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
104: For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
105: And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO
106: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
107: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
108: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
109: They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
110: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO
111: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
112: Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
JULIET
113: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
114: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
115: Give me my sin again.
JULIET
116: You kiss by the book.
Nurse
117: Madam, your mother craves a word with you.
ROMEO
118: What is her mother?
Nurse
119: Marry, bachelor,
120: Her mother is the lady of the house,
121: And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
122: I nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;
123: I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
124: Shall have the chinks.
ROMEO
125: Is she a Capulet?
126: O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.
BENVOLIO
127: Away, begone; the sport is at the best.
ROMEO
128: Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.
CAPULET
129: Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;
130: We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
131: Is it e'en so? why, then, I thank you all
132: I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
133: More torches here! Come on then, let's to bed.
134: Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:
135: I'll to my rest.
Exeunt all but JULIET and Nurse
JULIET
136: Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?
Nurse
137: The son and heir of old Tiberio.
JULIET
138: What's he that now is going out of door?
Nurse
139: Marry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.
JULIET
140: What's he that follows there, that would not dance?
Nurse
141: I know not.
JULIET
142: Go ask his name: if he be married.
143: My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
Nurse
144: His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
145: The only son of your great enemy.
JULIET
146: My only love sprung from my only hate!
147: Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
148: Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
149: That I must love a loathed enemy.
Nurse
150: What's this? what's this?
JULIET
151: A rhyme I learn'd even now
152: Of one I danced withal.
One calls within 'Juliet.'
Nurse
153: Anon, anon!
154: Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.
Exeunt
ACT II, PROLOGUE
Enter Chorus
Chorus
001: Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
002: And young affection gapes to be his heir;
003: That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,
004: With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.
005: Now Romeo is beloved and loves again,
006: Alike betwitched by the charm of looks,
007: But to his foe supposed he must complain,
008: And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:
009: Being held a foe, he may not have access
010: To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
011: And she as much in love, her means much less
012: To meet her new-beloved any where:
013: But passion lends them power, time means, to meet
014: Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.
Exit
ACT II, SCENE I.
A lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard.
Enter ROMEO
ROMEO
001: Can I go forward when my heart is here?
002: Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.
He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it
Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO
BENVOLIO
003: Romeo! my cousin Romeo!
MERCUTIO
004: He is wise;
005: And, on my lie, hath stol'n him home to bed.
BENVOLIO
006: He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:
007: Call, good Mercutio.
MERCUTIO
008: Nay, I'll conjure too.
009: Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
010: Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
011: Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
012: Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'
013: Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
014: One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
015: Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
016: When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!
017: He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
018: The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
019: I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
020: By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
021: By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh
022: And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
023: That in thy likeness thou appear to us!
BENVOLIO
024: And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.
MERCUTIO
025: This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him
026: To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle
027: Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
028: Till she had laid it and conjured it down;
029: That were some spite: my invocation
030: Is fair and honest, and in his mistress' name
031: I conjure only but to raise up him.
BENVOLIO
032: Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,
033: To be consorted with the humorous night:
034: Blind is his love and best befits the dark.
MERCUTIO
035: If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
036: Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
037: And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
038: As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
039: Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
040: An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!
041: Romeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;
042: This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
043: Come, shall we go?
BENVOLIO
044: Go, then; for 'tis in vain
045: To seek him here that means not to be found.
Exeunt
ACT II, SCENE II.
Capulet's orchard.
Enter ROMEO
ROMEO
001: He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
[JULIET appears above at a window]
002: But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
003: It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
004: Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
005: Who is already sick and pale with grief,
006: That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
007: Be not her maid, since she is envious;
008: Her vestal livery is but sick and green
009: And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
010: It is my lady, O, it is my love!
011: O, that she knew she were!
012: She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
013: Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
014: I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
015: Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
016: Having some business, do entreat her eyes
017: To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
018: What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
019: The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
020: As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
021: Would through the airy region stream so bright
022: That birds would sing and think it were not night.
023: See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
024: O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
025: That I might touch that cheek!
JULIET
026: Ay me!
ROMEO
027: She speaks:
028: O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
029: As glorious to this night, being o'er my head
030: As is a winged messenger of heaven
031: Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
032: Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
033: When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
034: And sails upon the bosom of the air.
JULIET
035: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
036: Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
037: Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
038: And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO
[Aside]
039: Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
JULIET
040: 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
041: Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
042: What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
043: Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
044: Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
045: What's in a name? that which we call a rose
046: By any other name would smell as sweet;
047: So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
048: Retain that dear perfection which he owes
049: Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
050: And for that name which is no part of thee
051: Take all myself.
ROMEO
052: I take thee at thy word:
053: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
054: Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
JULIET
055: What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night
056: So stumblest on my counsel?
ROMEO
057: By a name
058: I know not how to tell thee who I am:
059: My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
060: Because it is an enemy to thee;
061: Had I it written, I would tear the word.
JULIET
062: My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
063: Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:
064: Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?
ROMEO
065: Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.
JULIET
066: How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
067: The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
068: And the place death, considering who thou art,
069: If any of my kinsmen find thee here.
ROMEO
070: With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;
071: For stony limits cannot hold love out,
072: And what love can do that dares love attempt;
073: Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.
JULIET
074: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
ROMEO
075: Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
076: Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
077: And I am proof against their enmity.
JULIET
078: I would not for the world they saw thee here.
ROMEO
079: I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;
080: And but thou love me, let them find me here:
081: My life were better ended by their hate,
082: Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
JULIET
083: By whose direction found'st thou out this place?
ROMEO
084: By love, who first did prompt me to inquire;
085: He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.
086: I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far
087: As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,
088: I would adventure for such merchandise.
JULIET
089: Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face,
090: Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
091: For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night
092: Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
093: What I have spoke: but farewell compliment!
094: Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'
095: And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st,
096: Thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries
097: Then say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,
098: If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:
099: Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
100: I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,
101: So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
102: In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,
103: And therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:
104: But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
105: Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
106: I should have been more strange, I must confess,
107: But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,
108: My true love's passion: therefore pardon me,
109: And not impute this yielding to light love,
110: Which the dark night hath so discovered.
ROMEO
111: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear
112: That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--
JULIET
113: O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
114: That monthly changes in her circled orb,
115: Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
ROMEO
116: What shall I swear by?
JULIET
117: Do not swear at all;
118: Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
119: Which is the god of my idolatry,
120: And I'll believe thee.
ROMEO
121: If my heart's dear love--
JULIET
122: Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,
123: I have no joy of this contract to-night:
124: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
125: Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
126: Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!
127: This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
128: May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
129: Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest
130: Come to thy heart as that within my breast!
ROMEO
131: O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
JULIET
132: What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?
ROMEO
133: The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.
JULIET
134: I gave thee mine before thou didst request it:
135: And yet I would it were to give again.
ROMEO
136: Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?
JULIET
137: But to be frank, and give it thee again.
138: And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
139: My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
140: My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
141: The more I have, for both are infinite.
[Nurse calls within]
142: I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!
143: Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.
144: Stay but a little, I will come again.
Exit, above
ROMEO
145: O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.
146: Being in night, all this is but a dream,
147: Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.
Re-enter JULIET, above
JULIET
148: Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
149: If that thy bent of love be honourable,
150: Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
151: By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
152: Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;
153: And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay
154: And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
Nurse
[Within]
155: Madam!
JULIET
156: I come, anon.--But if thou mean'st not well,
157: I do beseech thee--
Nurse
[Within]
158: Madam!
JULIET
159: By and by, I come:--
160: To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:
161: To-morrow will I send.
ROMEO
162: So thrive my soul--
JULIET
163: A thousand times good night!
Exit, above
ROMEO
164: A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
165: Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from
166: their books,
167: But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
Retiring
Re-enter JULIET, above
JULIET
168: Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice,
169: To lure this tassel-gentle back again!
170: Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
171: Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
172: And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,
173: With repetition of my Romeo's name.
ROMEO
174: It is my soul that calls upon my name:
175: How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
176: Like softest music to attending ears!
JULIET
177: Romeo!
ROMEO
178: My dear?
JULIET
179: At what o'clock to-morrow
180: Shall I send to thee?
ROMEO
181: At the hour of nine.
JULIET
182: I will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.
183: I have forgot why I did call thee back.
ROMEO
184: Let me stand here till thou remember it.
JULIET
185: I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
186: Remembering how I love thy company.
ROMEO
187: And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,
188: Forgetting any other home but this.
JULIET
189: 'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
190: And yet no further than a wanton's bird;
191: Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
192: Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
193: And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
194: So loving-jealous of his liberty.
ROMEO
195: I would I were thy bird.
JULIET
196: Sweet, so would I:
197: Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
198: Good night, good night! parting is such
199: sweet sorrow,
200: That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Exit above
ROMEO
201: Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!
202: Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!
203: Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,
204: His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.
Exit
ACT II, SCENE III.
Friar Laurence's cell.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a basket
FRIAR LAURENCE
001: The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
002: Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
003: And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
004: From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:
005: Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
006: The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,
007: I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
008: With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
009: The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
010: What is her burying grave that is her womb,
011: And from her womb children of divers kind
012: We sucking on her natural bosom find,
013: Many for many virtues excellent,
014: None but for some and yet all different.
015: O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
016: In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
017: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
018: But to the earth some special good doth give,
019: Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
020: Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
021: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
022: And vice sometimes by action dignified.
023: Within the infant rind of this small flower
024: Poison hath residence and medicine power:
025: For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
026: Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
027: Two such opposed kings encamp them still
028: In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
029: And where the worser is predominant,
030: Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Enter ROMEO
ROMEO
031: Good morrow, father.
FRIAR LAURENCE
032: Benedicite!
033: What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
034: Young son, it argues a distemper'd head
035: So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
036: Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
037: And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
038: But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain
039: Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:
040: Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
041: Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
042: Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
043: Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.
ROMEO
044: That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
FRIAR LAURENCE
045: God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?
ROMEO
046: With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;
047: I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
048: That's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?
ROMEO
049: I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
050: I have been feasting with mine enemy,
051: Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
052: That's by me wounded: both our remedies
053: Within thy help and holy physic lies:
054: I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,
055: My intercession likewise steads my foe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
056: Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
057: Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
ROMEO
058: Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set
059: On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
060: As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
061: And all combined, save what thou must combine
062: By holy marriage: when and where and how
063: We met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow,
064: I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
065: That thou consent to marry us to-day.
FRIAR LAURENCE
066: Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
067: Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
068: So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies
069: Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
070: Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
071: Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
072: How much salt water thrown away in waste,
073: To season love, that of it doth not taste!
074: The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
075: Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
076: Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
077: Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet:
078: If e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,
079: Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline:
080: And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,
081: Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.
ROMEO
082: Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.
FRIAR LAURENCE
083: For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
ROMEO
084: And bad'st me bury love.
FRIAR LAURENCE
085: Not in a grave,
086: To lay one in, another out to have.
ROMEO
087: I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now
088: Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
089: The other did not so.
FRIAR LAURENCE
090: O, she knew well
091: Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
092: But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
093: In one respect I'll thy assistant be;
094: For this alliance may so happy prove,
095: To turn your households' rancour to pure love.
ROMEO
096: O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.
FRIAR LAURENCE
097: Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
Exeunt
ACT II, SCENE IV.
A street.
Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO
MERCUTIO
001: Where the devil should this Romeo be?
002: Came he not home to-night?
BENVOLIO
003: Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.
MERCUTIO
004: Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline.
005: Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
BENVOLIO
006: Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
007: Hath sent a letter to his father's house.
MERCUTIO
008: A challenge, on my life.
BENVOLIO
009: Romeo will answer it.
MERCUTIO
010: Any man that can write may answer a letter.
BENVOLIO
011: Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he
012: dares, being dared.
MERCUTIO
013: Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a
014: white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a
015: love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the
016: blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to
017: encounter Tybalt?
BENVOLIO
018: Why, what is Tybalt?
MERCUTIO
019: More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
020: the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
021: you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and
022: proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and
023: the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk
024: button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the
025: very first house, of the first and second cause:
026: ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the
027: hai!
BENVOLIO
028: The what?
MERCUTIO
029: The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
030: fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,
031: a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
032: whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,
033: grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with
034: these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
035: perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,
036: that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their
037: bones, their bones!
Enter ROMEO
BENVOLIO
038: Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
MERCUTIO
039: Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
040: how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
041: that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a
042: kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
043: be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
044: Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
045: eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
046: Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation
047: to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit
048: fairly last night.
ROMEO
049: Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
MERCUTIO
050: The ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?
ROMEO
051: Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in
052: such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
MERCUTIO
053: That's as much as to say, such a case as yours
054: constrains a man to bow in the hams.
ROMEO
055: Meaning, to court'sy.
MERCUTIO
056: Thou hast most kindly hit it.
ROMEO
057: A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO
058: Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
ROMEO
059: Pink for flower.
MERCUTIO
060: Right.
ROMEO
061: Why, then is my pump well flowered.
MERCUTIO
062: Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast
063: worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it
064: is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.
ROMEO
065: O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
066: singleness.
MERCUTIO
067: Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.
ROMEO
068: Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.
MERCUTIO
069: Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have
070: done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
071: thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:
072: was I with you there for the goose?
ROMEO
073: Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
074: not there for the goose.
MERCUTIO
075: I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
ROMEO
076: Nay, good goose, bite not.
MERCUTIO
077: Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
078: sharp sauce.
ROMEO
079: And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
MERCUTIO
080: O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
081: inch narrow to an ell broad!
ROMEO
082: I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added
083: to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.
MERCUTIO
084: Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
085: now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
086: thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
087: for this drivelling love is like a great natural,
088: that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
BENVOLIO
089: Stop there, stop there.
MERCUTIO
090: Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
BENVOLIO
091: Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
MERCUTIO
092: O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:
093: for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and
094: meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.
ROMEO
095: Here's goodly gear!
Enter Nurse and PETER
MERCUTIO
096: A sail, a sail!
BENVOLIO
097: Two, two; a shirt and a smock.
Nurse
098: Peter!
PETER
099: Anon!
Nurse
100: My fan, Peter.
MERCUTIO
101: Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the
102: fairer face.
Nurse
103: God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
MERCUTIO
104: God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.
Nurse
105: Is it good den?
MERCUTIO
106: 'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the
107: dial is now upon the prick of noon.
Nurse
108: Out upon you! what a man are you!
ROMEO
109: One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to
110: mar.
Nurse
111: By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'
112: quoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I
113: may find the young Romeo?
ROMEO
114: I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when
115: you have found him than he was when you sought him:
116: I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
Nurse
117: You say well.
MERCUTIO
118: Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;
119: wisely, wisely.
Nurse
120: if you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with
121: you.
BENVOLIO
122: She will indite him to some supper.
MERCUTIO
123: A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!
ROMEO
124: What hast thou found?
MERCUTIO
125: No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,
126: that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[Sings]
127: An old hare hoar,
128: And an old hare hoar,
129: Is very good meat in lent
130: But a hare that is hoar
131: Is too much for a score,
132: When it hoars ere it be spent.
133: Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll
134: to dinner, thither.
ROMEO
135: I will follow you.
MERCUTIO
136: Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,
[Singing]
137: 'lady, lady, lady.'
Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO
Nurse
138: Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
139: merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?
ROMEO
140: A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,
141: and will speak more in a minute than he will stand
142: to in a month.
Nurse
143: An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him
144: down, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such
145: Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.
146: Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am
147: none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by
148: too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?
PETER
149: I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon
150: should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare
151: draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a
152: good quarrel, and the law on my side.
Nurse
153: Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
154: me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
155: and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you
156: out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:
157: but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
158: a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
159: kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
160: is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double
161: with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
162: to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
ROMEO
163: Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I
164: protest unto thee--
Nurse
165: Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:
166: Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.
ROMEO
167: What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me.
Nurse
168: I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as
169: I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
ROMEO
170: Bid her devise
171: Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;
172: And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell
173: Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.
Nurse
174: No truly sir; not a penny.
ROMEO
175: Go to; I say you shall.
Nurse
176: This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there.
ROMEO
177: And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:
178: Within this hour my man shall be with thee
179: And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
180: Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
181: Must be my convoy in the secret night.
182: Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:
183: Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.
Nurse
184: Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.
ROMEO
185: What say'st thou, my dear nurse?
Nurse
186: Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,
187: Two may keep counsel, putting one away?
ROMEO
188: I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.
NURSE
189: Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord,
190: Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there
191: is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain
192: lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief
193: see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her
194: sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer
195: man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks
196: as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not
197: rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?
ROMEO
198: Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.
Nurse
199: Ah. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for
200: the--No; I know it begins with some other
201: letter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of
202: it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good
203: to hear it.
ROMEO
204: Commend me to thy lady.
Nurse
205: Ay, a thousand times.
[Exit Romeo]
206: Peter!
PETER
207: Anon!
Nurse
208: Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.
Exeunt
ACT II, SCENE V.
Capulet's orchard.
Enter JULIET
JULIET
001: The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;
002: In half an hour she promised to return.
003: Perchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.
004: O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,
005: Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
006: Driving back shadows over louring hills:
007: Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
008: And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
009: Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
010: Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve
011: Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
012: Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
013: She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
014: My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
015: And his to me:
016: But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
017: Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
018: O God, she comes!
[Enter Nurse and PETER]
019: O honey nurse, what news?
020: Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.
Nurse
021: Peter, stay at the gate.
Exit PETER
JULIET
022: Now, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad?
023: Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
024: If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news
025: By playing it to me with so sour a face.
Nurse
026: I am a-weary, give me leave awhile:
027: Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!
JULIET
028: I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
029: Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.
Nurse
030: Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?
031: Do you not see that I am out of breath?
JULIET
032: How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
033: To say to me that thou art out of breath?
034: The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
035: Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
036: Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;
037: Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
038: Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?
Nurse
039: Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not
040: how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his
041: face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels
042: all men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,
043: though they be not to be talked on, yet they are
044: past compare: he is not the flower of courtesy,
045: but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy
046: ways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?
JULIET
047: No, no: but all this did I know before.
048: What says he of our marriage? what of that?
Nurse
049: Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I!
050: It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
051: My back o' t' other side,--O, my back, my back!
052: Beshrew your heart for sending me about,
053: To catch my death with jaunting up and down!
JULIET
054: I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
055: Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?
Nurse
056: Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a
057: courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I
058: warrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?
JULIET
059: Where is my mother! why, she is within;
060: Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!
061: 'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
062: Where is your mother?'
Nurse
063: O God's lady dear!
064: Are you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;
065: Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
066: Henceforward do your messages yourself.
JULIET
067: Here's such a coil! come, what says Romeo?
Nurse
068: Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?
JULIET
069: I have.
Nurse
070: Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;
071: There stays a husband to make you a wife:
072: Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
073: They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.
074: Hie you to church; I must another way,
075: To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
076: Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:
077: I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
078: But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
079: Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.
JULIET
080: Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.
Exeunt
ACT II, SCENE VI.
Friar Laurence's cell.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and ROMEO
FRIAR LAURENCE
001: So smile the heavens upon this holy act,
002: That after hours with sorrow chide us not!
ROMEO
003: Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,
004: It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
005: That one short minute gives me in her sight:
006: Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
007: Then love-devouring death do what he dare;
008: It is enough I may but call her mine.
FRIAR LAURENCE
009: These violent delights have violent ends
010: And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
011: Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey
012: Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
013: And in the taste confounds the appetite:
014: Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
015: Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
[Enter JULIET]
016: Here comes the lady: O, so light a foot
017: Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:
018: A lover may bestride the gossamer
019: That idles in the wanton summer air,
020: And yet not fall; so light is vanity.
JULIET
021: Good even to my ghostly confessor.
FRIAR LAURENCE
022: Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.
JULIET
023: As much to him, else is his thanks too much.
ROMEO
024: Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
025: Be heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more
026: To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
027: This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
028: Unfold the imagined happiness that both
029: Receive in either by this dear encounter.
JULIET
030: Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
031: Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
032: They are but beggars that can count their worth;
033: But my true love is grown to such excess
034: I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.
FRIAR LAURENCE
035: Come, come with me, and we will make short work;
036: For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
037: Till holy church incorporate two in one.
Exeunt
ACT III, SCENE I.
A public place.
Enter MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, Page, and Servants
BENVOLIO
001: I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:
002: The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
003: And, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;
004: For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.
MERCUTIO
005: Thou art like one of those fellows that when he
006: enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword
007: upon the table and says 'God send me no need of
008: thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws
009: it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.
BENVOLIO
010: Am I like such a fellow?
MERCUTIO
011: Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as
012: any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as
013: soon moody to be moved.
BENVOLIO
014: And what to?
MERCUTIO
015: Nay, an there were two such, we should have none
016: shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why,
017: thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,
018: or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou
019: wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no
020: other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what
021: eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?
022: Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of
023: meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as
024: an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a
025: man for coughing in the street, because he hath
026: wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun:
027: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing
028: his new doublet before Easter? with another, for
029: tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou
030: wilt tutor me from quarrelling!
BENVOLIO
031: An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man
032: should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.
MERCUTIO
033: The fee-simple! O simple!
BENVOLIO
034: By my head, here come the Capulets.
MERCUTIO
035: By my heel, I care not.
Enter TYBALT and others
TYBALT
036: Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
037: Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.
MERCUTIO
038: And but one word with one of us? couple it with
039: something; make it a word and a blow.
TYBALT
040: You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you
041: will give me occasion.
MERCUTIO
042: Could you not take some occasion without giving?
TYBALT
043: Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,--
MERCUTIO
044: Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an
045: thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but
046: discords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall
047: make you dance. 'Zounds, consort!
BENVOLIO
048: We talk here in the public haunt of men:
049: Either withdraw unto some private place,
050: And reason coldly of your grievances,
051: Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.
MERCUTIO
052: Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;
053: I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.
Enter ROMEO
TYBALT
054: Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.
MERCUTIO
055: But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:
056: Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;
057: Your worship in that sense may call him 'man.'
TYBALT
058: Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford
059: No better term than this,--thou art a villain.
ROMEO
060: Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
061: Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
062: To such a greeting: villain am I none;
063: Therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.
TYBALT
064: Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
065: That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.
ROMEO
066: I do protest, I never injured thee,
067: But love thee better than thou canst devise,
068: Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:
069: And so, good Capulet,--which name I tender
070: As dearly as my own,--be satisfied.
MERCUTIO
071: O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
072: Alla stoccata carries it away.
[Draws]
073: Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?
TYBALT
074: What wouldst thou have with me?
MERCUTIO
075: Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine
076: lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you
077: shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the
078: eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher
079: by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your
080: ears ere it be out.
TYBALT
081: I am for you.
Drawing
ROMEO
082: Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
MERCUTIO
083: Come, sir, your passado.
They fight
ROMEO
084: Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
085: Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!
086: Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath
087: Forbidden bandying in Verona streets:
088: Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!
TYBALT under ROMEO's arm stabs MERCUTIO, and flies with his followers
MERCUTIO
089: I am hurt.
090: A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.
091: Is he gone, and hath nothing?
BENVOLIO
092: What, art thou hurt?
MERCUTIO
093: Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.
094: Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.
Exit Page
ROMEO
095: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO
096: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
097: church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
098: me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
099: am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'
100: both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a
101: cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a
102: rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
103: arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I
104: was hurt under your arm.
ROMEO
105: I thought all for the best.
MERCUTIO
106: Help me into some house, Benvolio,
107: Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!
108: They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,
109: And soundly too: your houses!
Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO
ROMEO
110: This gentleman, the prince's near ally,
111: My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
112: In my behalf; my reputation stain'd
113: With Tybalt's slander,--Tybalt, that an hour
114: Hath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,
115: Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
116: And in my temper soften'd valour's steel!
Re-enter BENVOLIO
BENVOLIO
117: O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!
118: That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,
119: Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.
ROMEO
120: This day's black fate on more days doth depend;
121: This but begins the woe, others must end.
BENVOLIO
122: Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.
ROMEO
123: Alive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain!
124: Away to heaven, respective lenity,
125: And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!
[Re-enter TYBALT]
126: Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again,
127: That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul
128: Is but a little way above our heads,
129: Staying for thine to keep him company:
130: Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.
TYBALT
131: Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
132: Shalt with him hence.
ROMEO
133: This shall determine that.
They fight; TYBALT falls
BENVOLIO
134: Romeo, away, be gone!
135: The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
136: Stand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death,
137: If thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!
ROMEO
138: O, I am fortune's fool!
BENVOLIO
139: Why dost thou stay?
Exit ROMEO
Enter Citizens, &c
First Citizen
140: Which way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?
141: Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?
BENVOLIO
142: There lies that Tybalt.
First Citizen
143: Up, sir, go with me;
144: I charge thee in the princes name, obey.
Enter Prince, attended; MONTAGUE, CAPULET, their Wives, and others
PRINCE
145: Where are the vile beginners of this fray?
BENVOLIO
146: O noble prince, I can discover all
147: The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:
148: There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
149: That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.
LADY CAPULET
150: Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!
151: O prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt
152: O my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,
153: For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.
154: O cousin, cousin!
PRINCE
155: Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?
BENVOLIO
156: Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay;
157: Romeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink
158: How nice the quarrel was, and urged withal
159: Your high displeasure: all this uttered
160: With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,
161: Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
162: Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts
163: With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast,
164: Who all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
165: And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
166: Cold death aside, and with the other sends
167: It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity,
168: Retorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,
169: 'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and, swifter than
170: his tongue,
171: His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
172: And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
173: An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
174: Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;
175: But by and by comes back to Romeo,
176: Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,
177: And to 't they go like lightning, for, ere I
178: Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.
179: And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.
180: This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.
LADY CAPULET
181: He is a kinsman to the Montague;
182: Affection makes him false; he speaks not true:
183: Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
184: And all those twenty could but kill one life.
185: I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;
186: Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.
PRINCE
187: Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio;
188: Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?
MONTAGUE
189: Not Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend;
190: His fault concludes but what the law should end,
191: The life of Tybalt.
PRINCE
192: And for that offence
193: Immediately we do exile him hence:
194: I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,
195: My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;
196: But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine
197: That you shall all repent the loss of mine:
198: I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
199: Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
200: Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,
201: Else, when he's found, that hour is his last.
202: Bear hence this body and attend our will:
203: Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
Exeunt
ACT III, SCENE II.
Capulet's orchard.
Enter JULIET
JULIET
001: Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
002: Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner
003: As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
004: And bring in cloudy night immediately.
005: Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
006: That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo
007: Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
008: Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
009: By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
010: It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
011: Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
012: And learn me how to lose a winning match,
013: Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
014: Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
015: With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
016: Think true love acted simple modesty.
017: Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
018: For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
019: Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
020: Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
021: Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
022: Take him and cut him out in little stars,
023: And he will make the face of heaven so fine
024: That all the world will be in love with night
025: And pay no worship to the garish sun.
026: O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
027: But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
028: Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day
029: As is the night before some festival
030: To an impatient child that hath new robes
031: And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
032: And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks
033: But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.
[Enter Nurse, with cords]
034: Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords
035: That Romeo bid thee fetch?
Nurse
036: Ay, ay, the cords.
Throws them down
JULIET
037: Ay me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?
Nurse
038: Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!
039: We are undone, lady, we are undone!
040: Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!
JULIET
041: Can heaven be so envious?
Nurse
042: Romeo can,
043: Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!
044: Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!
JULIET
045: What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
046: This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
047: Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 'I,'
048: And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
049: Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
050: I am not I, if there be such an I;
051: Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.'
052: If he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no:
053: Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
Nurse
054: I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,--
055: God save the mark!--here on his manly breast:
056: A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
057: Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
058: All in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.
JULIET
059: O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
060: To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!
061: Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
062: And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!
Nurse
063: O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
064: O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
065: That ever I should live to see thee dead!
JULIET
066: What storm is this that blows so contrary?
067: Is Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?
068: My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?
069: Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
070: For who is living, if those two are gone?
Nurse
071: Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
072: Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.
JULIET
073: O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?
Nurse
074: It did, it did; alas the day, it did!
JULIET
075: O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
076: Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
077: Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
078: Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
079: Despised substance of divinest show!
080: Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
081: A damned saint, an honourable villain!
082: O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
083: When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
084: In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?
085: Was ever book containing such vile matter
086: So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
087: In such a gorgeous palace!
Nurse
088: There's no trust,
089: No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
090: All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
091: Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae:
092: These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
093: Shame come to Romeo!
JULIET
094: Blister'd be thy tongue
095: For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
096: Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;
097: For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
098: Sole monarch of the universal earth.
099: O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
Nurse
100: Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?
JULIET
101: Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
102: Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
103: When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
104: But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
105: That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:
106: Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
107: Your tributary drops belong to woe,
108: Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
109: My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
110: And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:
111: All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
112: Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
113: That murder'd me: I would forget it fain;
114: But, O, it presses to my memory,
115: Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
116: 'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;'
117: That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'
118: Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
119: Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
120: Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship
121: And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,
122: Why follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'
123: Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
124: Which modern lamentations might have moved?
125: But with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
126: 'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,
127: Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
128: All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'
129: There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
130: In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.
131: Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?
Nurse
132: Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:
133: Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
JULIET
134: Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,
135: When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.
136: Take up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,
137: Both you and I; for Romeo is exiled:
138: He made you for a highway to my bed;
139: But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
140: Come, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;
141: And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!
Nurse
142: Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo
143: To comfort you: I wot well where he is.
144: Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:
145: I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.
JULIET
146: O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,
147: And bid him come to take his last farewell.
Exeunt
ACT III, SCENE III.
Friar Laurence's cell.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE
FRIAR LAURENCE
001: Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:
002: Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
003: And thou art wedded to calamity.
Enter ROMEO
ROMEO
004: Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?
005: What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
006: That I yet know not?
FRIAR LAURENCE
007: Too familiar
008: Is my dear son with such sour company:
009: I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.
ROMEO
010: What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?
FRIAR LAURENCE
011: A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,
012: Not body's death, but body's banishment.
ROMEO
013: Ha, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'
014: For exile hath more terror in his look,
015: Much more than death: do not say 'banishment.'
FRIAR LAURENCE
016: Hence from Verona art thou banished:
017: Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
ROMEO
018: There is no world without Verona walls,
019: But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
020: Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
021: And world's exile is death: then banished,
022: Is death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,
023: Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,
024: And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
FRIAR LAURENCE
025: O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
026: Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
027: Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
028: And turn'd that black word death to banishment:
029: This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.
ROMEO
030: 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
031: Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
032: And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
033: Live here in heaven and may look on her;
034: But Romeo may not: more validity,
035: More honourable state, more courtship lives
036: In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize
037: On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand
038: And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
039: Who even in pure and vestal modesty,
040: Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
041: But Romeo may not; he is banished:
042: Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
043: They are free men, but I am banished.
044: And say'st thou yet that exile is not death?
045: Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,
046: No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
047: But 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'?
048: O friar, the damned use that word in hell;
049: Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,
050: Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
051: A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
052: To mangle me with that word 'banished'?
FRIAR LAURENCE
053: Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.
ROMEO
054: O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAURENCE
055: I'll give thee armour to keep off that word:
056: Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
057: To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
ROMEO
058: Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!
059: Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
060: Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
061: It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
FRIAR LAURENCE
062: O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
ROMEO
063: How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
FRIAR LAURENCE
064: Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO
065: Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
066: Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
067: An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
068: Doting like me and like me banished,
069: Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
070: And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
071: Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
Knocking within
FRIAR LAURENCE
072: Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.
ROMEO
073: Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,
074: Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.
Knocking
FRIAR LAURENCE
075: Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;
076: Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;
[Knocking]
077: Run to my study. By and by! God's will,
078: What simpleness is this! I come, I come!
[Knocking]
079: Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?
Nurse
[Within]
080: Let me come in, and you shall know
081: my errand;
082: I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAURENCE
083: Welcome, then.
Enter Nurse
Nurse
084: O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,
085: Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?
FRIAR LAURENCE
086: There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
Nurse
087: O, he is even in my mistress' case,
088: Just in her case! O woful sympathy!
089: Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
090: Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
091: Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:
092: For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
093: Why should you fall into so deep an O?
ROMEO
094: Nurse!
Nurse
095: Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.
ROMEO
096: Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?
097: Doth she not think me an old murderer,
098: Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy
099: With blood removed but little from her own?
100: Where is she? and how doth she? and what says
101: My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?
Nurse
102: O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
103: And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
104: And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
105: And then down falls again.
ROMEO
106: As if that name,
107: Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
108: Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand
109: Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,
110: In what vile part of this anatomy
111: Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
112: The hateful mansion.
Drawing his sword
FRIAR LAURENCE
113: Hold thy desperate hand:
114: Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:
115: Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
116: The unreasonable fury of a beast:
117: Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
118: Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
119: Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,
120: I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
121: Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
122: And stay thy lady too that lives in thee,
123: By doing damned hate upon thyself?
124: Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?
125: Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet
126: In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
127: Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
128: Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,
129: And usest none in that true use indeed
130: Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
131: Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
132: Digressing from the valour of a man;
133: Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
134: Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
135: Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
136: Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
137: Like powder in a skitless soldier's flask,
138: Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
139: And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.
140: What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
141: For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
142: There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
143: But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
144: The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
145: And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
146: A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
147: Happiness courts thee in her best array;
148: But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
149: Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
150: Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
151: Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
152: Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
153: But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
154: For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
155: Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
156: To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
157: Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
158: With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
159: Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
160: Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
161: And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
162: Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:
163: Romeo is coming.
Nurse
164: O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night
165: To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!
166: My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.
ROMEO
167: Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
Nurse
168: Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:
169: Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
Exit
ROMEO
170: How well my comfort is revived by this!
FRIAR LAURENCE
171: Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:
172: Either be gone before the watch be set,
173: Or by the break of day disguised from hence:
174: Sojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,
175: And he shall signify from time to time
176: Every good hap to you that chances here:
177: Give me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.
ROMEO
178: But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
179: It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.
Exeunt
ACT III, SCENE IV.
A room in Capulet's house.
Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and PARIS
CAPULET
001: Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,
002: That we have had no time to move our daughter:
003: Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
004: And so did I:--Well, we were born to die.
005: 'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night:
006: I promise you, but for your company,
007: I would have been a-bed an hour ago.
PARIS
008: These times of woe afford no time to woo.
009: Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter.
LADY CAPULET
010: I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;
011: To-night she is mew'd up to her heaviness.
CAPULET
012: Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
013: Of my child's love: I think she will be ruled
014: In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.
015: Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;
016: Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love;
017: And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next--
018: But, soft! what day is this?
PARIS
019: Monday, my lord,
CAPULET
020: Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
021: O' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her,
022: She shall be married to this noble earl.
023: Will you be ready? do you like this haste?
024: We'll keep no great ado,--a friend or two;
025: For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
026: It may be thought we held him carelessly,
027: Being our kinsman, if we revel much:
028: Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,
029: And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?
PARIS
030: My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.
CAPULET
031: Well get you gone: o' Thursday be it, then.
032: Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
033: Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.
034: Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!
035: Afore me! it is so very very late,
036: That we may call it early by and by.
037: Good night.
Exeunt
ACT III, SCENE V.
Capulet's orchard.
Enter ROMEO and JULIET above, at the window
JULIET
001: Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
002: It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
003: That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
004: Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
005: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO
006: It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
007: No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
008: Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
009: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
010: Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
011: I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET
012: Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
013: It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
014: To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
015: And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
016: Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.
ROMEO
017: Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
018: I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
019: I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,
020: 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
021: Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
022: The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
023: I have more care to stay than will to go:
024: Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
025: How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.
JULIET
026: It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
027: It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
028: Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
029: Some say the lark makes sweet division;
030: This doth not so, for she divideth us:
031: Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,
032: O, now I would they had changed voices too!
033: Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
034: Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,
035: O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.
ROMEO
036: More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!
Enter Nurse, to the chamber
Nurse
037: Madam!
JULIET
038: Nurse?
Nurse
039: Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:
040: The day is broke; be wary, look about.
Exit
JULIET
041: Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
ROMEO
042: Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.
He goeth down
JULIET
043: Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
044: I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
045: For in a minute there are many days:
046: O, by this count I shall be much in years
047: Ere I again behold my Romeo!
ROMEO
048: Farewell!
049: I will omit no opportunity
050: That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
JULIET
051: O think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO
052: I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
053: For sweet discourses in our time to come.
JULIET
054: O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
055: Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
056: As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
057: Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
ROMEO
058: And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
059: Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!
Exit
JULIET
060: O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
061: If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.
062: That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
063: For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
064: But send him back.
LADY CAPULET
[Within]
065: Ho, daughter! are you up?
JULIET
066: Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother?
067: Is she not down so late, or up so early?
068: What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?
Enter LADY CAPULET
LADY CAPULET
069: Why, how now, Juliet!
JULIET
070: Madam, I am not well.
LADY CAPULET
071: Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
072: What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
073: An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
074: Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;
075: But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
JULIET
076: Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
LADY CAPULET
077: So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
078: Which you weep for.
JULIET
079: Feeling so the loss,
080: Cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
LADY CAPULET
081: Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
082: As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.
JULIET
083: What villain madam?
LADY CAPULET
084: That same villain, Romeo.
JULIET
[Aside]
085: Villain and he be many miles asunder.--
086: God Pardon him! I do, with all my heart;
087: And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
LADY CAPULET
088: That is, because the traitor murderer lives.
JULIET
089: Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands:
090: Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!
LADY CAPULET
091: We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:
092: Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,
093: Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,
094: Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,
095: That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
096: And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.
JULIET
097: Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
098: With Romeo, till I behold him--dead--
099: Is my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd.
100: Madam, if you could find out but a man
101: To bear a poison, I would temper it;
102: That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
103: Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
104: To hear him named, and cannot come to him.
105: To wreak the love I bore my cousin
106: Upon his body that slaughter'd him!
LADY CAPULET
107: Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
108: But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
JULIET
109: And joy comes well in such a needy time:
110: What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
LADY CAPULET
111: Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
112: One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
113: Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
114: That thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.
JULIET
115: Madam, in happy time, what day is that?
LADY CAPULET
116: Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,
117: The gallant, young and noble gentleman,
118: The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,
119: Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
JULIET
120: Now, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too,
121: He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
122: I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
123: Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo.
124: I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
125: I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,
126: It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
127: Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!
LADY CAPULET
128: Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,
129: And see how he will take it at your hands.
Enter CAPULET and Nurse
CAPULET
130: When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
131: But for the sunset of my brother's son
132: It rains downright.
133: How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
134: Evermore showering? In one little body
135: Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;
136: For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
137: Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
138: Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
139: Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,
140: Without a sudden calm, will overset
141: Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!
142: Have you deliver'd to her our decree?
LADY CAPULET
143: Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
144: I would the fool were married to her grave!
CAPULET
145: Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.
146: How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?
147: Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest,
148: Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
149: So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
JULIET
150: Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:
151: Proud can I never be of what I hate;
152: But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.
CAPULET
153: How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?
154: 'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;'
155: And yet 'not proud,' mistress minion, you,
156: Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,
157: But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,
158: To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,
159: Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
160: Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!
161: You tallow-face!
LADY CAPULET
162: Fie, fie! what, are you mad?
JULIET
163: Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
164: Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
CAPULET
165: Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
166: I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,
167: Or never after look me in the face:
168: Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
169: My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
170: That God had lent us but this only child;
171: But now I see this one is one too much,
172: And that we have a curse in having her:
173: Out on her, hilding!
Nurse
174: God in heaven bless her!
175: You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
CAPULET
176: And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,
177: Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Nurse
178: I speak no treason.
CAPULET
179: O, God ye god-den.
Nurse
180: May not one speak?
CAPULET
181: Peace, you mumbling fool!
182: Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;
183: For here we need it not.
LADY CAPULET
184: You are too hot.
CAPULET
185: God's bread! it makes me mad:
186: Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
187: Alone, in company, still my care hath been
188: To have her match'd: and having now provided
189: A gentleman of noble parentage,
190: Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
191: Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
192: Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;
193: And then to have a wretched puling fool,
194: A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
195: To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,
196: I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'
197: But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
198: Graze where you will you shall not house with me:
199: Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
200: Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:
201: An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
202: And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in
203: the streets,
204: For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
205: Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
206: Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.
Exit
JULIET
207: Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
208: That sees into the bottom of my grief?
209: O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
210: Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
211: Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
212: In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
LADY CAPULET
213: Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:
214: Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
Exit
JULIET
215: O God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented?
216: My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
217: How shall that faith return again to earth,
218: Unless that husband send it me from heaven
219: By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.
220: Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
221: Upon so soft a subject as myself!
222: What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
223: Some comfort, nurse.
Nurse
224: Faith, here it is.
225: Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,
226: That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
227: Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
228: Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
229: I think it best you married with the county.
230: O, he's a lovely gentleman!
231: Romeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
232: Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
233: As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
234: I think you are happy in this second match,
235: For it excels your first: or if it did not,
236: Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
237: As living here and you no use of him.
JULIET
238: Speakest thou from thy heart?
Nurse
239: And from my soul too;
240: Or else beshrew them both.
JULIET
241: Amen!
Nurse
242: What?
JULIET
243: Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
244: Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,
245: Having displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,
246: To make confession and to be absolved.
Nurse
247: Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
Exit
JULIET
248: Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
249: Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
250: Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
251: Which she hath praised him with above compare
252: So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;
253: Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
254: I'll to the friar, to know his remedy:
255: If all else fail, myself have power to die.
Exit
ACT IV, SCENE I.
Friar Laurence's cell.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS
FRIAR LAURENCE
001: On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.
PARIS
002: My father Capulet will have it so;
003: And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
FRIAR LAURENCE
004: You say you do not know the lady's mind:
005: Uneven is the course, I like it not.
PARIS
006: Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
007: And therefore have I little talk'd of love;
008: For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
009: Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
010: That she doth give her sorrow so much sway,
011: And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
012: To stop the inundation of her tears;
013: Which, too much minded by herself alone,
014: May be put from her by society:
015: Now do you know the reason of this haste.
FRIAR LAURENCE
[Aside]
016: I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.
017: Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
Enter JULIET
PARIS
018: Happily met, my lady and my wife!
JULIET
019: That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
PARIS
020: That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.
JULIET
021: What must be shall be.
FRIAR LAURENCE
022: That's a certain text.
PARIS
023: Come you to make confession to this father?
JULIET
024: To answer that, I should confess to you.
PARIS
025: Do not deny to him that you love me.
JULIET
026: I will confess to you that I love him.
PARIS
027: So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
JULIET
028: If I do so, it will be of more price,
029: Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
PARIS
030: Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.
JULIET
031: The tears have got small victory by that;
032: For it was bad enough before their spite.
PARIS
033: Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.
JULIET
034: That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
035: And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
PARIS
036: Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.
JULIET
037: It may be so, for it is not mine own.
038: Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
039: Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
FRIAR LAURENCE
040: My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
041: My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
PARIS
042: God shield I should disturb devotion!
043: Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
044: Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
Exit
JULIET
045: O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
046: Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!
FRIAR LAURENCE
047: Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
048: It strains me past the compass of my wits:
049: I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
050: On Thursday next be married to this county.
JULIET
051: Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
052: Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
053: If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
054: Do thou but call my resolution wise,
055: And with this knife I'll help it presently.
056: God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;
057: And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
058: Shall be the label to another deed,
059: Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
060: Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
061: Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,
062: Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
063: 'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
064: Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
065: Which the commission of thy years and art
066: Could to no issue of true honour bring.
067: Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
068: If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
FRIAR LAURENCE
069: Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,
070: Which craves as desperate an execution.
071: As that is desperate which we would prevent.
072: If, rather than to marry County Paris,
073: Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
074: Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
075: A thing like death to chide away this shame,
076: That copest with death himself to scape from it:
077: And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.
JULIET
078: O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
079: From off the battlements of yonder tower;
080: Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
081: Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
082: Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
083: O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
084: With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
085: Or bid me go into a new-made grave
086: And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
087: Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
088: And I will do it without fear or doubt,
089: To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.
FRIAR LAURENCE
090: Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
091: To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
092: To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
093: Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
094: Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
095: And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
096: When presently through all thy veins shall run
097: A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
098: Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
099: No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
100: The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
101: To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,
102: Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
103: Each part, deprived of supple government,
104: Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
105: And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
106: Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
107: And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
108: Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes
109: To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:
110: Then, as the manner of our country is,
111: In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier
112: Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
113: Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
114: In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
115: Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
116: And hither shall he come: and he and I
117: Will watch thy waking, and that very night
118: Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
119: And this shall free thee from this present shame;
120: If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
121: Abate thy valour in the acting it.
JULIET
122: Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!
FRIAR LAURENCE
123: Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
124: In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
125: To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.
JULIET
126: Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.
127: Farewell, dear father!
Exeunt
ACT IV, SCENE II.
Hall in Capulet's house.
Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, Nurse, and two Servingmen
CAPULET
001: So many guests invite as here are writ.
[Exit First Servant]
002: Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.
Second Servant
003: You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they
004: can lick their fingers.
CAPULET
005: How canst thou try them so?
Second Servant
006: Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his
007: own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his
008: fingers goes not with me.
CAPULET
009: Go, be gone.
[Exit Second Servant]
010: We shall be much unfurnished for this time.
011: What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?
Nurse
012: Ay, forsooth.
CAPULET
013: Well, he may chance to do some good on her:
014: A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.
Nurse
015: See where she comes from shrift with merry look.
Enter JULIET
CAPULET
016: How now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?
JULIET
017: Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin
018: Of disobedient opposition
019: To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd
020: By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
021: And beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!
022: Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.
CAPULET
023: Send for the county; go tell him of this:
024: I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.
JULIET
025: I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;
026: And gave him what becomed love I might,
027: Not step o'er the bounds of modesty.
CAPULET
028: Why, I am glad on't; this is well: stand up:
029: This is as't should be. Let me see the county;
030: Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.
031: Now, afore God! this reverend holy friar,
032: Our whole city is much bound to him.
JULIET
033: Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
034: To help me sort such needful ornaments
035: As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?
LADY CAPULET
036: No, not till Thursday; there is time enough.
CAPULET
037: Go, nurse, go with her: we'll to church to-morrow.
Exeunt JULIET and Nurse
LADY CAPULET
038: We shall be short in our provision:
039: 'Tis now near night.
CAPULET
040: Tush, I will stir about,
041: And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:
042: Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;
043: I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;
044: I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!
045: They are all forth. Well, I will walk myself
046: To County Paris, to prepare him up
047: Against to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,
048: Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.
Exeunt
ACT IV, SCENE III.
Juliet's chamber.
Enter JULIET and Nurse
JULIET
001: Ay, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse,
002: I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night,
003: For I have need of many orisons
004: To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
005: Which, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin.
Enter LADY CAPULET
LADY CAPULET
006: What, are you busy, ho? need you my help?
JULIET
007: No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries
008: As are behoveful for our state to-morrow:
009: So please you, let me now be left alone,
010: And let the nurse this night sit up with you;
011: For, I am sure, you have your hands full all,
012: In this so sudden business.
LADY CAPULET
013: Good night:
014: Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.
Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse
JULIET
015: Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
016: I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
017: That almost freezes up the heat of life:
018: I'll call them back again to comfort me:
019: Nurse! What should she do here?
020: My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
021: Come, vial.
022: What if this mixture do not work at all?
023: Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
024: No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.
[Laying down her dagger]
025: What if it be a poison, which the friar
026: Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,
027: Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
028: Because he married me before to Romeo?
029: I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,
030: For he hath still been tried a holy man.
031: How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
032: I wake before the time that Romeo
033: Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
034: Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,
035: To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
036: And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
037: Or, if I live, is it not very like,
038: The horrible conceit of death and night,
039: Together with the terror of the place,--
040: As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
041: Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
042: Of all my buried ancestors are packed:
043: Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
044: Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
045: At some hours in the night spirits resort;--
046: Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
047: So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
048: And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,
049: That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--
050: O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
051: Environed with all these hideous fears?
052: And madly play with my forefather's joints?
053: And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
054: And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
055: As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
056: O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
057: Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
058: Upon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!
059: Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
She falls upon her bed, within the curtains
ACT IV, SCENE IV.
Hall in Capulet's house.
Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse
LADY CAPULET
001: Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.
Nurse
002: They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.
Enter CAPULET
CAPULET
003: Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,
004: The curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:
005: Look to the baked meats, good Angelica:
006: Spare not for the cost.
Nurse
007: Go, you cot-quean, go,
008: Get you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow
009: For this night's watching.
CAPULET
010: No, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now
011: All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.
LADY CAPULET
012: Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;
013: But I will watch you from such watching now.
Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse
CAPULET
014: A jealous hood, a jealous hood!
[Enter three or four Servingmen, with spits, logs,
and baskets]
015: Now, fellow,
016: What's there?
First Servant
017: Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.
CAPULET
018: Make haste, make haste.
[Exit First Servant]
019: Sirrah, fetch drier logs:
020: Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.
Second Servant
021: I have a head, sir, that will find out logs,
022: And never trouble Peter for the matter.
Exit
CAPULET
023: Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!
024: Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:
025: The county will be here with music straight,
026: For so he said he would: I hear him near.
[Music within]
027: Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!
[Re-enter Nurse]
028: Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up;
029: I'll go and chat with Paris: hie, make haste,
030: Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already:
031: Make haste, I say.
Exeunt
ACT IV, SCENE V.
Juliet's chamber.
Enter Nurse
Nurse
001: Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant her, she:
002: Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!
003: Why, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! why, bride!
004: What, not a word? you take your pennyworths now;
005: Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
006: The County Paris hath set up his rest,
007: That you shall rest but little. God forgive me,
008: Marry, and amen, how sound is she asleep!
009: I must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
010: Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
011: He'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?
[Undraws the curtains]
012: What, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!
013: I must needs wake you; Lady! lady! lady!
014: Alas, alas! Help, help! my lady's dead!
015: O, well-a-day, that ever I was born!
016: Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!
Enter LADY CAPULET
LADY CAPULET
017: What noise is here?
Nurse
018: O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET
019: What is the matter?
Nurse
020: Look, look! O heavy day!
LADY CAPULET
021: O me, O me! My child, my only life,
022: Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!
023: Help, help! Call help.
Enter CAPULET
CAPULET
024: For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.
Nurse
025: She's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!
LADY CAPULET
026: Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!
CAPULET
027: Ha! let me see her: out, alas! she's cold:
028: Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;
029: Life and these lips have long been separated:
030: Death lies on her like an untimely frost
031: Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Nurse
032: O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET
033: O woful time!
CAPULET
034: Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,
035: Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians
FRIAR LAURENCE
036: Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
CAPULET
037: Ready to go, but never to return.
038: O son! the night before thy wedding-day
039: Hath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,
040: Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
041: Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;
042: My daughter he hath wedded: I will die,
043: And leave him all; life, living, all is Death's.
PARIS
044: Have I thought long to see this morning's face,
045: And doth it give me such a sight as this?
LADY CAPULET
046: Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!
047: Most miserable hour that e'er time saw
048: In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
049: But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
050: But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
051: And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight!
Nurse
052: O woe! O woful, woful, woful day!
053: Most lamentable day, most woful day,
054: That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
055: O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
056: Never was seen so black a day as this:
057: O woful day, O woful day!
PARIS
058: Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!
059: Most detestable death, by thee beguil'd,
060: By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!
061: O love! O life! not life, but love in death!
CAPULET
062: Despised, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!
063: Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now
064: To murder, murder our solemnity?
065: O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!
066: Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;
067: And with my child my joys are buried.
FRIAR LAURENCE
068: Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not
069: In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
070: Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
071: And all the better is it for the maid:
072: Your part in her you could not keep from death,
073: But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
074: The most you sought was her promotion;
075: For 'twas your heaven she should be advanced:
076: And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced
077: Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
078: O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
079: That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
080: She's not well married that lives married long;
081: But she's best married that dies married young.
082: Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
083: On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
084: In all her best array bear her to church:
085: For though fond nature bids us an lament,
086: Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
CAPULET
087: All things that we ordained festival,
088: Turn from their office to black funeral;
089: Our instruments to melancholy bells,
090: Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
091: Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
092: Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
093: And all things change them to the contrary.
FRIAR LAURENCE
094: Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;
095: And go, Sir Paris; every one prepare
096: To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
097: The heavens do lour upon you for some ill;
098: Move them no more by crossing their high will.
Exeunt CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, PARIS, and FRIAR LAURENCE
First Musician
099: Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.
Nurse
100: Honest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;
101: For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.
Exit
First Musician
102: Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
Enter PETER
PETER
103: Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease, Heart's
104: ease:' O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'
First Musician
105: Why 'Heart's ease?'
PETER
106: O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My
107: heart is full of woe:' O, play me some merry dump,
108: to comfort me.
First Musician
109: Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.
PETER
110: You will not, then?
First Musician
111: No.
PETER
112: I will then give it you soundly.
First Musician
113: What will you give us?
PETER
114: No money, on my faith, but the gleek;
115: I will give you the minstrel.
First Musician
116: Then I will give you the serving-creature.
PETER
117: Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on
118: your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you,
119: I'll fa you; do you note me?
First Musician
120: An you re us and fa us, you note us.
Second Musician
121: Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.
PETER
122: Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you
123: with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer
124: me like men:
125: 'When griping grief the heart doth wound,
126: And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
127: Then music with her silver sound'--
128: why 'silver sound'? why 'music with her silver
129: sound'? What say you, Simon Catling?
Musician
130: Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
PETER
131: Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
Second Musician
132: I say 'silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver.
PETER
133: Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?
Third Musician
134: Faith, I know not what to say.
PETER
135: O, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say