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