1      	ROMEO AND JULIET


2      	DRAMATIS PERSONAE


3      ESCALUS	prince of Verona. (PRINCE:)

4      PARIS	a young nobleman, kinsman to the prince.


5      MONTAGUE	|
6      	|  heads of two houses at variance with each other.
7      CAPULET	|


8      	An old man, cousin to Capulet. (Second Capulet:)

9      ROMEO	son to Montague.

10     MERCUTIO	kinsman to the prince, and friend to Romeo.

11     BENVOLIO	nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo.

12     TYBALT	nephew to Lady Capulet.


13     FRIAR LAURENCE	|
14     	|  Franciscans.
15     FRIAR JOHN	|


16     BALTHASAR	servant to Romeo.


17     SAMPSON	|
18     	|  servants to Capulet.
19     GREGORY	|


20     PETER	servant to Juliet's nurse.

21     ABRAHAM	servant to Montague.

22     	An Apothecary. (Apothecary:)

23     	Three Musicians.
24     	(First Musician:)
25     	(Second Musician:)
26     	(Third Musician:)

27     	Page to Paris; (PAGE:)  another Page; an officer.

28     LADY MONTAGUE	wife to Montague.

29     LADY CAPULET	wife to Capulet.

30     JULIET	daughter to Capulet.

31     	Nurse to Juliet. (Nurse:)

32     	Citizens of Verona; several Men and Women,
33     	relations to both houses; Maskers,
34     	Guards, Watchmen, and Attendants.
35     	(First Citizen:)
36     	(Servant:)
37     	(First Servant:)
38     	(Second Servant:)
39     	(First Watchman:)
40     	(Second Watchman:)
41     	(Third Watchman:)
42     	Chorus.


43     SCENE	Verona: Mantua.




44     	ROMEO AND JULIET

45     	PROLOGUE


46     	Two households, both alike in dignity,
47     	In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
48     	From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
49     	Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
50     	From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
51     	A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
52     	Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
53     	Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
54     	The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
55     	And the continuance of their parents' rage,
56     	Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
57     	Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
58     	The which if you with patient ears attend,
59     	What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.




60     	ROMEO AND JULIET


61     ACT I



62     SCENE I	Verona. A public place.


63     	[Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY, of the house of Capulet,
64     	armed with swords and bucklers]

65     SAMPSON	Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.

66     GREGORY	No, for then we should be colliers.

67     SAMPSON	I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.

68     GREGORY	Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.

69     SAMPSON	I strike quickly, being moved.

70     GREGORY	But thou art not quickly moved to strike.

71     SAMPSON	A dog of the house of Montague moves me.

72     GREGORY	To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
73     	therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.

74     SAMPSON	A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will
75     	take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.

76     GREGORY	That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes
77     	to the wall.

78     SAMPSON	True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,
79     	are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push
80     	Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids
81     	to the wall.

82     GREGORY	The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.

83     SAMPSON	'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I
84     	have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the
85     	maids, and cut off their heads.

86     GREGORY	The heads of the maids?

87     SAMPSON	Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;
88     	take it in what sense thou wilt.

89     GREGORY	They must take it in sense that feel it.

90     SAMPSON	Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and
91     	'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.

92     GREGORY	'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou
93     	hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes
94     	two of the house of the Montagues.

95     SAMPSON	My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.

96     GREGORY	How! turn thy back and run?

97     SAMPSON	Fear me not.

98     GREGORY	No, marry; I fear thee!

99     SAMPSON	Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.

100    GREGORY	I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as
101    	they list.

102    SAMPSON	Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;
103    	which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.

104    	[Enter ABRAHAM and BALTHASAR]

105    ABRAHAM	Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

106    SAMPSON	I do bite my thumb, sir.

107    ABRAHAM	Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

108    SAMPSON	[Aside to GREGORY]  Is the law of our side, if I say
109    	ay?

110    GREGORY	No.

111    SAMPSON	No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I
112    	bite my thumb, sir.

113    GREGORY	Do you quarrel, sir?

114    ABRAHAM	Quarrel sir! no, sir.

115    SAMPSON	If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.

116    ABRAHAM	No better.

117    SAMPSON	Well, sir.

118    GREGORY	Say 'better:' here comes one of my master's kinsmen.

119    SAMPSON	Yes, better, sir.

120    ABRAHAM	You lie.

121    SAMPSON	Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.

122    	[They fight]

123    	[Enter BENVOLIO]

124    BENVOLIO	Part, fools!
125    	Put up your swords; you know not what you do.

126    	[Beats down their swords]

127    	[Enter TYBALT]

128    TYBALT	What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
129    	Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

130    BENVOLIO	I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
131    	Or manage it to part these men with me.

132    TYBALT	What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
133    	As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
134    	Have at thee, coward!

135    	[They fight]

136    	[Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray;
137    	then enter Citizens, with clubs]

138    First Citizen	Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!
139    	Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!

140    	[Enter CAPULET in his gown, and LADY CAPULET]

141    CAPULET	What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!

142    LADY CAPULET	A crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?

143    CAPULET	My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
144    	And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

145    	[Enter MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE]

146    MONTAGUE	Thou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.

147    LADY MONTAGUE	Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.

148    	[Enter PRINCE, with Attendants]

149    PRINCE	Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
150    	Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,--
151    	Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
152    	That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
153    	With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
154    	On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
155    	Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
156    	And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
157    	Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
158    	By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
159    	Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
160    	And made Verona's ancient citizens
161    	Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
162    	To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
163    	Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
164    	If ever you disturb our streets again,
165    	Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
166    	For this time, all the rest depart away:
167    	You Capulet; shall go along with me:
168    	And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
169    	To know our further pleasure in this case,
170    	To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
171    	Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

172    	[Exeunt all but MONTAGUE, LADY MONTAGUE, and BENVOLIO]

173    MONTAGUE	Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
174    	Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?

175    BENVOLIO	Here were the servants of your adversary,
176    	And yours, close fighting ere I did approach:
177    	I drew to part them: in the instant came
178    	The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,
179    	Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,
180    	He swung about his head and cut the winds,
181    	Who nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:
182    	While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
183    	Came more and more and fought on part and part,
184    	Till the prince came, who parted either part.

185    LADY MONTAGUE	O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?
186    	Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

187    BENVOLIO	Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun
188    	Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,
189    	A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
190    	Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
191    	That westward rooteth from the city's side,
192    	So early walking did I see your son:
193    	Towards him I made, but he was ware of me
194    	And stole into the covert of the wood:
195    	I, measuring his affections by my own,
196    	That most are busied when they're most alone,
197    	Pursued my humour not pursuing his,
198    	And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.

199    MONTAGUE	Many a morning hath he there been seen,
200    	With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.
201    	Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
202    	But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
203    	Should in the furthest east begin to draw
204    	The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
205    	Away from the light steals home my heavy son,
206    	And private in his chamber pens himself,
207    	Shuts up his windows, locks far daylight out
208    	And makes himself an artificial night:
209    	Black and portentous must this humour prove,
210    	Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

211    BENVOLIO	My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

212    MONTAGUE	I neither know it nor can learn of him.

213    BENVOLIO	Have you importuned him by any means?

214    MONTAGUE	Both by myself and many other friends:
215    	But he, his own affections' counsellor,
216    	Is to himself--I will not say how true--
217    	But to himself so secret and so close,
218    	So far from sounding and discovery,
219    	As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
220    	Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
221    	Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
222    	Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.
223    	We would as willingly give cure as know.

224    	[Enter ROMEO]

225    BENVOLIO	See, where he comes: so please you, step aside;
226    	I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.

227    MONTAGUE	I would thou wert so happy by thy stay,
228    	To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away.

229    	[Exeunt MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE]

230    BENVOLIO	Good-morrow, cousin.

231    ROMEO	Is the day so young?

232    BENVOLIO	But new struck nine.

233    ROMEO	Ay me! sad hours seem long.
234    	Was that my father that went hence so fast?

235    BENVOLIO	It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

236    ROMEO	Not having that, which, having, makes them short.

237    BENVOLIO	In love?

238    ROMEO	Out--

239    BENVOLIO	Of love?

240    ROMEO	Out of her favour, where I am in love.

241    BENVOLIO	Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
242    	Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

243    ROMEO	Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
244    	Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
245    	Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
246    	Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
247    	Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
248    	Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
249    	O any thing, of nothing first create!
250    	O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
251    	Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
252    	Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
253    	sick health!
254    	Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
255    	This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
256    	Dost thou not laugh?

257    BENVOLIO	No, coz, I rather weep.

258    ROMEO	Good heart, at what?

259    BENVOLIO	At thy good heart's oppression.

260    ROMEO	Why, such is love's transgression.
261    	Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
262    	Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
263    	With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
264    	Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
265    	Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
266    	Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
267    	Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
268    	What is it else? a madness most discreet,
269    	A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
270    	Farewell, my coz.

271    BENVOLIO	                  Soft! I will go along;
272    	An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

273    ROMEO	Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here;
274    	This is not Romeo, he's some other where.

275    BENVOLIO	Tell me in sadness, who is that you love.

276    ROMEO	What, shall I groan and tell thee?

277    BENVOLIO	Groan! why, no.
278    	But sadly tell me who.

279    ROMEO	Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:
280    	Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!
281    	In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

282    BENVOLIO	I aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.

283    ROMEO	A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.

284    BENVOLIO	A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

285    ROMEO	Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit
286    	With Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;
287    	And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,
288    	From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.
289    	She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
290    	Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
291    	Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
292    	O, she is rich in beauty, only poor,
293    	That when she dies with beauty dies her store.

294    BENVOLIO	Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

295    ROMEO	She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
296    	For beauty starved with her severity
297    	Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
298    	She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
299    	To merit bliss by making me despair:
300    	She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
301    	Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

302    BENVOLIO	Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.

303    ROMEO	O, teach me how I should forget to think.

304    BENVOLIO	By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
305    	Examine other beauties.

306    ROMEO	'Tis the way
307    	To call hers exquisite, in question more:
308    	These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows
309    	Being black put us in mind they hide the fair;
310    	He that is strucken blind cannot forget
311    	The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:
312    	Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
313    	What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
314    	Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?
315    	Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.

316    BENVOLIO	I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.

317    	[Exeunt]




318    	ROMEO AND JULIET


319    ACT I



320    SCENE II	A street.


321    	[Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant]

322    CAPULET	But Montague is bound as well as I,
323    	In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,
324    	For men so old as we to keep the peace.

325    PARIS	Of honourable reckoning are you both;
326    	And pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.
327    	But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?

328    CAPULET	But saying o'er what I have said before:
329    	My child is yet a stranger in the world;
330    	She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,
331    	Let two more summers wither in their pride,
332    	Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

333    PARIS	Younger than she are happy mothers made.

334    CAPULET	And too soon marr'd are those so early made.
335    	The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
336    	She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
337    	But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
338    	My will to her consent is but a part;
339    	An she agree, within her scope of choice
340    	Lies my consent and fair according voice.
341    	This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,
342    	Whereto I have invited many a guest,
343    	Such as I love; and you, among the store,
344    	One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
345    	At my poor house look to behold this night
346    	Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
347    	Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
348    	When well-apparell'd April on the heel
349    	Of limping winter treads, even such delight
350    	Among fresh female buds shall you this night
351    	Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,
352    	And like her most whose merit most shall be:
353    	Which on more view, of many mine being one
354    	May stand in number, though in reckoning none,
355    	Come, go with me.

356    	[To Servant, giving a paper]

357    	Go, sirrah, trudge about
358    	Through fair Verona; find those persons out
359    	Whose names are written there, and to them say,
360    	My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

361    	[Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS]

362    Servant	Find them out whose names are written here! It is
363    	written, that the shoemaker should meddle with his
364    	yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with
365    	his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am
366    	sent to find those persons whose names are here
367    	writ, and can never find what names the writing
368    	person hath here writ. I must to the learned.--In good time.

369    	[Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO]

370    BENVOLIO	Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,
371    	One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;
372    	Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
373    	One desperate grief cures with another's languish:
374    	Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
375    	And the rank poison of the old will die.

376    ROMEO	Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.

377    BENVOLIO	For what, I pray thee?

378    ROMEO	For your broken shin.

379    BENVOLIO	Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

380    ROMEO	Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;
381    	Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
382    	Whipp'd and tormented and--God-den, good fellow.

383    Servant	God gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?

384    ROMEO	Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

385    Servant	Perhaps you have learned it without book: but, I
386    	pray, can you read any thing you see?

387    ROMEO	Ay, if I know the letters and the language.

388    Servant	Ye say honestly: rest you merry!

389    ROMEO	Stay, fellow; I can read.

390    	[Reads]

391    	'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
392    	County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady
393    	widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely
394    	nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine
395    	uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece
396    	Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin
397    	Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair
398    	assembly: whither should they come?

399    Servant	Up.

400    ROMEO	Whither?

401    Servant	To supper; to our house.

402    ROMEO	Whose house?

403    Servant	My master's.

404    ROMEO	Indeed, I should have ask'd you that before.

405    Servant	Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the
406    	great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house
407    	of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.
408    	Rest you merry!

409    	[Exit]

410    BENVOLIO	At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
411    	Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,
412    	With all the admired beauties of Verona:
413    	Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
414    	Compare her face with some that I shall show,
415    	And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

416    ROMEO	When the devout religion of mine eye
417    	Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
418    	And these, who often drown'd could never die,
419    	Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
420    	One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
421    	Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.

422    BENVOLIO	Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
423    	Herself poised with herself in either eye:
424    	But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd
425    	Your lady's love against some other maid
426    	That I will show you shining at this feast,
427    	And she shall scant show well that now shows best.

428    ROMEO	I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
429    	But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.

430    	[Exeunt]




431    	ROMEO AND JULIET


432    ACT I



433    SCENE III	A room in Capulet's house.


434    	[Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse]

435    LADY CAPULET	Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.

436    Nurse	Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
437    	I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!
438    	God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!

439    	[Enter JULIET]

440    JULIET	How now! who calls?

441    Nurse	Your mother.

442    JULIET	Madam, I am here.
443    	What is your will?

444    LADY CAPULET	This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,
445    	We must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;
446    	I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.
447    	Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.

448    Nurse	Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

449    LADY CAPULET	She's not fourteen.

450    Nurse	I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--
451    	And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--
452    	She is not fourteen. How long is it now
453    	To Lammas-tide?

454    LADY CAPULET	                  A fortnight and odd days.

455    Nurse	Even or odd, of all days in the year,
456    	Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
457    	Susan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--
458    	Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
459    	She was too good for me: but, as I said,
460    	On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
461    	That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
462    	'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
463    	And she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--
464    	Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
465    	For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
466    	Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
467    	My lord and you were then at Mantua:--
468    	Nay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,
469    	When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
470    	Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
471    	To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
472    	Shake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,
473    	To bid me trudge:
474    	And since that time it is eleven years;
475    	For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
476    	She could have run and waddled all about;
477    	For even the day before, she broke her brow:
478    	And then my husband--God be with his soul!
479    	A' was a merry man--took up the child:
480    	'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
481    	Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
482    	Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,
483    	The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'
484    	To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
485    	I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
486    	I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;
487    	And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'

488    LADY CAPULET	Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.

489    Nurse	Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,
490    	To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'
491    	And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
492    	A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;
493    	A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:
494    	'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?
495    	Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
496    	Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'

497    JULIET	And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.

498    Nurse	Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
499    	Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:
500    	An I might live to see thee married once,
501    	I have my wish.

502    LADY CAPULET	Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme
503    	I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
504    	How stands your disposition to be married?

505    JULIET	It is an honour that I dream not of.

506    Nurse	An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
507    	I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.

508    LADY CAPULET	Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
509    	Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
510    	Are made already mothers: by my count,
511    	I was your mother much upon these years
512    	That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
513    	The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

514    Nurse	A man, young lady! lady, such a man
515    	As all the world--why, he's a man of wax.

516    LADY CAPULET	Verona's summer hath not such a flower.

517    Nurse	Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.

518    LADY CAPULET	What say you? can you love the gentleman?
519    	This night you shall behold him at our feast;
520    	Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
521    	And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
522    	Examine every married lineament,
523    	And see how one another lends content
524    	And what obscured in this fair volume lies
525    	Find written in the margent of his eyes.
526    	This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
527    	To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
528    	The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
529    	For fair without the fair within to hide:
530    	That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
531    	That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
532    	So shall you share all that he doth possess,
533    	By having him, making yourself no less.

534    Nurse	No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.

535    LADY CAPULET	Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?

536    JULIET	I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
537    	But no more deep will I endart mine eye
538    	Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

539    	[Enter a Servant]

540    Servant	Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you
541    	called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in
542    	the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must
543    	hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.

544    LADY CAPULET	We follow thee.

545    	[Exit Servant]

546    	Juliet, the county stays.

547    Nurse	Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

548    	[Exeunt]




549    	ROMEO AND JULIET


550    ACT I



551    SCENE IV	A street.


552    	[Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six
553    	Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others]

554    ROMEO	What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
555    	Or shall we on without a apology?

556    BENVOLIO	The date is out of such prolixity:
557    	We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,
558    	Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
559    	Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
560    	Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
561    	After the prompter, for our entrance:
562    	But let them measure us by what they will;
563    	We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.

564    ROMEO	Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
565    	Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

566    MERCUTIO	Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

567    ROMEO	Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
568    	With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead
569    	So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

570    MERCUTIO	You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,
571    	And soar with them above a common bound.

572    ROMEO	I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
573    	To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
574    	I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
575    	Under love's heavy burden do I sink.

576    MERCUTIO	And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
577    	Too great oppression for a tender thing.

578    ROMEO	Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
579    	Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

580    MERCUTIO	If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
581    	Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
582    	Give me a case to put my visage in:
583    	A visor for a visor! what care I
584    	What curious eye doth quote deformities?
585    	Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.

586    BENVOLIO	Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,
587    	But every man betake him to his legs.

588    ROMEO	A torch for me: let wantons light of heart
589    	Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels,
590    	For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;
591    	I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.
592    	The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.

593    MERCUTIO	Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:
594    	If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
595    	Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st
596    	Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!

597    ROMEO	Nay, that's not so.

598    MERCUTIO	I mean, sir, in delay
599    	We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
600    	Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
601    	Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

602    ROMEO	And we mean well in going to this mask;
603    	But 'tis no wit to go.

604    MERCUTIO	Why, may one ask?

605    ROMEO	I dream'd a dream to-night.

606    MERCUTIO	And so did I.

607    ROMEO	Well, what was yours?

608    MERCUTIO	That dreamers often lie.

609    ROMEO	In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

610    MERCUTIO	O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
611    	She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
612    	In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
613    	On the fore-finger of an alderman,
614    	Drawn with a team of little atomies
615    	Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
616    	Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
617    	The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
618    	The traces of the smallest spider's web,
619    	The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
620    	Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
621    	Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
622    	Not so big as a round little worm
623    	Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
624    	Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
625    	Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
626    	Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
627    	And in this state she gallops night by night
628    	Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
629    	O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
630    	O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
631    	O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
632    	Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
633    	Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
634    	Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
635    	And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
636    	And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
637    	Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
638    	Then dreams, he of another benefice:
639    	Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
640    	And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
641    	Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
642    	Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
643    	Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
644    	And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
645    	And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
646    	That plats the manes of horses in the night,
647    	And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
648    	Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
649    	This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
650    	That presses them and learns them first to bear,
651    	Making them women of good carriage:
652    	This is she--

653    ROMEO	                  Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
654    	Thou talk'st of nothing.

655    MERCUTIO	True, I talk of dreams,
656    	Which are the children of an idle brain,
657    	Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
658    	Which is as thin of substance as the air
659    	And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
660    	Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
661    	And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
662    	Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

663    BENVOLIO	This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;
664    	Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

665    ROMEO	I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
666    	Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
667    	Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
668    	With this night's revels and expire the term
669    	Of a despised life closed in my breast
670    	By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
671    	But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
672    	Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.

673    BENVOLIO	Strike, drum.

674    	[Exeunt]




675    	ROMEO AND JULIET


676    ACT I



677    SCENE V	A hall in Capulet's house.


678    	[Musicians waiting. Enter Servingmen with napkins]

679    First Servant	Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He
680    	shift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!

681    Second Servant	When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's
682    	hands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.

683    First Servant	Away with the joint-stools, remove the
684    	court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save
685    	me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let
686    	the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
687    	Antony, and Potpan!

688    Second Servant	Ay, boy, ready.

689    First Servant	You are looked for and called for, asked for and
690    	sought for, in the great chamber.

691    Second Servant	We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be
692    	brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.

693    	[Enter CAPULET, with JULIET and others of his house,
694    	meeting the Guests and Maskers]

695    CAPULET	Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes
696    	Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you.
697    	Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all
698    	Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,
699    	She, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
700    	Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
701    	That I have worn a visor and could tell
702    	A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
703    	Such as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:
704    	You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.
705    	A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.

706    	[Music plays, and they dance]

707    	More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
708    	And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
709    	Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.
710    	Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;
711    	For you and I are past our dancing days:
712    	How long is't now since last yourself and I
713    	Were in a mask?

714    Second Capulet	                  By'r lady, thirty years.

715    CAPULET	What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:
716    	'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,
717    	Come pentecost as quickly as it will,
718    	Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.

719    Second Capulet	'Tis more, 'tis more, his son is elder, sir;
720    	His son is thirty.

721    CAPULET	                  Will you tell me that?
722    	His son was but a ward two years ago.

723    ROMEO	[To a Servingman]  What lady is that, which doth
724    	enrich the hand
725    	Of yonder knight?

726    Servant	I know not, sir.

727    ROMEO	O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
728    	It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
729    	Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
730    	Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
731    	So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
732    	As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
733    	The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
734    	And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
735    	Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
736    	For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

737    TYBALT	This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
738    	Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
739    	Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,
740    	To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
741    	Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
742    	To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.

743    CAPULET	Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?

744    TYBALT	Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,
745    	A villain that is hither come in spite,
746    	To scorn at our solemnity this night.

747    CAPULET	Young Romeo is it?

748    TYBALT	'Tis he, that villain Romeo.

749    CAPULET	Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;
750    	He bears him like a portly gentleman;
751    	And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
752    	To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:
753    	I would not for the wealth of all the town
754    	Here in my house do him disparagement:
755    	Therefore be patient, take no note of him:
756    	It is my will, the which if thou respect,
757    	Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
758    	And ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

759    TYBALT	It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
760    	I'll not endure him.

761    CAPULET	He shall be endured:
762    	What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;
763    	Am I the master here, or you? go to.
764    	You'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
765    	You'll make a mutiny among my guests!
766    	You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!

767    TYBALT	Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.

768    CAPULET	Go to, go to;
769    	You are a saucy boy: is't so, indeed?
770    	This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:
771    	You must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.
772    	Well said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:
773    	Be quiet, or--More light, more light! For shame!
774    	I'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!

775    TYBALT	Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
776    	Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
777    	I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall
778    	Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.

779    	[Exit]

780    ROMEO	[To JULIET]  If I profane with my unworthiest hand
781    	This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
782    	My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
783    	To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

784    JULIET	Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
785    	Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
786    	For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
787    	And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

788    ROMEO	Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

789    JULIET	Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

790    ROMEO	O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
791    	They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

792    JULIET	Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

793    ROMEO	Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
794    	Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

795    JULIET	Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

796    ROMEO	Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
797    	Give me my sin again.

798    JULIET	You kiss by the book.

799    Nurse	Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

800    ROMEO	What is her mother?

801    Nurse	Marry, bachelor,
802    	Her mother is the lady of the house,
803    	And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
804    	I nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;
805    	I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
806    	Shall have the chinks.

807    ROMEO	Is she a Capulet?
808    	O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.

809    BENVOLIO	Away, begone; the sport is at the best.

810    ROMEO	Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.

811    CAPULET	Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;
812    	We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
813    	Is it e'en so? why, then, I thank you all
814    	I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
815    	More torches here! Come on then, let's to bed.
816    	Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:
817    	I'll to my rest.

818    	[Exeunt all but JULIET and Nurse]

819    JULIET	Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?

820    Nurse	The son and heir of old Tiberio.

821    JULIET	What's he that now is going out of door?

822    Nurse	Marry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.

823    JULIET	What's he that follows there, that would not dance?

824    Nurse	I know not.

825    JULIET	Go ask his name: if he be married.
826    	My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

827    Nurse	His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
828    	The only son of your great enemy.

829    JULIET	My only love sprung from my only hate!
830    	Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
831    	Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
832    	That I must love a loathed enemy.

833    Nurse	What's this? what's this?

834    JULIET	A rhyme I learn'd even now
835    	Of one I danced withal.

836    	[One calls within 'Juliet.']

837    Nurse	Anon, anon!
838    	Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.

839    	[Exeunt]




840    	ROMEO AND JULIET


841    ACT II


842    	PROLOGUE


843    	[Enter Chorus]

844    Chorus	Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
845    	And young affection gapes to be his heir;
846    	That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,
847    	With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.
848    	Now Romeo is beloved and loves again,
849    	Alike betwitched by the charm of looks,
850    	But to his foe supposed he must complain,
851    	And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:
852    	Being held a foe, he may not have access
853    	To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
854    	And she as much in love, her means much less
855    	To meet her new-beloved any where:
856    	But passion lends them power, time means, to meet
857    	Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

858    	[Exit]




859    	ROMEO AND JULIET


860    ACT II



861    SCENE I	A lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard.


862    	[Enter ROMEO]

863    ROMEO	Can I go forward when my heart is here?
864    	Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

865    	[He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it]

866    	[Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO]

867    BENVOLIO	Romeo! my cousin Romeo!

868    MERCUTIO	He is wise;
869    	And, on my lie, hath stol'n him home to bed.

870    BENVOLIO	He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:
871    	Call, good Mercutio.

872    MERCUTIO	Nay, I'll conjure too.
873    	Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
874    	Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
875    	Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
876    	Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove;'
877    	Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
878    	One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
879    	Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
880    	When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!
881    	He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
882    	The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
883    	I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
884    	By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
885    	By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh
886    	And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
887    	That in thy likeness thou appear to us!

888    BENVOLIO	And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

889    MERCUTIO	This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him
890    	To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle
891    	Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
892    	Till she had laid it and conjured it down;
893    	That were some spite: my invocation
894    	Is fair and honest, and in his mistress' name
895    	I conjure only but to raise up him.

896    BENVOLIO	Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,
897    	To be consorted with the humorous night:
898    	Blind is his love and best befits the dark.

899    MERCUTIO	If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
900    	Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
901    	And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
902    	As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
903    	Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
904    	An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!
905    	Romeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;
906    	This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
907    	Come, shall we go?

908    BENVOLIO	                  Go, then; for 'tis in vain
909    	To seek him here that means not to be found.

910    	[Exeunt]




911    	ROMEO AND JULIET


912    ACT II



913    SCENE II	Capulet's orchard.


914    	[Enter ROMEO]

915    ROMEO	He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

916    	[JULIET appears above at a window]

917    	But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
918    	It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
919    	Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
920    	Who is already sick and pale with grief,
921    	That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
922    	Be not her maid, since she is envious;
923    	Her vestal livery is but sick and green
924    	And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
925    	It is my lady, O, it is my love!
926    	O, that she knew she were!
927    	She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
928    	Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
929    	I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
930    	Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
931    	Having some business, do entreat her eyes
932    	To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
933    	What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
934    	The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
935    	As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
936    	Would through the airy region stream so bright
937    	That birds would sing and think it were not night.
938    	See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
939    	O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
940    	That I might touch that cheek!

941    JULIET	Ay me!

942    ROMEO	She speaks:
943    	O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
944    	As glorious to this night, being o'er my head
945    	As is a winged messenger of heaven
946    	Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
947    	Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
948    	When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
949    	And sails upon the bosom of the air.

950    JULIET	O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
951    	Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
952    	Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
953    	And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

954    ROMEO	[Aside]  Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

955    JULIET	'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
956    	Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
957    	What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
958    	Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
959    	Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
960    	What's in a name? that which we call a rose
961    	By any other name would smell as sweet;
962    	So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
963    	Retain that dear perfection which he owes
964    	Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
965    	And for that name which is no part of thee
966    	Take all myself.

967    ROMEO	                  I take thee at thy word:
968    	Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
969    	Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

970    JULIET	What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night
971    	So stumblest on my counsel?

972    ROMEO	By a name
973    	I know not how to tell thee who I am:
974    	My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
975    	Because it is an enemy to thee;
976    	Had I it written, I would tear the word.

977    JULIET	My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
978    	Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:
979    	Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?

980    ROMEO	Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.

981    JULIET	How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
982    	The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
983    	And the place death, considering who thou art,
984    	If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

985    ROMEO	With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;
986    	For stony limits cannot hold love out,
987    	And what love can do that dares love attempt;
988    	Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.

989    JULIET	If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

990    ROMEO	Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
991    	Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
992    	And I am proof against their enmity.

993    JULIET	I would not for the world they saw thee here.

994    ROMEO	I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;
995    	And but thou love me, let them find me here:
996    	My life were better ended by their hate,
997    	Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

998    JULIET	By whose direction found'st thou out this place?

999    ROMEO	By love, who first did prompt me to inquire;
1000   	He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.
1001   	I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far
1002   	As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,
1003   	I would adventure for such merchandise.

1004   JULIET	Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face,
1005   	Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
1006   	For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night
1007   	Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
1008   	What I have spoke: but farewell compliment!
1009   	Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'
1010   	And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st,
1011   	Thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries
1012   	Then say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,
1013   	If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:
1014   	Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
1015   	I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,
1016   	So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
1017   	In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,
1018   	And therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:
1019   	But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
1020   	Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
1021   	I should have been more strange, I must confess,
1022   	But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,
1023   	My true love's passion: therefore pardon me,
1024   	And not impute this yielding to light love,
1025   	Which the dark night hath so discovered.

1026   ROMEO	Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear
1027   	That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--

1028   JULIET	O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
1029   	That monthly changes in her circled orb,
1030   	Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

1031   ROMEO	What shall I swear by?

1032   JULIET	Do not swear at all;
1033   	Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
1034   	Which is the god of my idolatry,
1035   	And I'll believe thee.

1036   ROMEO	If my heart's dear love--

1037   JULIET	Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,
1038   	I have no joy of this contract to-night:
1039   	It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
1040   	Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
1041   	Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!
1042   	This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
1043   	May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
1044   	Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest
1045   	Come to thy heart as that within my breast!

1046   ROMEO	O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

1047   JULIET	What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?

1048   ROMEO	The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.

1049   JULIET	I gave thee mine before thou didst request it:
1050   	And yet I would it were to give again.

1051   ROMEO	Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?

1052   JULIET	But to be frank, and give it thee again.
1053   	And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
1054   	My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
1055   	My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
1056   	The more I have, for both are infinite.

1057   	[Nurse calls within]

1058   	I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!
1059   	Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.
1060   	Stay but a little, I will come again.

1061   	[Exit, above]

1062   ROMEO	O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.
1063   	Being in night, all this is but a dream,
1064   	Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

1065   	[Re-enter JULIET, above]

1066   JULIET	Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
1067   	If that thy bent of love be honourable,
1068   	Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
1069   	By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
1070   	Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;
1071   	And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay
1072   	And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

1073   Nurse	[Within]  Madam!

1074   JULIET	I come, anon.--But if thou mean'st not well,
1075   	I do beseech thee--

1076   Nurse	[Within]  Madam!

1077   JULIET	By and by, I come:--
1078   	To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:
1079   	To-morrow will I send.

1080   ROMEO	So thrive my soul--

1081   JULIET	A thousand times good night!

1082   	[Exit, above]

1083   ROMEO	A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
1084   	Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from
1085   	their books,
1086   	But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.

1087   	[Retiring]

1088   	[Re-enter JULIET, above]

1089   JULIET	Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice,
1090   	To lure this tassel-gentle back again!
1091   	Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
1092   	Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
1093   	And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,
1094   	With repetition of my Romeo's name.

1095   ROMEO	It is my soul that calls upon my name:
1096   	How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
1097   	Like softest music to attending ears!

1098   JULIET	Romeo!

1099   ROMEO	     My dear?

1100   JULIET	                  At what o'clock to-morrow
1101   	Shall I send to thee?

1102   ROMEO	At the hour of nine.

1103   JULIET	I will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.
1104   	I have forgot why I did call thee back.

1105   ROMEO	Let me stand here till thou remember it.

1106   JULIET	I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
1107   	Remembering how I love thy company.

1108   ROMEO	And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,
1109   	Forgetting any other home but this.

1110   JULIET	'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
1111   	And yet no further than a wanton's bird;
1112   	Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
1113   	Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
1114   	And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
1115   	So loving-jealous of his liberty.

1116   ROMEO	I would I were thy bird.

1117   JULIET	Sweet, so would I:
1118   	Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
1119   	Good night, good night! parting is such
1120   	sweet sorrow,
1121   	That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

1122   	[Exit above]

1123   ROMEO	Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!
1124   	Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!
1125   	Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,
1126   	His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.

1127   	[Exit]




1128   	ROMEO AND JULIET


1129   ACT II



1130   SCENE III	Friar Laurence's cell.


1131   	[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a basket]

1132   FRIAR LAURENCE	The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
1133   	Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
1134   	And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
1135   	From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:
1136   	Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
1137   	The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,
1138   	I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
1139   	With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
1140   	The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
1141   	What is her burying grave that is her womb,
1142   	And from her womb children of divers kind
1143   	We sucking on her natural bosom find,
1144   	Many for many virtues excellent,
1145   	None but for some and yet all different.
1146   	O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
1147   	In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
1148   	For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
1149   	But to the earth some special good doth give,
1150   	Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
1151   	Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
1152   	Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
1153   	And vice sometimes by action dignified.
1154   	Within the infant rind of this small flower
1155   	Poison hath residence and medicine power:
1156   	For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
1157   	Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
1158   	Two such opposed kings encamp them still
1159   	In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
1160   	And where the worser is predominant,
1161   	Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

1162   	[Enter ROMEO]

1163   ROMEO	Good morrow, father.

1164   FRIAR LAURENCE	Benedicite!
1165   	What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
1166   	Young son, it argues a distemper'd head
1167   	So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
1168   	Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
1169   	And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
1170   	But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain
1171   	Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:
1172   	Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
1173   	Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
1174   	Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
1175   	Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

1176   ROMEO	That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

1177   FRIAR LAURENCE	God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?

1178   ROMEO	With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;
1179   	I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.

1180   FRIAR LAURENCE	That's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?

1181   ROMEO	I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
1182   	I have been feasting with mine enemy,
1183   	Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
1184   	That's by me wounded: both our remedies
1185   	Within thy help and holy physic lies:
1186   	I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,
1187   	My intercession likewise steads my foe.

1188   FRIAR LAURENCE	Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
1189   	Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

1190   ROMEO	Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set
1191   	On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
1192   	As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
1193   	And all combined, save what thou must combine
1194   	By holy marriage: when and where and how
1195   	We met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow,
1196   	I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
1197   	That thou consent to marry us to-day.

1198   FRIAR LAURENCE	Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
1199   	Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
1200   	So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies
1201   	Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
1202   	Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
1203   	Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
1204   	How much salt water thrown away in waste,
1205   	To season love, that of it doth not taste!
1206   	The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
1207   	Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
1208   	Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
1209   	Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet:
1210   	If e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,
1211   	Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline:
1212   	And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,
1213   	Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.

1214   ROMEO	Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.

1215   FRIAR LAURENCE	For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

1216   ROMEO	And bad'st me bury love.

1217   FRIAR LAURENCE	Not in a grave,
1218   	To lay one in, another out to have.

1219   ROMEO	I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now
1220   	Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
1221   	The other did not so.

1222   FRIAR LAURENCE	O, she knew well
1223   	Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
1224   	But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
1225   	In one respect I'll thy assistant be;
1226   	For this alliance may so happy prove,
1227   	To turn your households' rancour to pure love.

1228   ROMEO	O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.

1229   FRIAR LAURENCE	Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.

1230   	[Exeunt]




1231   	ROMEO AND JULIET


1232   ACT II



1233   SCENE IV	A street.


1234   	[Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO]

1235   MERCUTIO	Where the devil should this Romeo be?
1236   	Came he not home to-night?

1237   BENVOLIO	Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.

1238   MERCUTIO	Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline.
1239   	Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

1240   BENVOLIO	Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
1241   	Hath sent a letter to his father's house.

1242   MERCUTIO	A challenge, on my life.

1243   BENVOLIO	Romeo will answer it.

1244   MERCUTIO	Any man that can write may answer a letter.

1245   BENVOLIO	Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he
1246   	dares, being dared.

1247   MERCUTIO	Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a
1248   	white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a
1249   	love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the
1250   	blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to
1251   	encounter Tybalt?

1252   BENVOLIO	Why, what is Tybalt?

1253   MERCUTIO	More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
1254   	the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
1255   	you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and
1256   	proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and
1257   	the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk
1258   	button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the
1259   	very first house, of the first and second cause:
1260   	ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the
1261   	hai!

1262   BENVOLIO	The what?

1263   MERCUTIO	The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
1264   	fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,
1265   	a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
1266   	whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,
1267   	grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with
1268   	these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
1269   	perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,
1270   	that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their
1271   	bones, their bones!

1272   	[Enter ROMEO]

1273   BENVOLIO	Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.

1274   MERCUTIO	Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
1275   	how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
1276   	that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a
1277   	kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
1278   	be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
1279   	Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
1280   	eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
1281   	Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation
1282   	to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit
1283   	fairly last night.

1284   ROMEO	Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

1285   MERCUTIO	The ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

1286   ROMEO	Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in
1287   	such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

1288   MERCUTIO	That's as much as to say, such a case as yours
1289   	constrains a man to bow in the hams.

1290   ROMEO	Meaning, to court'sy.

1291   MERCUTIO	Thou hast most kindly hit it.

1292   ROMEO	A most courteous exposition.

1293   MERCUTIO	Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

1294   ROMEO	Pink for flower.

1295   MERCUTIO	Right.

1296   ROMEO	Why, then is my pump well flowered.

1297   MERCUTIO	Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast
1298   	worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it
1299   	is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.

1300   ROMEO	O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
1301   	singleness.

1302   MERCUTIO	Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

1303   ROMEO	Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.

1304   MERCUTIO	Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have
1305   	done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
1306   	thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:
1307   	was I with you there for the goose?

1308   ROMEO	Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
1309   	not there for the goose.

1310   MERCUTIO	I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

1311   ROMEO	Nay, good goose, bite not.

1312   MERCUTIO	Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
1313   	sharp sauce.

1314   ROMEO	And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?

1315   MERCUTIO	O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
1316   	inch narrow to an ell broad!

1317   ROMEO	I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added
1318   	to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.

1319   MERCUTIO	Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
1320   	now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
1321   	thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
1322   	for this drivelling love is like a great natural,
1323   	that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

1324   BENVOLIO	Stop there, stop there.

1325   MERCUTIO	Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.

1326   BENVOLIO	Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.

1327   MERCUTIO	O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:
1328   	for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and
1329   	meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.

1330   ROMEO	Here's goodly gear!

1331   	[Enter Nurse and PETER]

1332   MERCUTIO	A sail, a sail!

1333   BENVOLIO	Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

1334   Nurse	Peter!

1335   PETER	Anon!

1336   Nurse	My fan, Peter.

1337   MERCUTIO	Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the
1338   	fairer face.

1339   Nurse	God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

1340   MERCUTIO	God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.

1341   Nurse	Is it good den?

1342   MERCUTIO	'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the
1343   	dial is now upon the prick of noon.

1344   Nurse	Out upon you! what a man are you!

1345   ROMEO	One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to
1346   	mar.

1347   Nurse	By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'
1348   	quoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I
1349   	may find the young Romeo?

1350   ROMEO	I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when
1351   	you have found him than he was when you sought him:
1352   	I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.

1353   Nurse	You say well.

1354   MERCUTIO	Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;
1355   	wisely, wisely.

1356   Nurse	if you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with
1357   	you.

1358   BENVOLIO	She will indite him to some supper.

1359   MERCUTIO	A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!

1360   ROMEO	What hast thou found?

1361   MERCUTIO	No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,
1362   	that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.

1363   	[Sings]

1364   	An old hare hoar,
1365   	And an old hare hoar,
1366   	Is very good meat in lent
1367   	But a hare that is hoar
1368   	Is too much for a score,
1369   	When it hoars ere it be spent.
1370   	Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll
1371   	to dinner, thither.

1372   ROMEO	I will follow you.

1373   MERCUTIO	Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,

1374   	[Singing]

1375   	'lady, lady, lady.'

1376   	[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO]

1377   Nurse	Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
1378   	merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?

1379   ROMEO	A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,
1380   	and will speak more in a minute than he will stand
1381   	to in a month.

1382   Nurse	An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him
1383   	down, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such
1384   	Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.
1385   	Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am
1386   	none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by
1387   	too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?

1388   PETER	I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon
1389   	should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare
1390   	draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a
1391   	good quarrel, and the law on my side.

1392   Nurse	Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
1393   	me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
1394   	and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you
1395   	out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:
1396   	but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
1397   	a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
1398   	kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
1399   	is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double
1400   	with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
1401   	to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.

1402   ROMEO	Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I
1403   	protest unto thee--

1404   Nurse	Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:
1405   	Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.

1406   ROMEO	What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me.

1407   Nurse	I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as
1408   	I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.

1409   ROMEO	Bid her devise
1410   	Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;
1411   	And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell
1412   	Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.

1413   Nurse	No truly sir; not a penny.

1414   ROMEO	Go to; I say you shall.

1415   Nurse	This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there.

1416   ROMEO	And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:
1417   	Within this hour my man shall be with thee
1418   	And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
1419   	Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
1420   	Must be my convoy in the secret night.
1421   	Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:
1422   	Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.

1423   Nurse	Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.

1424   ROMEO	What say'st thou, my dear nurse?

1425   Nurse	Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,
1426   	Two may keep counsel, putting one away?

1427   ROMEO	I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.

1428   NURSE	Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord,
1429   	Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there
1430   	is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain
1431   	lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief
1432   	see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her
1433   	sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer
1434   	man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks
1435   	as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not
1436   	rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?

1437   ROMEO	Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.

1438   Nurse	Ah. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for
1439   	the--No; I know it begins with some other
1440   	letter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of
1441   	it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good
1442   	to hear it.

1443   ROMEO	Commend me to thy lady.

1444   Nurse	Ay, a thousand times.

1445   	[Exit Romeo]
1446   	Peter!

1447   PETER	Anon!

1448   Nurse	Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.

1449   	[Exeunt]




1450   	ROMEO AND JULIET


1451   ACT II



1452   SCENE V	Capulet's orchard.


1453   	[Enter JULIET]

1454   JULIET	The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;
1455   	In half an hour she promised to return.
1456   	Perchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.
1457   	O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,
1458   	Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
1459   	Driving back shadows over louring hills:
1460   	Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
1461   	And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
1462   	Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
1463   	Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve
1464   	Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
1465   	Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
1466   	She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
1467   	My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
1468   	And his to me:
1469   	But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
1470   	Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
1471   	O God, she comes!

1472   	[Enter Nurse and PETER]

1473   	O honey nurse, what news?
1474   	Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

1475   Nurse	Peter, stay at the gate.

1476   	[Exit PETER]

1477   JULIET	Now, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad?
1478   	Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
1479   	If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news
1480   	By playing it to me with so sour a face.

1481   Nurse	I am a-weary, give me leave awhile:
1482   	Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!

1483   JULIET	I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
1484   	Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.

1485   Nurse	Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?
1486   	Do you not see that I am out of breath?

1487   JULIET	How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
1488   	To say to me that thou art out of breath?
1489   	The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
1490   	Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
1491   	Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;
1492   	Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
1493   	Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?

1494   Nurse	Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not
1495   	how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his
1496   	face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels
1497   	all men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,
1498   	though they be not to be talked on, yet they are
1499   	past compare: he is not the flower of courtesy,
1500   	but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy
1501   	ways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?

1502   JULIET	No, no: but all this did I know before.
1503   	What says he of our marriage? what of that?

1504   Nurse	Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I!
1505   	It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
1506   	My back o' t' other side,--O, my back, my back!
1507   	Beshrew your heart for sending me about,
1508   	To catch my death with jaunting up and down!

1509   JULIET	I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
1510   	Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

1511   Nurse	Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a
1512   	courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I
1513   	warrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?

1514   JULIET	Where is my mother! why, she is within;
1515   	Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!
1516   	'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
1517   	Where is your mother?'

1518   Nurse	O God's lady dear!
1519   	Are you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;
1520   	Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
1521   	Henceforward do your messages yourself.

1522   JULIET	Here's such a coil! come, what says Romeo?

1523   Nurse	Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?

1524   JULIET	I have.

1525   Nurse	Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;
1526   	There stays a husband to make you a wife:
1527   	Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
1528   	They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.
1529   	Hie you to church; I must another way,
1530   	To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
1531   	Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:
1532   	I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
1533   	But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
1534   	Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.

1535   JULIET	Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.

1536   	[Exeunt]




1537   	ROMEO AND JULIET


1538   ACT II



1539   SCENE VI	Friar Laurence's cell.


1540   	[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and ROMEO]

1541   FRIAR LAURENCE	So smile the heavens upon this holy act,
1542   	That after hours with sorrow chide us not!

1543   ROMEO	Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,
1544   	It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
1545   	That one short minute gives me in her sight:
1546   	Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
1547   	Then love-devouring death do what he dare;
1548   	It is enough I may but call her mine.

1549   FRIAR LAURENCE	These violent delights have violent ends
1550   	And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
1551   	Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey
1552   	Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
1553   	And in the taste confounds the appetite:
1554   	Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
1555   	Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

1556   	[Enter JULIET]

1557   	Here comes the lady: O, so light a foot
1558   	Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:
1559   	A lover may bestride the gossamer
1560   	That idles in the wanton summer air,
1561   	And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

1562   JULIET	Good even to my ghostly confessor.

1563   FRIAR LAURENCE	Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

1564   JULIET	As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

1565   ROMEO	Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
1566   	Be heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more
1567   	To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
1568   	This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
1569   	Unfold the imagined happiness that both
1570   	Receive in either by this dear encounter.

1571   JULIET	Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
1572   	Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
1573   	They are but beggars that can count their worth;
1574   	But my true love is grown to such excess
1575   	I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

1576   FRIAR LAURENCE	Come, come with me, and we will make short work;
1577   	For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
1578   	Till holy church incorporate two in one.

1579   	[Exeunt]




1580   	ROMEO AND JULIET


1581   ACT III



1582   SCENE I	A public place.


1583   	[Enter MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, Page, and Servants]

1584   BENVOLIO	I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:
1585   	The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
1586   	And, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;
1587   	For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

1588   MERCUTIO	Thou art like one of those fellows that when he
1589   	enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword
1590   	upon the table and says 'God send me no need of
1591   	thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws
1592   	it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.

1593   BENVOLIO	Am I like such a fellow?

1594   MERCUTIO	Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as
1595   	any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as
1596   	soon moody to be moved.

1597   BENVOLIO	And what to?

1598   MERCUTIO	Nay, an there were two such, we should have none
1599   	shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why,
1600   	thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,
1601   	or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou
1602   	wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no
1603   	other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what
1604   	eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?
1605   	Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of
1606   	meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as
1607   	an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a
1608   	man for coughing in the street, because he hath
1609   	wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun:
1610   	didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing
1611   	his new doublet before Easter? with another, for
1612   	tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou
1613   	wilt tutor me from quarrelling!

1614   BENVOLIO	An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man
1615   	should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.

1616   MERCUTIO	The fee-simple! O simple!

1617   BENVOLIO	By my head, here come the Capulets.

1618   MERCUTIO	By my heel, I care not.

1619   	[Enter TYBALT and others]

1620   TYBALT	Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
1621   	Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.

1622   MERCUTIO	And but one word with one of us? couple it with
1623   	something; make it a word and a blow.

1624   TYBALT	You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you
1625   	will give me occasion.

1626   MERCUTIO	Could you not take some occasion without giving?

1627   TYBALT	Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,--

1628   MERCUTIO	Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an
1629   	thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but
1630   	discords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall
1631   	make you dance. 'Zounds, consort!

1632   BENVOLIO	We talk here in the public haunt of men:
1633   	Either withdraw unto some private place,
1634   	And reason coldly of your grievances,
1635   	Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

1636   MERCUTIO	Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;
1637   	I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.

1638   	[Enter ROMEO]

1639   TYBALT	Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.

1640   MERCUTIO	But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:
1641   	Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;
1642   	Your worship in that sense may call him 'man.'

1643   TYBALT	Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford
1644   	No better term than this,--thou art a villain.

1645   ROMEO	Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
1646   	Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
1647   	To such a greeting: villain am I none;
1648   	Therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.

1649   TYBALT	Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
1650   	That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.

1651   ROMEO	I do protest, I never injured thee,
1652   	But love thee better than thou canst devise,
1653   	Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:
1654   	And so, good Capulet,--which name I tender
1655   	As dearly as my own,--be satisfied.

1656   MERCUTIO	O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
1657   	Alla stoccata carries it away.

1658   	[Draws]

1659   	Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

1660   TYBALT	What wouldst thou have with me?

1661   MERCUTIO	Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine
1662   	lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you
1663   	shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the
1664   	eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher
1665   	by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your
1666   	ears ere it be out.

1667   TYBALT	I am for you.

1668   	[Drawing]

1669   ROMEO	Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

1670   MERCUTIO	Come, sir, your passado.

1671   	[They fight]

1672   ROMEO	Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
1673   	Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!
1674   	Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath
1675   	Forbidden bandying in Verona streets:
1676   	Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!

1677   	[TYBALT under ROMEO's arm stabs MERCUTIO, and flies
1678   	with his followers]

1679   MERCUTIO	I am hurt.
1680   	A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.
1681   	Is he gone, and hath nothing?

1682   BENVOLIO	What, art thou hurt?

1683   MERCUTIO	Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.
1684   	Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

1685   	[Exit Page]

1686   ROMEO	Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

1687   MERCUTIO	No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
1688   	church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
1689   	me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
1690   	am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'
1691   	both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a
1692   	cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a
1693   	rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
1694   	arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I
1695   	was hurt under your arm.

1696   ROMEO	I thought all for the best.

1697   MERCUTIO	Help me into some house, Benvolio,
1698   	Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!
1699   	They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,
1700   	And soundly too: your houses!

1701   	[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO]

1702   ROMEO	This gentleman, the prince's near ally,
1703   	My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
1704   	In my behalf; my reputation stain'd
1705   	With Tybalt's slander,--Tybalt, that an hour
1706   	Hath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,
1707   	Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
1708   	And in my temper soften'd valour's steel!

1709   	[Re-enter BENVOLIO]

1710   BENVOLIO	O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!
1711   	That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,
1712   	Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

1713   ROMEO	This day's black fate on more days doth depend;
1714   	This but begins the woe, others must end.

1715   BENVOLIO	Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.

1716   ROMEO	Alive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain!
1717   	Away to heaven, respective lenity,
1718   	And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!

1719   	[Re-enter TYBALT]

1720   	Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again,
1721   	That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul
1722   	Is but a little way above our heads,
1723   	Staying for thine to keep him company:
1724   	Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.

1725   TYBALT	Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
1726   	Shalt with him hence.

1727   ROMEO	This shall determine that.

1728   	[They fight; TYBALT falls]

1729   BENVOLIO	Romeo, away, be gone!
1730   	The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
1731   	Stand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death,
1732   	If thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!

1733   ROMEO	O, I am fortune's fool!

1734   BENVOLIO	Why dost thou stay?

1735   	[Exit ROMEO]

1736   	[Enter Citizens, &c]

1737   First Citizen	Which way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?
1738   	Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?

1739   BENVOLIO	There lies that Tybalt.

1740   First Citizen	Up, sir, go with me;
1741   	I charge thee in the princes name, obey.

1742   	[Enter Prince, attended; MONTAGUE, CAPULET, their
1743   	Wives, and others]

1744   PRINCE	Where are the vile beginners of this fray?

1745   BENVOLIO	O noble prince, I can discover all
1746   	The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:
1747   	There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
1748   	That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.

1749   LADY CAPULET	Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!
1750   	O prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt
1751   	O my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,
1752   	For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.
1753   	O cousin, cousin!

1754   PRINCE	Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?

1755   BENVOLIO	Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay;
1756   	Romeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink
1757   	How nice the quarrel was, and urged withal
1758   	Your high displeasure: all this uttered
1759   	With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,
1760   	Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
1761   	Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts
1762   	With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast,
1763   	Who all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
1764   	And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
1765   	Cold death aside, and with the other sends
1766   	It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity,
1767   	Retorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,
1768   	'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and, swifter than
1769   	his tongue,
1770   	His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
1771   	And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
1772   	An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
1773   	Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;
1774   	But by and by comes back to Romeo,
1775   	Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,
1776   	And to 't they go like lightning, for, ere I
1777   	Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.
1778   	And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.
1779   	This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.

1780   LADY CAPULET	He is a kinsman to the Montague;
1781   	Affection makes him false; he speaks not true:
1782   	Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
1783   	And all those twenty could but kill one life.
1784   	I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;
1785   	Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.

1786   PRINCE	Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio;
1787   	Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

1788   MONTAGUE	Not Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend;
1789   	His fault concludes but what the law should end,
1790   	The life of Tybalt.

1791   PRINCE	And for that offence
1792   	Immediately we do exile him hence:
1793   	I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,
1794   	My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;
1795   	But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine
1796   	That you shall all repent the loss of mine:
1797   	I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
1798   	Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
1799   	Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,
1800   	Else, when he's found, that hour is his last.
1801   	Bear hence this body and attend our will:
1802   	Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

1803   	[Exeunt]




1804   	ROMEO AND JULIET


1805   ACT III



1806   SCENE II	Capulet's orchard.


1807   	[Enter JULIET]

1808   JULIET	Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
1809   	Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner
1810   	As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
1811   	And bring in cloudy night immediately.
1812   	Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
1813   	That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo
1814   	Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
1815   	Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
1816   	By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
1817   	It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
1818   	Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
1819   	And learn me how to lose a winning match,
1820   	Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
1821   	Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
1822   	With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
1823   	Think true love acted simple modesty.
1824   	Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
1825   	For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
1826   	Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
1827   	Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
1828   	Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
1829   	Take him and cut him out in little stars,
1830   	And he will make the face of heaven so fine
1831   	That all the world will be in love with night
1832   	And pay no worship to the garish sun.
1833   	O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
1834   	But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
1835   	Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day
1836   	As is the night before some festival
1837   	To an impatient child that hath new robes
1838   	And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
1839   	And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks
1840   	But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.

1841   	[Enter Nurse, with cords]

1842   	Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords
1843   	That Romeo bid thee fetch?

1844   Nurse	Ay, ay, the cords.

1845   	[Throws them down]

1846   JULIET	Ay me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?

1847   Nurse	Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!
1848   	We are undone, lady, we are undone!
1849   	Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!

1850   JULIET	Can heaven be so envious?

1851   Nurse	Romeo can,
1852   	Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!
1853   	Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

1854   JULIET	What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
1855   	This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
1856   	Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 'I,'
1857   	And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
1858   	Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
1859   	I am not I, if there be such an I;
1860   	Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.'
1861   	If he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no:
1862   	Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

1863   Nurse	I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,--
1864   	God save the mark!--here on his manly breast:
1865   	A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
1866   	Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
1867   	All in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.

1868   JULIET	O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
1869   	To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!
1870   	Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
1871   	And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!

1872   Nurse	O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
1873   	O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
1874   	That ever I should live to see thee dead!

1875   JULIET	What storm is this that blows so contrary?
1876   	Is Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?
1877   	My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?
1878   	Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
1879   	For who is living, if those two are gone?

1880   Nurse	Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
1881   	Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.

1882   JULIET	O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

1883   Nurse	It did, it did; alas the day, it did!

1884   JULIET	O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
1885   	Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
1886   	Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
1887   	Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
1888   	Despised substance of divinest show!
1889   	Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
1890   	A damned saint, an honourable villain!
1891   	O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
1892   	When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
1893   	In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?
1894   	Was ever book containing such vile matter
1895   	So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
1896   	In such a gorgeous palace!

1897   Nurse	There's no trust,
1898   	No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
1899   	All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
1900   	Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae:
1901   	These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
1902   	Shame come to Romeo!

1903   JULIET	Blister'd be thy tongue
1904   	For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
1905   	Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;
1906   	For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
1907   	Sole monarch of the universal earth.
1908   	O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

1909   Nurse	Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?

1910   JULIET	Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
1911   	Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
1912   	When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
1913   	But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
1914   	That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:
1915   	Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
1916   	Your tributary drops belong to woe,
1917   	Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
1918   	My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
1919   	And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:
1920   	All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
1921   	Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
1922   	That murder'd me: I would forget it fain;
1923   	But, O, it presses to my memory,
1924   	Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
1925   	'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;'
1926   	That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'
1927   	Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
1928   	Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
1929   	Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship
1930   	And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,
1931   	Why follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'
1932   	Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
1933   	Which modern lamentations might have moved?
1934   	But with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
1935   	'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,
1936   	Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
1937   	All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'
1938   	There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
1939   	In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.
1940   	Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?

1941   Nurse	Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:
1942   	Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

1943   JULIET	Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,
1944   	When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.
1945   	Take up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,
1946   	Both you and I; for Romeo is exiled:
1947   	He made you for a highway to my bed;
1948   	But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
1949   	Come, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;
1950   	And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

1951   Nurse	Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo
1952   	To comfort you: I wot well where he is.
1953   	Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:
1954   	I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.

1955   JULIET	O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,
1956   	And bid him come to take his last farewell.

1957   	[Exeunt]




1958   	ROMEO AND JULIET


1959   ACT III



1960   SCENE III	Friar Laurence's cell.


1961   	[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE]

1962   FRIAR LAURENCE	Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:
1963   	Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
1964   	And thou art wedded to calamity.

1965   	[Enter ROMEO]

1966   ROMEO	Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?
1967   	What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
1968   	That I yet know not?

1969   FRIAR LAURENCE	Too familiar
1970   	Is my dear son with such sour company:
1971   	I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.

1972   ROMEO	What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?

1973   FRIAR LAURENCE	A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,
1974   	Not body's death, but body's banishment.

1975   ROMEO	Ha, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'
1976   	For exile hath more terror in his look,
1977   	Much more than death: do not say 'banishment.'

1978   FRIAR LAURENCE	Hence from Verona art thou banished:
1979   	Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

1980   ROMEO	There is no world without Verona walls,
1981   	But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
1982   	Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
1983   	And world's exile is death: then banished,
1984   	Is death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,
1985   	Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,
1986   	And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

1987   FRIAR LAURENCE	O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
1988   	Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
1989   	Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
1990   	And turn'd that black word death to banishment:
1991   	This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.

1992   ROMEO	'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
1993   	Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
1994   	And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
1995   	Live here in heaven and may look on her;
1996   	But Romeo may not: more validity,
1997   	More honourable state, more courtship lives
1998   	In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize
1999   	On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand
2000   	And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
2001   	Who even in pure and vestal modesty,
2002   	Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
2003   	But Romeo may not; he is banished:
2004   	Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
2005   	They are free men, but I am banished.
2006   	And say'st thou yet that exile is not death?
2007   	Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,
2008   	No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
2009   	But 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'?
2010   	O friar, the damned use that word in hell;
2011   	Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,
2012   	Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
2013   	A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
2014   	To mangle me with that word 'banished'?

2015   FRIAR LAURENCE	Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.

2016   ROMEO	O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

2017   FRIAR LAURENCE	I'll give thee armour to keep off that word:
2018   	Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
2019   	To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

2020   ROMEO	Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!
2021   	Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
2022   	Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
2023   	It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.

2024   FRIAR LAURENCE	O, then I see that madmen have no ears.

2025   ROMEO	How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?

2026   FRIAR LAURENCE	Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

2027   ROMEO	Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
2028   	Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
2029   	An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
2030   	Doting like me and like me banished,
2031   	Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
2032   	And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
2033   	Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

2034   	[Knocking within]

2035   FRIAR LAURENCE	Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.

2036   ROMEO	Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,
2037   	Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.

2038   	[Knocking]

2039   FRIAR LAURENCE	Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;
2040   	Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;

2041   	[Knocking]

2042   	Run to my study. By and by! God's will,
2043   	What simpleness is this! I come, I come!

2044   	[Knocking]

2045   	Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?

2046   Nurse	[Within]  Let me come in, and you shall know
2047   	my errand;
2048   	I come from Lady Juliet.

2049   FRIAR LAURENCE	Welcome, then.

2050   	[Enter Nurse]

2051   Nurse	O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,
2052   	Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?

2053   FRIAR LAURENCE	There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

2054   Nurse	O, he is even in my mistress' case,
2055   	Just in her case! O woful sympathy!
2056   	Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
2057   	Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
2058   	Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:
2059   	For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
2060   	Why should you fall into so deep an O?

2061   ROMEO	Nurse!

2062   Nurse	Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.

2063   ROMEO	Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?
2064   	Doth she not think me an old murderer,
2065   	Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy
2066   	With blood removed but little from her own?
2067   	Where is she? and how doth she? and what says
2068   	My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?

2069   Nurse	O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
2070   	And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
2071   	And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
2072   	And then down falls again.

2073   ROMEO	As if that name,
2074   	Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
2075   	Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand
2076   	Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,
2077   	In what vile part of this anatomy
2078   	Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
2079   	The hateful mansion.

2080   	[Drawing his sword]

2081   FRIAR LAURENCE	Hold thy desperate hand:
2082   	Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:
2083   	Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
2084   	The unreasonable fury of a beast:
2085   	Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
2086   	Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
2087   	Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,
2088   	I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
2089   	Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
2090   	And stay thy lady too that lives in thee,
2091   	By doing damned hate upon thyself?
2092   	Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?
2093   	Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet
2094   	In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
2095   	Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
2096   	Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,
2097   	And usest none in that true use indeed
2098   	Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
2099   	Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
2100   	Digressing from the valour of a man;
2101   	Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
2102   	Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
2103   	Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
2104   	Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
2105   	Like powder in a skitless soldier's flask,
2106   	Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
2107   	And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.
2108   	What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
2109   	For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
2110   	There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
2111   	But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
2112   	The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
2113   	And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
2114   	A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
2115   	Happiness courts thee in her best array;
2116   	But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
2117   	Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
2118   	Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
2119   	Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
2120   	Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
2121   	But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
2122   	For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
2123   	Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
2124   	To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
2125   	Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
2126   	With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
2127   	Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
2128   	Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
2129   	And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
2130   	Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:
2131   	Romeo is coming.

2132   Nurse	O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night
2133   	To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!
2134   	My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.

2135   ROMEO	Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

2136   Nurse	Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:
2137   	Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

2138   	[Exit]

2139   ROMEO	How well my comfort is revived by this!

2140   FRIAR LAURENCE	Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:
2141   	Either be gone before the watch be set,
2142   	Or by the break of day disguised from hence:
2143   	Sojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,
2144   	And he shall signify from time to time
2145   	Every good hap to you that chances here:
2146   	Give me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.

2147   ROMEO	But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
2148   	It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.

2149   	[Exeunt]




2150   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2151   ACT III



2152   SCENE IV	A room in Capulet's house.


2153   	[Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and PARIS]

2154   CAPULET	Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,
2155   	That we have had no time to move our daughter:
2156   	Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
2157   	And so did I:--Well, we were born to die.
2158   	'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night:
2159   	I promise you, but for your company,
2160   	I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

2161   PARIS	These times of woe afford no time to woo.
2162   	Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter.

2163   LADY CAPULET	I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;
2164   	To-night she is mew'd up to her heaviness.

2165   CAPULET	Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
2166   	Of my child's love: I think she will be ruled
2167   	In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.
2168   	Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;
2169   	Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love;
2170   	And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next--
2171   	But, soft! what day is this?

2172   PARIS	Monday, my lord,

2173   CAPULET	Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
2174   	O' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her,
2175   	She shall be married to this noble earl.
2176   	Will you be ready? do you like this haste?
2177   	We'll keep no great ado,--a friend or two;
2178   	For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
2179   	It may be thought we held him carelessly,
2180   	Being our kinsman, if we revel much:
2181   	Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,
2182   	And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

2183   PARIS	My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.

2184   CAPULET	Well get you gone: o' Thursday be it, then.
2185   	Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
2186   	Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.
2187   	Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!
2188   	Afore me! it is so very very late,
2189   	That we may call it early by and by.
2190   	Good night.

2191   	[Exeunt]




2192   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2193   ACT III



2194   SCENE V	Capulet's orchard.


2195   	[Enter ROMEO and JULIET above, at the window]

2196   JULIET	Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
2197   	It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
2198   	That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
2199   	Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
2200   	Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

2201   ROMEO	It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
2202   	No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
2203   	Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
2204   	Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
2205   	Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
2206   	I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

2207   JULIET	Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
2208   	It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
2209   	To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
2210   	And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
2211   	Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.

2212   ROMEO	Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
2213   	I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
2214   	I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,
2215   	'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
2216   	Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
2217   	The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
2218   	I have more care to stay than will to go:
2219   	Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
2220   	How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.

2221   JULIET	It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
2222   	It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
2223   	Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
2224   	Some say the lark makes sweet division;
2225   	This doth not so, for she divideth us:
2226   	Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,
2227   	O, now I would they had changed voices too!
2228   	Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
2229   	Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,
2230   	O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.

2231   ROMEO	More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!

2232   	[Enter Nurse, to the chamber]

2233   Nurse	Madam!

2234   JULIET	Nurse?

2235   Nurse	Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:
2236   	The day is broke; be wary, look about.

2237   	[Exit]

2238   JULIET	Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

2239   ROMEO	Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.

2240   	[He goeth down]

2241   JULIET	Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
2242   	I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
2243   	For in a minute there are many days:
2244   	O, by this count I shall be much in years
2245   	Ere I again behold my Romeo!

2246   ROMEO	Farewell!
2247   	I will omit no opportunity
2248   	That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

2249   JULIET	O think'st thou we shall ever meet again?

2250   ROMEO	I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
2251   	For sweet discourses in our time to come.

2252   JULIET	O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
2253   	Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
2254   	As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
2255   	Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.

2256   ROMEO	And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
2257   	Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

2258   	[Exit]

2259   JULIET	O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
2260   	If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.
2261   	That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
2262   	For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
2263   	But send him back.

2264   LADY CAPULET	[Within]         Ho, daughter! are you up?

2265   JULIET	Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother?
2266   	Is she not down so late, or up so early?
2267   	What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?

2268   	[Enter LADY CAPULET]

2269   LADY CAPULET	Why, how now, Juliet!

2270   JULIET	Madam, I am not well.

2271   LADY CAPULET	Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
2272   	What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
2273   	An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
2274   	Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;
2275   	But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

2276   JULIET	Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

2277   LADY CAPULET	So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
2278   	Which you weep for.

2279   JULIET	Feeling so the loss,
2280   	Cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

2281   LADY CAPULET	Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
2282   	As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.

2283   JULIET	What villain madam?

2284   LADY CAPULET	That same villain, Romeo.

2285   JULIET	[Aside]  Villain and he be many miles asunder.--
2286   	God Pardon him! I do, with all my heart;
2287   	And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

2288   LADY CAPULET	That is, because the traitor murderer lives.

2289   JULIET	Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands:
2290   	Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!

2291   LADY CAPULET	We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:
2292   	Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,
2293   	Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,
2294   	Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,
2295   	That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
2296   	And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

2297   JULIET	Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
2298   	With Romeo, till I behold him--dead--
2299   	Is my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd.
2300   	Madam, if you could find out but a man
2301   	To bear a poison, I would temper it;
2302   	That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
2303   	Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
2304   	To hear him named, and cannot come to him.
2305   	To wreak the love I bore my cousin
2306   	Upon his body that slaughter'd him!

2307   LADY CAPULET	Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
2308   	But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

2309   JULIET	And joy comes well in such a needy time:
2310   	What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

2311   LADY CAPULET	Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
2312   	One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
2313   	Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
2314   	That thou expect'st not nor I look'd not for.

2315   JULIET	Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

2316   LADY CAPULET	Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,
2317   	The gallant, young and noble gentleman,
2318   	The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,
2319   	Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

2320   JULIET	Now, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too,
2321   	He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
2322   	I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
2323   	Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo.
2324   	I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
2325   	I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,
2326   	It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
2327   	Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!

2328   LADY CAPULET	Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,
2329   	And see how he will take it at your hands.

2330   	[Enter CAPULET and Nurse]

2331   CAPULET	When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
2332   	But for the sunset of my brother's son
2333   	It rains downright.
2334   	How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
2335   	Evermore showering? In one little body
2336   	Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind;
2337   	For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
2338   	Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
2339   	Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
2340   	Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,
2341   	Without a sudden calm, will overset
2342   	Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!
2343   	Have you deliver'd to her our decree?

2344   LADY CAPULET	Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
2345   	I would the fool were married to her grave!

2346   CAPULET	Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.
2347   	How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?
2348   	Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest,
2349   	Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
2350   	So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

2351   JULIET	Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:
2352   	Proud can I never be of what I hate;
2353   	But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.

2354   CAPULET	How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?
2355   	'Proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I thank you not;'
2356   	And yet 'not proud,' mistress minion, you,
2357   	Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,
2358   	But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,
2359   	To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,
2360   	Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
2361   	Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!
2362   	You tallow-face!

2363   LADY CAPULET	                  Fie, fie! what, are you mad?

2364   JULIET	Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
2365   	Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

2366   CAPULET	Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
2367   	I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,
2368   	Or never after look me in the face:
2369   	Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
2370   	My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
2371   	That God had lent us but this only child;
2372   	But now I see this one is one too much,
2373   	And that we have a curse in having her:
2374   	Out on her, hilding!

2375   Nurse	God in heaven bless her!
2376   	You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

2377   CAPULET	And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,
2378   	Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

2379   Nurse	I speak no treason.

2380   CAPULET	O, God ye god-den.

2381   Nurse	May not one speak?

2382   CAPULET	                  Peace, you mumbling fool!
2383   	Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;
2384   	For here we need it not.

2385   LADY CAPULET	You are too hot.

2386   CAPULET	God's bread! it makes me mad:
2387   	Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
2388   	Alone, in company, still my care hath been
2389   	To have her match'd: and having now provided
2390   	A gentleman of noble parentage,
2391   	Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
2392   	Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
2393   	Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;
2394   	And then to have a wretched puling fool,
2395   	A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
2396   	To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,
2397   	I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'
2398   	But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
2399   	Graze where you will you shall not house with me:
2400   	Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
2401   	Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:
2402   	An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
2403   	And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in
2404   	the streets,
2405   	For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
2406   	Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
2407   	Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.

2408   	[Exit]

2409   JULIET	Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
2410   	That sees into the bottom of my grief?
2411   	O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
2412   	Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
2413   	Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
2414   	In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

2415   LADY CAPULET	Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:
2416   	Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

2417   	[Exit]

2418   JULIET	O God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented?
2419   	My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
2420   	How shall that faith return again to earth,
2421   	Unless that husband send it me from heaven
2422   	By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.
2423   	Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
2424   	Upon so soft a subject as myself!
2425   	What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
2426   	Some comfort, nurse.

2427   Nurse	Faith, here it is.
2428   	Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing,
2429   	That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
2430   	Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
2431   	Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
2432   	I think it best you married with the county.
2433   	O, he's a lovely gentleman!
2434   	Romeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
2435   	Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
2436   	As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
2437   	I think you are happy in this second match,
2438   	For it excels your first: or if it did not,
2439   	Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
2440   	As living here and you no use of him.

2441   JULIET	Speakest thou from thy heart?

2442   Nurse	And from my soul too;
2443   	Or else beshrew them both.

2444   JULIET	Amen!

2445   Nurse	What?

2446   JULIET	Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
2447   	Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,
2448   	Having displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,
2449   	To make confession and to be absolved.

2450   Nurse	Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

2451   	[Exit]

2452   JULIET	Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
2453   	Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
2454   	Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
2455   	Which she hath praised him with above compare
2456   	So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;
2457   	Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
2458   	I'll to the friar, to know his remedy:
2459   	If all else fail, myself have power to die.

2460   	[Exit]




2461   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2462   ACT IV



2463   SCENE I	Friar Laurence's cell.


2464   	[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS]

2465   FRIAR LAURENCE	On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.

2466   PARIS	My father Capulet will have it so;
2467   	And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

2468   FRIAR LAURENCE	You say you do not know the lady's mind:
2469   	Uneven is the course, I like it not.

2470   PARIS	Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
2471   	And therefore have I little talk'd of love;
2472   	For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
2473   	Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
2474   	That she doth give her sorrow so much sway,
2475   	And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
2476   	To stop the inundation of her tears;
2477   	Which, too much minded by herself alone,
2478   	May be put from her by society:
2479   	Now do you know the reason of this haste.

2480   FRIAR LAURENCE	[Aside]  I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.
2481   	Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

2482   	[Enter JULIET]

2483   PARIS	Happily met, my lady and my wife!

2484   JULIET	That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

2485   PARIS	That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.

2486   JULIET	What must be shall be.

2487   FRIAR LAURENCE	That's a certain text.

2488   PARIS	Come you to make confession to this father?

2489   JULIET	To answer that, I should confess to you.

2490   PARIS	Do not deny to him that you love me.

2491   JULIET	I will confess to you that I love him.

2492   PARIS	So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

2493   JULIET	If I do so, it will be of more price,
2494   	Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

2495   PARIS	Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.

2496   JULIET	The tears have got small victory by that;
2497   	For it was bad enough before their spite.

2498   PARIS	Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.

2499   JULIET	That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
2500   	And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

2501   PARIS	Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.

2502   JULIET	It may be so, for it is not mine own.
2503   	Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
2504   	Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

2505   FRIAR LAURENCE	My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
2506   	My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

2507   PARIS	God shield I should disturb devotion!
2508   	Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
2509   	Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

2510   	[Exit]

2511   JULIET	O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
2512   	Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!

2513   FRIAR LAURENCE	Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
2514   	It strains me past the compass of my wits:
2515   	I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
2516   	On Thursday next be married to this county.

2517   JULIET	Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
2518   	Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
2519   	If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
2520   	Do thou but call my resolution wise,
2521   	And with this knife I'll help it presently.
2522   	God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;
2523   	And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
2524   	Shall be the label to another deed,
2525   	Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
2526   	Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
2527   	Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,
2528   	Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
2529   	'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
2530   	Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
2531   	Which the commission of thy years and art
2532   	Could to no issue of true honour bring.
2533   	Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
2534   	If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

2535   FRIAR LAURENCE	Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,
2536   	Which craves as desperate an execution.
2537   	As that is desperate which we would prevent.
2538   	If, rather than to marry County Paris,
2539   	Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
2540   	Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
2541   	A thing like death to chide away this shame,
2542   	That copest with death himself to scape from it:
2543   	And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.

2544   JULIET	O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
2545   	From off the battlements of yonder tower;
2546   	Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
2547   	Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
2548   	Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
2549   	O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
2550   	With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
2551   	Or bid me go into a new-made grave
2552   	And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
2553   	Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
2554   	And I will do it without fear or doubt,
2555   	To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.

2556   FRIAR LAURENCE	Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
2557   	To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
2558   	To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
2559   	Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
2560   	Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
2561   	And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
2562   	When presently through all thy veins shall run
2563   	A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
2564   	Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
2565   	No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
2566   	The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
2567   	To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall,
2568   	Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
2569   	Each part, deprived of supple government,
2570   	Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
2571   	And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
2572   	Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
2573   	And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
2574   	Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes
2575   	To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:
2576   	Then, as the manner of our country is,
2577   	In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier
2578   	Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
2579   	Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
2580   	In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
2581   	Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
2582   	And hither shall he come: and he and I
2583   	Will watch thy waking, and that very night
2584   	Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
2585   	And this shall free thee from this present shame;
2586   	If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
2587   	Abate thy valour in the acting it.

2588   JULIET	Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

2589   FRIAR LAURENCE	Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
2590   	In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
2591   	To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

2592   JULIET	Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.
2593   	Farewell, dear father!

2594   	[Exeunt]




2595   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2596   ACT IV



2597   SCENE II	Hall in Capulet's house.


2598   	[Enter CAPULET, LADY  CAPULET, Nurse, and two
2599   	Servingmen]

2600   CAPULET	So many guests invite as here are writ.

2601   	[Exit First Servant]

2602   	Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

2603   Second Servant	You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they
2604   	can lick their fingers.

2605   CAPULET	How canst thou try them so?

2606   Second Servant	Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his
2607   	own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his
2608   	fingers goes not with me.

2609   CAPULET	Go, be gone.

2610   	[Exit Second Servant]

2611   	We shall be much unfurnished for this time.
2612   	What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?

2613   Nurse	Ay, forsooth.

2614   CAPULET	Well, he may chance to do some good on her:
2615   	A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

2616   Nurse	See where she comes from shrift with merry look.

2617   	[Enter JULIET]

2618   CAPULET	How now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?

2619   JULIET	Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin
2620   	Of disobedient opposition
2621   	To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd
2622   	By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
2623   	And beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!
2624   	Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.

2625   CAPULET	Send for the county; go tell him of this:
2626   	I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.

2627   JULIET	I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;
2628   	And gave him what becomed love I might,
2629   	Not step o'er the bounds of modesty.

2630   CAPULET	Why, I am glad on't; this is well: stand up:
2631   	This is as't should be. Let me see the county;
2632   	Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.
2633   	Now, afore God! this reverend holy friar,
2634   	Our whole city is much bound to him.

2635   JULIET	Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
2636   	To help me sort such needful ornaments
2637   	As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?

2638   LADY CAPULET	No, not till Thursday; there is time enough.

2639   CAPULET	Go, nurse, go with her: we'll to church to-morrow.

2640   	[Exeunt JULIET and Nurse]

2641   LADY  CAPULET	We shall be short in our provision:
2642   	'Tis now near night.

2643   CAPULET	Tush, I will stir about,
2644   	And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:
2645   	Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;
2646   	I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;
2647   	I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!
2648   	They are all forth. Well, I will walk myself
2649   	To County Paris, to prepare him up
2650   	Against to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,
2651   	Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.

2652   	[Exeunt]




2653   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2654   ACT IV



2655   SCENE III	Juliet's chamber.


2656   	[Enter JULIET and Nurse]

2657   JULIET	Ay, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse,
2658   	I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night,
2659   	For I have need of many orisons
2660   	To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
2661   	Which, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin.

2662   	[Enter LADY CAPULET]

2663   LADY CAPULET	What, are you busy, ho? need you my help?

2664   JULIET	No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries
2665   	As are behoveful for our state to-morrow:
2666   	So please you, let me now be left alone,
2667   	And let the nurse this night sit up with you;
2668   	For, I am sure, you have your hands full all,
2669   	In this so sudden business.

2670   LADY CAPULET	Good night:
2671   	Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.

2672   	[Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse]

2673   JULIET	Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
2674   	I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
2675   	That almost freezes up the heat of life:
2676   	I'll call them back again to comfort me:
2677   	Nurse! What should she do here?
2678   	My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
2679   	Come, vial.
2680   	What if this mixture do not work at all?
2681   	Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
2682   	No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.

2683   	[Laying down her dagger]

2684   	What if it be a poison, which the friar
2685   	Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,
2686   	Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
2687   	Because he married me before to Romeo?
2688   	I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,
2689   	For he hath still been tried a holy man.
2690   	How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
2691   	I wake before the time that Romeo
2692   	Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
2693   	Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,
2694   	To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
2695   	And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
2696   	Or, if I live, is it not very like,
2697   	The horrible conceit of death and night,
2698   	Together with the terror of the place,--
2699   	As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
2700   	Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
2701   	Of all my buried ancestors are packed:
2702   	Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
2703   	Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
2704   	At some hours in the night spirits resort;--
2705   	Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
2706   	So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
2707   	And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,
2708   	That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--
2709   	O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
2710   	Environed with all these hideous fears?
2711   	And madly play with my forefather's joints?
2712   	And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
2713   	And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
2714   	As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
2715   	O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
2716   	Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
2717   	Upon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!
2718   	Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

2719   	[She falls upon her bed, within the curtains]




2720   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2721   ACT IV



2722   SCENE IV	Hall in Capulet's house.


2723   	[Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse]

2724   LADY CAPULET	Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

2725   Nurse	They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

2726   	[Enter CAPULET]

2727   CAPULET	Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,
2728   	The curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:
2729   	Look to the baked meats, good Angelica:
2730   	Spare not for the cost.

2731   Nurse	Go, you cot-quean, go,
2732   	Get you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow
2733   	For this night's watching.

2734   CAPULET	No, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now
2735   	All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.

2736   LADY CAPULET	Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;
2737   	But I will watch you from such watching now.

2738   	[Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse]

2739   CAPULET	A jealous hood, a jealous hood!

2740   	[Enter three or four Servingmen, with spits, logs,
2741   	and baskets]

2742   		          Now, fellow,
2743   	What's there?

2744   First Servant	Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.

2745   CAPULET	Make haste, make haste.

2746   	[Exit First Servant]

2747   		  Sirrah, fetch drier logs:
2748   	Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

2749   Second Servant	I have a head, sir, that will find out logs,
2750   	And never trouble Peter for the matter.

2751   	[Exit]

2752   CAPULET	Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!
2753   	Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:
2754   	The county will be here with music straight,
2755   	For so he said he would: I hear him near.

2756   	[Music within]

2757   	Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!

2758   	[Re-enter Nurse]

2759   	Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up;
2760   	I'll go and chat with Paris: hie, make haste,
2761   	Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already:
2762   	Make haste, I say.

2763   	[Exeunt]




2764   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2765   ACT IV



2766   SCENE V	Juliet's chamber.


2767   	[Enter Nurse]

2768   Nurse	Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant her, she:
2769   	Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!
2770   	Why, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! why, bride!
2771   	What, not a word? you take your pennyworths now;
2772   	Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
2773   	The County Paris hath set up his rest,
2774   	That you shall rest but little. God forgive me,
2775   	Marry, and amen, how sound is she asleep!
2776   	I must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
2777   	Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
2778   	He'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?

2779   	[Undraws the curtains]

2780   	What, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!
2781   	I must needs wake you; Lady! lady! lady!
2782   	Alas, alas! Help, help! my lady's dead!
2783   	O, well-a-day, that ever I was born!
2784   	Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!

2785   	[Enter LADY CAPULET]

2786   LADY CAPULET	What noise is here?

2787   Nurse	O lamentable day!

2788   LADY CAPULET	What is the matter?

2789   Nurse	Look, look! O heavy day!

2790   LADY CAPULET	O me, O me! My child, my only life,
2791   	Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!
2792   	Help, help! Call help.

2793   	[Enter CAPULET]

2794   CAPULET	For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.

2795   Nurse	She's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!

2796   LADY CAPULET	Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!

2797   CAPULET	Ha! let me see her: out, alas! she's cold:
2798   	Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;
2799   	Life and these lips have long been separated:
2800   	Death lies on her like an untimely frost
2801   	Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

2802   Nurse	O lamentable day!

2803   LADY CAPULET	                  O woful time!

2804   CAPULET	Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,
2805   	Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.

2806   	[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians]

2807   FRIAR LAURENCE	Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

2808   CAPULET	Ready to go, but never to return.
2809   	O son! the night before thy wedding-day
2810   	Hath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,
2811   	Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
2812   	Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;
2813   	My daughter he hath wedded: I will die,
2814   	And leave him all; life, living, all is Death's.

2815   PARIS	Have I thought long to see this morning's face,
2816   	And doth it give me such a sight as this?

2817   LADY CAPULET	Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!
2818   	Most miserable hour that e'er time saw
2819   	In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
2820   	But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
2821   	But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
2822   	And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight!

2823   Nurse	O woe! O woful, woful, woful day!
2824   	Most lamentable day, most woful day,
2825   	That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
2826   	O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
2827   	Never was seen so black a day as this:
2828   	O woful day, O woful day!

2829   PARIS	Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!
2830   	Most detestable death, by thee beguil'd,
2831   	By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!
2832   	O love! O life! not life, but love in death!

2833   CAPULET	Despised, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!
2834   	Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now
2835   	To murder, murder our solemnity?
2836   	O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!
2837   	Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;
2838   	And with my child my joys are buried.

2839   FRIAR LAURENCE	Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not
2840   	In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
2841   	Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
2842   	And all the better is it for the maid:
2843   	Your part in her you could not keep from death,
2844   	But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
2845   	The most you sought was her promotion;
2846   	For 'twas your heaven she should be advanced:
2847   	And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced
2848   	Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
2849   	O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
2850   	That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
2851   	She's not well married that lives married long;
2852   	But she's best married that dies married young.
2853   	Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
2854   	On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
2855   	In all her best array bear her to church:
2856   	For though fond nature bids us an lament,
2857   	Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.

2858   CAPULET	All things that we ordained festival,
2859   	Turn from their office to black funeral;
2860   	Our instruments to melancholy bells,
2861   	Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
2862   	Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
2863   	Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
2864   	And all things change them to the contrary.

2865   FRIAR LAURENCE	Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;
2866   	And go, Sir Paris; every one prepare
2867   	To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
2868   	The heavens do lour upon you for some ill;
2869   	Move them no more by crossing their high will.

2870   	[Exeunt CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, PARIS, and FRIAR LAURENCE]

2871   First Musician	Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.

2872   Nurse	Honest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;
2873   	For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.

2874   	[Exit]

2875   First Musician	Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

2876   	[Enter PETER]

2877   PETER	Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease, Heart's
2878   	ease:' O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'

2879   First Musician	Why 'Heart's ease?'

2880   PETER	O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My
2881   	heart is full of woe:' O, play me some merry dump,
2882   	to comfort me.

2883   First Musician	Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.

2884   PETER	You will not, then?

2885   First Musician	No.

2886   PETER	I will then give it you soundly.

2887   First Musician	What will you give us?

2888   PETER	No money, on my faith, but the gleek;
2889   	I will give you the minstrel.

2890   First Musician	Then I will give you the serving-creature.

2891   PETER	Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on
2892   	your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you,
2893   	I'll fa you; do you note me?

2894   First Musician	An you re us and fa us, you note us.

2895   Second Musician	Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

2896   PETER	Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you
2897   	with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer
2898   	me like men:
2899   	'When griping grief the heart doth wound,
2900   	And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
2901   	Then music with her silver sound'--
2902   	why 'silver sound'? why 'music with her silver
2903   	sound'? What say you, Simon Catling?

2904   Musician	Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

2905   PETER	Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

2906   Second Musician	I say 'silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver.

2907   PETER	Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?

2908   Third Musician	Faith, I know not what to say.

2909   PETER	O, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say
2910   	for you. It is 'music with her silver sound,'
2911   	because musicians have no gold for sounding:
2912   	'Then music with her silver sound
2913   	With speedy help doth lend redress.'

2914   	[Exit]

2915   First Musician	What a pestilent knave is this same!

2916   Second Musician	Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the
2917   	mourners, and stay dinner.

2918   	[Exeunt]




2919   	ROMEO AND JULIET


2920   ACT V



2921   SCENE I	Mantua. A street.


2922   	[Enter ROMEO]

2923   ROMEO	If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
2924   	My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
2925   	My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;
2926   	And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
2927   	Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
2928   	I dreamt my lady came and found me dead--
2929   	Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave
2930   	to think!--
2931   	And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,
2932   	That I revived, and was an emperor.
2933   	Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
2934   	When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

2935   	[Enter BALTHASAR, booted]

2936   	News from Verona!--How now, Balthasar!
2937   	Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
2938   	How doth my lady? Is my father well?
2939   	How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
2940   	For nothing can be ill, if she be well.

2941   BALTHASAR	Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
2942   	Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,
2943   	And her immortal part with angels lives.
2944   	I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
2945   	And presently took post to tell it you:
2946   	O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
2947   	Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

2948   ROMEO	Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
2949   	Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
2950   	And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.

2951   BALTHASAR	I do beseech you, sir, have patience:
2952   	Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
2953   	Some misadventure.

2954   ROMEO	                  Tush, thou art deceived:
2955   	Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
2956   	Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

2957   BALTHASAR	No, my good lord.

2958   ROMEO	                  No matter: get thee gone,
2959   	And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.

2960   	[Exit BALTHASAR]

2961   	Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
2962   	Let's see for means: O mischief, thou art swift
2963   	To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
2964   	I do remember an apothecary,--
2965   	And hereabouts he dwells,--which late I noted
2966   	In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
2967   	Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
2968   	Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
2969   	And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
2970   	An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
2971   	Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
2972   	A beggarly account of empty boxes,
2973   	Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,
2974   	Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
2975   	Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
2976   	Noting this penury, to myself I said
2977   	'An if a man did need a poison now,
2978   	Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
2979   	Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'
2980   	O, this same thought did but forerun my need;
2981   	And this same needy man must sell it me.
2982   	As I remember, this should be the house.
2983   	Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.
2984   	What, ho! apothecary!

2985   	[Enter Apothecary]

2986   Apothecary	Who calls so loud?

2987   ROMEO	Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor:
2988   	Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have
2989   	A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
2990   	As will disperse itself through all the veins
2991   	That the life-weary taker may fall dead
2992   	And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
2993   	As violently as hasty powder fired
2994   	Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

2995   Apothecary	Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
2996   	Is death to any he that utters them.

2997   ROMEO	Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
2998   	And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
2999   	Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
3000   	Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;
3001   	The world is not thy friend nor the world's law;
3002   	The world affords no law to make thee rich;
3003   	Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

3004   Apothecary	My poverty, but not my will, consents.

3005   ROMEO	I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

3006   Apothecary	Put this in any liquid thing you will,
3007   	And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
3008   	Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.

3009   ROMEO	There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
3010   	Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
3011   	Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
3012   	I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.
3013   	Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
3014   	Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
3015   	To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.

3016   	[Exeunt]




3017   	ROMEO AND JULIET


3018   ACT V



3019   SCENE II	Friar Laurence's cell.


3020   	[Enter FRIAR JOHN]

3021   FRIAR JOHN	Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!

3022   	[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE]

3023   FRIAR LAURENCE	This same should be the voice of Friar John.
3024   	Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?
3025   	Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

3026   FRIAR JOHN	Going to find a bare-foot brother out
3027   	One of our order, to associate me,
3028   	Here in this city visiting the sick,
3029   	And finding him, the searchers of the town,
3030   	Suspecting that we both were in a house
3031   	Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
3032   	Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
3033   	So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.

3034   FRIAR LAURENCE	Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?

3035   FRIAR JOHN	I could not send it,--here it is again,--
3036   	Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
3037   	So fearful were they of infection.

3038   FRIAR LAURENCE	Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
3039   	The letter was not nice but full of charge
3040   	Of dear import, and the neglecting it
3041   	May do much danger. Friar John, go hence;
3042   	Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight
3043   	Unto my cell.

3044   FRIAR JOHN	Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.

3045   	[Exit]

3046   FRIAR LAURENCE	Now must I to the monument alone;
3047   	Within three hours will fair Juliet wake:
3048   	She will beshrew me much that Romeo
3049   	Hath had no notice of these accidents;
3050   	But I will write again to Mantua,
3051   	And keep her at my cell till Romeo come;
3052   	Poor living corse, closed in a dead man's tomb!

3053   	[Exit]




3054   	ROMEO AND JULIET


3055   ACT V



3056   SCENE III	A churchyard; in it a tomb belonging to the Capulets.


3057   	[Enter PARIS, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch]

3058   PARIS	Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:
3059   	Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
3060   	Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
3061   	Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
3062   	So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
3063   	Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
3064   	But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
3065   	As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
3066   	Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

3067   PAGE	[Aside]  I am almost afraid to stand alone
3068   	Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

3069   	[Retires]

3070   PARIS	Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--
3071   	O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--
3072   	Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
3073   	Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:
3074   	The obsequies that I for thee will keep
3075   	Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

3076   	[The Page whistles]

3077   	The boy gives warning something doth approach.
3078   	What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
3079   	To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?
3080   	What with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.

3081   	[Retires]

3082   	[Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a torch,
3083   	mattock, &c]

3084   ROMEO	Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
3085   	Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
3086   	See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
3087   	Give me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,
3088   	Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
3089   	And do not interrupt me in my course.
3090   	Why I descend into this bed of death,
3091   	Is partly to behold my lady's face;
3092   	But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
3093   	A precious ring, a ring that I must use
3094   	In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:
3095   	But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
3096   	In what I further shall intend to do,
3097   	By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint
3098   	And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
3099   	The time and my intents are savage-wild,
3100   	More fierce and more inexorable far
3101   	Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

3102   BALTHASAR	I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

3103   ROMEO	So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that:
3104   	Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.

3105   BALTHASAR	[Aside]  For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout:
3106   	His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

3107   	[Retires]

3108   ROMEO	Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
3109   	Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
3110   	Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
3111   	And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!

3112   	[Opens the tomb]

3113   PARIS	This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
3114   	That murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief,
3115   	It is supposed, the fair creature died;
3116   	And here is come to do some villanous shame
3117   	To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.

3118   	[Comes forward]

3119   	Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!
3120   	Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
3121   	Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
3122   	Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

3123   ROMEO	I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
3124   	Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
3125   	Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;
3126   	Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
3127   	Put not another sin upon my head,
3128   	By urging me to fury: O, be gone!
3129   	By heaven, I love thee better than myself;
3130   	For I come hither arm'd against myself:
3131   	Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,
3132   	A madman's mercy bade thee run away.

3133   PARIS	I do defy thy conjurations,
3134   	And apprehend thee for a felon here.

3135   ROMEO	Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!

3136   	[They fight]

3137   PAGE	O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

3138   	[Exit]

3139   PARIS	O, I am slain!

3140   	[Falls]

3141   	If thou be merciful,
3142   	Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

3143   	[Dies]

3144   ROMEO	In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
3145   	Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!
3146   	What said my man, when my betossed soul
3147   	Did not attend him as we rode? I think
3148   	He told me Paris should have married Juliet:
3149   	Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
3150   	Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
3151   	To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
3152   	One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
3153   	I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;
3154   	A grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,
3155   	For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
3156   	This vault a feasting presence full of light.
3157   	Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.

3158   	[Laying PARIS in the tomb]

3159   	How oft when men are at the point of death
3160   	Have they been merry! which their keepers call
3161   	A lightning before death: O, how may I
3162   	Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!
3163   	Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
3164   	Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
3165   	Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
3166   	Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
3167   	And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
3168   	Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
3169   	O, what more favour can I do to thee,
3170   	Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
3171   	To sunder his that was thine enemy?
3172   	Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,
3173   	Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
3174   	That unsubstantial death is amorous,
3175   	And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
3176   	Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
3177   	For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
3178   	And never from this palace of dim night
3179   	Depart again: here, here will I remain
3180   	With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
3181   	Will I set up my everlasting rest,
3182   	And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
3183   	From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
3184   	Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
3185   	The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
3186   	A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
3187   	Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
3188   	Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
3189   	The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
3190   	Here's to my love!

3191   	[Drinks]

3192   	O true apothecary!
3193   	Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

3194   	[Dies]

3195   	[Enter, at the other end of the churchyard, FRIAR
3196   	LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade]

3197   FRIAR LAURENCE	Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
3198   	Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?

3199   BALTHASAR	Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

3200   FRIAR LAURENCE	Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
3201   	What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light
3202   	To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,
3203   	It burneth in the Capel's monument.

3204   BALTHASAR	It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,
3205   	One that you love.

3206   FRIAR LAURENCE	                  Who is it?

3207   BALTHASAR	Romeo.

3208   FRIAR LAURENCE	How long hath he been there?

3209   BALTHASAR	Full half an hour.

3210   FRIAR LAURENCE	Go with me to the vault.

3211   BALTHASAR	I dare not, sir
3212   	My master knows not but I am gone hence;
3213   	And fearfully did menace me with death,
3214   	If I did stay to look on his intents.

3215   FRIAR LAURENCE	Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:
3216   	O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

3217   BALTHASAR	As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
3218   	I dreamt my master and another fought,
3219   	And that my master slew him.

3220   FRIAR LAURENCE	Romeo!

3221   	[Advances]

3222   	Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
3223   	The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
3224   	What mean these masterless and gory swords
3225   	To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?

3226   	[Enters the tomb]

3227   	Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?
3228   	And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
3229   	Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
3230   	The lady stirs.

3231   	[JULIET wakes]

3232   JULIET	O comfortable friar! where is my lord?
3233   	I do remember well where I should be,
3234   	And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

3235   	[Noise within]

3236   FRIAR LAURENCE	I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
3237   	Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
3238   	A greater power than we can contradict
3239   	Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
3240   	Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
3241   	And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee
3242   	Among a sisterhood of holy nuns:
3243   	Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
3244   	Come, go, good Juliet,

3245   	[Noise again]

3246   		 I dare no longer stay.

3247   JULIET	Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.

3248   	[Exit FRIAR LAURENCE]

3249   	What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
3250   	Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
3251   	O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
3252   	To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
3253   	Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
3254   	To make die with a restorative.

3255   	[Kisses him]

3256   	Thy lips are warm.

3257   First Watchman	[Within]  Lead, boy: which way?

3258   JULIET	Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!

3259   	[Snatching ROMEO's dagger]

3260   	This is thy sheath;

3261   	[Stabs herself]

3262   	there rust, and let me die.

3263   	[Falls on ROMEO's body, and dies]

3264   	[Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS]

3265   PAGE	This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.

3266   First Watchman	The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:
3267   	Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.
3268   	Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain,
3269   	And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
3270   	Who here hath lain these two days buried.
3271   	Go, tell the prince: run to the Capulets:
3272   	Raise up the Montagues: some others search:
3273   	We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
3274   	But the true ground of all these piteous woes
3275   	We cannot without circumstance descry.

3276   	[Re-enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR]

3277   Second Watchman	Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.

3278   First Watchman	Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither.

3279   	[Re-enter others of the Watch, with FRIAR LAURENCE]

3280   Third Watchman	Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs and weeps:
3281   	We took this mattock and this spade from him,
3282   	As he was coming from this churchyard side.

3283   First Watchman	A great suspicion: stay the friar too.

3284   	[Enter the PRINCE and Attendants]

3285   PRINCE	What misadventure is so early up,
3286   	That calls our person from our morning's rest?

3287   	[Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and others]

3288   CAPULET	What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

3289   LADY CAPULET	The people in the street cry Romeo,
3290   	Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run,
3291   	With open outcry toward our monument.

3292   PRINCE	What fear is this which startles in our ears?

3293   First Watchman	Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;
3294   	And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
3295   	Warm and new kill'd.

3296   PRINCE	Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

3297   First Watchman	Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;
3298   	With instruments upon them, fit to open
3299   	These dead men's tombs.

3300   CAPULET	O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
3301   	This dagger hath mista'en--for, lo, his house
3302   	Is empty on the back of Montague,--
3303   	And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom!

3304   LADY CAPULET	O me! this sight of death is as a bell,
3305   	That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

3306   	[Enter MONTAGUE and others]

3307   PRINCE	Come, Montague; for thou art early up,
3308   	To see thy son and heir more early down.

3309   MONTAGUE	Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;
3310   	Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath:
3311   	What further woe conspires against mine age?

3312   PRINCE	Look, and thou shalt see.

3313   MONTAGUE	O thou untaught! what manners is in this?
3314   	To press before thy father to a grave?

3315   PRINCE	Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
3316   	Till we can clear these ambiguities,
3317   	And know their spring, their head, their
3318   	true descent;
3319   	And then will I be general of your woes,
3320   	And lead you even to death: meantime forbear,
3321   	And let mischance be slave to patience.
3322   	Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

3323   FRIAR LAURENCE	I am the greatest, able to do least,
3324   	Yet most suspected, as the time and place
3325   	Doth make against me of this direful murder;
3326   	And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
3327   	Myself condemned and myself excused.

3328   PRINCE	Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

3329   FRIAR LAURENCE	I will be brief, for my short date of breath
3330   	Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
3331   	Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
3332   	And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:
3333   	I married them; and their stol'n marriage-day
3334   	Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death
3335   	Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,
3336   	For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
3337   	You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
3338   	Betroth'd and would have married her perforce
3339   	To County Paris: then comes she to me,
3340   	And, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean
3341   	To rid her from this second marriage,
3342   	Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
3343   	Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
3344   	A sleeping potion; which so took effect
3345   	As I intended, for it wrought on her
3346   	The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,
3347   	That he should hither come as this dire night,
3348   	To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
3349   	Being the time the potion's force should cease.
3350   	But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
3351   	Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight
3352   	Return'd my letter back. Then all alone
3353   	At the prefixed hour of her waking,
3354   	Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;
3355   	Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
3356   	Till I conveniently could send to Romeo:
3357   	But when I came, some minute ere the time
3358   	Of her awaking, here untimely lay
3359   	The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
3360   	She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
3361   	And bear this work of heaven with patience:
3362   	But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
3363   	And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
3364   	But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
3365   	All this I know; and to the marriage
3366   	Her nurse is privy: and, if aught in this
3367   	Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
3368   	Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
3369   	Unto the rigour of severest law.

3370   PRINCE	We still have known thee for a holy man.
3371   	Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?

3372   BALTHASAR	I brought my master news of Juliet's death;
3373   	And then in post he came from Mantua
3374   	To this same place, to this same monument.
3375   	This letter he early bid me give his father,
3376   	And threatened me with death, going in the vault,
3377   	I departed not and left him there.

3378   PRINCE	Give me the letter; I will look on it.
3379   	Where is the county's page, that raised the watch?
3380   	Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

3381   PAGE	He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;
3382   	And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:
3383   	Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;
3384   	And by and by my master drew on him;
3385   	And then I ran away to call the watch.

3386   PRINCE	This letter doth make good the friar's words,
3387   	Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
3388   	And here he writes that he did buy a poison
3389   	Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
3390   	Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
3391   	Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
3392   	See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
3393   	That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
3394   	And I for winking at your discords too
3395   	Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.

3396   CAPULET	O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
3397   	This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
3398   	Can I demand.

3399   MONTAGUE   But I can give thee more:
3400   	For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
3401   	That while Verona by that name is known,
3402   	There shall no figure at such rate be set
3403   	As that of true and faithful Juliet.

3404   CAPULET	As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;
3405   	Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

3406   PRINCE	A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
3407   	The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
3408   	Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
3409   	Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
3410   	For never was a story of more woe
3411   	Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

3412   	[Exeunt]
