Romeo and Juliet
Act I.
Prologue.
- Two households, both alike in dignity,
- In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
- From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
- Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
- From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
- A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
- Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
- Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
- The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
- And the continuance of their parents' rage,
- Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
- Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
- The which if you with patient ears attend,
- What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Scene i. Verona. A public place.
- Enter Sampson and Gregory, of the house of Capulet, armed with swords and bucklers
- Sampson: Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.
- Gregory: No, for then we should be colliers.
- Sampson: I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.
- Gregory: Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.
- Sampson: I strike quickly, being moved.
- Gregory: But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
- Sampson: A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
- Gregory: To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
- therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.
- Sampson: A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will
- take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.
- Gregory: That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes
- to the wall.
- Sampson: True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,
- are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push
- Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids
- to the wall.
- Gregory: The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.
- Sampson: 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I
- have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the
- maids, and cut off their heads.
- Gregory: The heads of the maids?
- Sampson: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;
- take it in what sense thou wilt.
- Gregory: They must take it in sense that feel it.
- Sampson: Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and
- 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
- Gregory: 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou
- hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes
- two of the house of the Montagues.
- Sampson: My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.
- Gregory: How! turn thy back and run?
- Sampson: Fear me not.
- Gregory: No, marry; I fear thee!
- Sampson: Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.
- Gregory: I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as
- they list.
- Sampson: Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;
- which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.
- Enter Abraham and Balthasar
- Abraham: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
- Sampson: I do bite my thumb, sir.
- Abraham: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
- Sampson: [Aside to Gregory] Is the law of our side, if I say
- ay?
- Gregory: No.
- Sampson: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I
- bite my thumb, sir.
- Gregory: Do you quarrel, sir?
- Abraham: Quarrel sir! no, sir.
- Sampson: If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.
- Abraham: No better.
- Sampson: Well, sir.
- Gregory: Say 'better:' here comes one of my master's kinsmen.
- Sampson: Yes, better, sir.
- Abraham: You lie.
- Sampson: Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.
- They fight
- Enter Benvolio
- Benvolio: Part, fools!
- Put up your swords; you know not what you do.
- Beats down their swords
- Enter Tybalt
- Tybalt: What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
- Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.
- Benvolio: I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
- Or manage it to part these men with me.
- Tybalt: What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
- As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
- Have at thee, coward!
- They fight
- Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray; then enter Citizens, with clubs
- First Citizen: Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!
- Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!
- Enter Capulet in his gown, and Lady Capulet
- Capulet: What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!
- Lady Capulet: A crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?
- Capulet: My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
- And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
- Enter Montague and Lady Montague
- Montague: Thou villain Capulet,—Hold me not, let me go.
- Lady Montague: Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.
- Enter Prince, with Attendants
- Prince: Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
- Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,—
- Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
- That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
- With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
- On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
- Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
- And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
- Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
- By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
- Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
- And made Verona's ancient citizens
- Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
- To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
- Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
- If ever you disturb our streets again,
- Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
- For this time, all the rest depart away:
- You Capulet; shall go along with me:
- And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
- To know our further pleasure in this case,
- To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
- Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
- Exeunt all but Montague, Lady Montague, and Benvolio
- Montague: Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
- Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?
- Benvolio: Here were the servants of your adversary,
- And yours, close fighting ere I did approach:
- I drew to part them: in the instant came
- The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,
- Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,
- He swung about his head and cut the winds,
- Who nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:
- While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
- Came more and more and fought on part and part,
- Till the prince came, who parted either part.
- Lady Montague: O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?
- Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
- Benvolio: Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun
- Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,
- A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
- Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
- That westward rooteth from the city's side,
- So early walking did I see your son:
- Towards him I made, but he was ware of me
- And stole into the covert of the wood:
- I, measuring his affections by my own,
- That most are busied when they're most alone,
- Pursued my humour not pursuing his,
- And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.
- Montague: Many a morning hath he there been seen,
- With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.
- Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
- But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
- Should in the furthest east begin to draw
- The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
- Away from the light steals home my heavy son,
- And private in his chamber pens himself,
- Shuts up his windows, locks far daylight out
- And makes himself an artificial night:
- Black and portentous must this humour prove,
- Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
- Benvolio: My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
- Montague: I neither know it nor can learn of him.
- Benvolio: Have you importuned him by any means?
- Montague: Both by myself and many other friends:
- But he, his own affections' counsellor,
- Is to himself—I will not say how true—
- But to himself so secret and so close,
- So far from sounding and discovery,
- As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
- Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
- Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
- Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.
- We would as willingly give cure as know.
- Enter Romeo
- Benvolio: See, where he comes: so please you, step aside;
- I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.
- Montague: I would thou wert so happy by thy stay,
- To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away.
- Exeunt Montague and Lady Montague
- Benvolio: Good-morrow, cousin.
- Romeo: Is the day so young?
- Benvolio: But new struck nine.
- Romeo: Ay me! sad hours seem long.
- Was that my father that went hence so fast?
- Benvolio: It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
- Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
- Benvolio: In love?
- Romeo: Out—
- Benvolio: Of love?
- Romeo: Out of her favour, where I am in love.
- Benvolio: Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
- Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
- Romeo: Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
- Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
- Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
- Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
- Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
- Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
- O any thing, of nothing first create!
- O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
- Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
- Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
- sick health!
- Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
- This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
- Dost thou not laugh?
- Benvolio: No, coz, I rather weep.
- Romeo: Good heart, at what?
- Benvolio: At thy good heart's oppression.
- Romeo: Why, such is love's transgression.
- Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
- Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
- With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
- Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
- Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
- Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
- Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
- What is it else? a madness most discreet,
- A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
- Farewell, my coz.
- Benvolio: Soft! I will go along;
- An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
- Romeo: Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here;
- This is not Romeo, he's some other where.
- Benvolio: Tell me in sadness, who is that you love.
- Romeo: What, shall I groan and tell thee?
- Benvolio: Groan! why, no.
- But sadly tell me who.
- Romeo: Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:
- Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!
- In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
- Benvolio: I aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.
- Romeo: A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.
- Benvolio: A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
- Romeo: Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit
- With Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;
- And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,
- From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.
- She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
- Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
- Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
- O, she is rich in beauty, only poor,
- That when she dies with beauty dies her store.
- Benvolio: Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
- Romeo: She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
- For beauty starved with her severity
- Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
- She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
- To merit bliss by making me despair:
- She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
- Do I live dead that live to tell it now.
- Benvolio: Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
- Romeo: O, teach me how I should forget to think.
- Benvolio: By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
- Examine other beauties.
- Romeo: 'Tis the way
- To call hers exquisite, in question more:
- These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows
- Being black put us in mind they hide the fair;
- He that is strucken blind cannot forget
- The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:
- Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
- What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
- Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?
- Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.
- Benvolio: I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
- Exeunt
Scene ii. A street.
- Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant
- Capulet: But Montague is bound as well as I,
- In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,
- For men so old as we to keep the peace.
- Paris: Of honourable reckoning are you both;
- And pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.
- But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
- Capulet: But saying o'er what I have said before:
- My child is yet a stranger in the world;
- She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,
- Let two more summers wither in their pride,
- Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
- Paris: Younger than she are happy mothers made.
- Capulet: And too soon marr'd are those so early made.
- The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
- She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
- But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
- My will to her consent is but a part;
- An she agree, within her scope of choice
- Lies my consent and fair according voice.
- This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,
- Whereto I have invited many a guest,
- Such as I love; and you, among the store,
- One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
- At my poor house look to behold this night
- Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
- Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
- When well-apparell'd April on the heel
- Of limping winter treads, even such delight
- Among fresh female buds shall you this night
- Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,
- And like her most whose merit most shall be:
- Which on more view, of many mine being one
- May stand in number, though in reckoning none,
- Come, go with me.
- To Servant, giving a paper
- Go, sirrah, trudge about
- Through fair Verona; find those persons out
- Whose names are written there, and to them say,
- My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.
- Exeunt Capulet and Paris
- Servant: Find them out whose names are written here! It is
- written, that the shoemaker should meddle with his
- yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with
- his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am
- sent to find those persons whose names are here
- writ, and can never find what names the writing
- person hath here writ. I must to the learned.—In good time.
- Enter Benvolio and Romeo
- Benvolio: Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,
- One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;
- Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
- One desperate grief cures with another's languish:
- Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
- And the rank poison of the old will die.
- Romeo: Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.
- Benvolio: For what, I pray thee?
- Romeo: For your broken shin.
- Benvolio: Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
- Romeo: Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;
- Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
- Whipp'd and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.
- Servant: God gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?
- Romeo: Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
- Servant: Perhaps you have learned it without book: but, I
- pray, can you read any thing you see?
- Romeo: Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
- Servant: Ye say honestly: rest you merry!
- Romeo: Stay, fellow; I can read.
- Reads
- 'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
- County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady
- widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely
- nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine
- uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece
- Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin
- Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair
- assembly: whither should they come?
- Servant: Up.
- Romeo: Whither?
- Servant: To supper; to our house.
- Romeo: Whose house?
- Servant: My master's.
- Romeo: Indeed, I should have ask'd you that before.
- Servant: Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the
- great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house
- of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.
- Rest you merry!
- Exit
- Benvolio: At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
- Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,
- With all the admired beauties of Verona:
- Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
- Compare her face with some that I shall show,
- And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
- Romeo: When the devout religion of mine eye
- Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
- And these, who often drown'd could never die,
- Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
- One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
- Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.
- Benvolio: Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
- Herself poised with herself in either eye:
- But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd
- Your lady's love against some other maid
- That I will show you shining at this feast,
- And she shall scant show well that now shows best.
- Romeo: I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
- But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
- Exeunt
Scene iii. A room in Capulet's house.
- Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse
- Lady Capulet: Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.
- Nurse: Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
- I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!
- God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!
- Enter Juliet
- Juliet: How now! who calls?
- Nurse: Your mother.
- Juliet: Madam, I am here.
- What is your will?
- Lady Capulet: This is the matter:—Nurse, give leave awhile,
- We must talk in secret:—nurse, come back again;
- I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.
- Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.
- Nurse: Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
- Lady Capulet: She's not fourteen.
- Nurse: I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,—
- And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four—
- She is not fourteen. How long is it now
- To Lammas-tide?
- Lady Capulet: A fortnight and odd days.
- Nurse: Even or odd, of all days in the year,
- Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
- Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls!—
- Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
- She was too good for me: but, as I said,
- On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
- That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
- 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
- And she was wean'd,—I never shall forget it,—
- Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
- For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
- Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
- My lord and you were then at Mantua:—
- Nay, I do bear a brain:—but, as I said,
- When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
- Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
- To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
- Shake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,
- To bid me trudge:
- And since that time it is eleven years;
- For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
- She could have run and waddled all about;
- For even the day before, she broke her brow:
- And then my husband—God be with his soul!
- A' was a merry man—took up the child:
- 'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
- Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
- Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,
- The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'
- To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
- I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
- I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;
- And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'
- Lady Capulet: Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
- Nurse: Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,
- To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'
- And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
- A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;
- A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:
- 'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?
- Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
- Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'
- Juliet: And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
- Nurse: Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
- Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:
- An I might live to see thee married once,
- I have my wish.
- Lady Capulet: Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme
- I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
- How stands your disposition to be married?
- Juliet: It is an honour that I dream not of.
- Nurse: An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
- I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
- Lady Capulet: Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
- Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
- Are made already mothers: by my count,
- I was your mother much upon these years
- That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
- The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
- Nurse: A man, young lady! lady, such a man
- As all the world—why, he's a man of wax.
- Lady Capulet: Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
- Nurse: Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
- Lady Capulet: What say you? can you love the gentleman?
- This night you shall behold him at our feast;
- Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
- And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
- Examine every married lineament,
- And see how one another lends content
- And what obscured in this fair volume lies
- Find written in the margent of his eyes.
- This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
- To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
- The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
- For fair without the fair within to hide:
- That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
- That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
- So shall you share all that he doth possess,
- By having him, making yourself no less.
- Nurse: No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.
- Lady Capulet: Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
- Juliet: I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
- But no more deep will I endart mine eye
- Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
- Enter a Servant
- Servant: Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you
- called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in
- the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must
- hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.
- Lady Capulet: We follow thee.
- Exit Servant
- Juliet, the county stays.
- Nurse: Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
- Exeunt
Scene iv. A street.
- Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others
- Romeo: What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
- Or shall we on without a apology?
- Benvolio: The date is out of such prolixity:
- We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,
- Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
- Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
- Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
- After the prompter, for our entrance:
- But let them measure us by what they will;
- We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.
- Romeo: Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
- Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
- Mercutio: Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
- Romeo: Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
- With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead
- So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
- Mercutio: You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,
- And soar with them above a common bound.
- Romeo: I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
- To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
- I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
- Under love's heavy burden do I sink.
- Mercutio: And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
- Too great oppression for a tender thing.
- Romeo: Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
- Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
- Mercutio: If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
- Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
- Give me a case to put my visage in:
- A visor for a visor! what care I
- What curious eye doth quote deformities?
- Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.
- Benvolio: Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,
- But every man betake him to his legs.
- Romeo: A torch for me: let wantons light of heart
- Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels,
- For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;
- I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.
- The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.
- Mercutio: Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:
- If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
- Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st
- Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!
- Romeo: Nay, that's not so.
- Mercutio: I mean, sir, in delay
- We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
- Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
- Five times in that ere once in our five wits.
- Romeo: And we mean well in going to this mask;
- But 'tis no wit to go.
- Mercutio: Why, may one ask?
- Romeo: I dream'd a dream to-night.
- Mercutio: And so did I.
- Romeo: Well, what was yours?
- Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
- Romeo: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
- Mercutio: O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
- She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
- In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
- On the fore-finger of an alderman,
- Drawn with a team of little atomies
- Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
- Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
- The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
- The traces of the smallest spider's web,
- The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
- Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
- Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
- Not so big as a round little worm
- Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
- Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
- Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
- Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
- And in this state she gallops night by night
- Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
- O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
- O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
- O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
- Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
- Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
- Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
- And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
- And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
- Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
- Then dreams, he of another benefice:
- Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
- And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
- Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
- Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
- Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
- And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
- And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
- That plats the manes of horses in the night,
- And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
- Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
- This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
- That presses them and learns them first to bear,
- Making them women of good carriage:
- This is she—
- Romeo: Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
- Thou talk'st of nothing.
- Mercutio: True, I talk of dreams,
- Which are the children of an idle brain,
- Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
- Which is as thin of substance as the air
- And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
- Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
- And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
- Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
- Benvolio: This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;
- Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
- Romeo: I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
- Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
- Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
- With this night's revels and expire the term
- Of a despised life closed in my breast
- By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
- But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
- Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.
- Benvolio: Strike, drum.
- Exeunt
Scene v. A hall in Capulet's house.
- Musicians waiting. Enter Servingmen with napkins
- First Servant: Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He
- shift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!
- Second Servant: When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's
- hands and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.
- First Servant: Away with the joint-stools, remove the
- court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save
- me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let
- the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
- Antony, and Potpan!
- Second Servant: Ay, boy, ready.
- First Servant: You are looked for and called for, asked for and
- sought for, in the great chamber.
- Second Servant: We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be
- brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.
- Enter Capulet, with Juliet and others of his house, meeting the Guests and Maskers
- Capulet: Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes
- Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you.
- Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all
- Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,
- She, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
- Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
- That I have worn a visor and could tell
- A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
- Such as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:
- You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.
- A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.
- Music plays, and they dance
- More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
- And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
- Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.
- Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;
- For you and I are past our dancing days:
- How long is't now since last yourself and I
- Were in a mask?
- Second Capulet: By'r lady, thirty years.
- Capulet: What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:
- 'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,
- Come pentecost as quickly as it will,
- Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.
- Second Capulet: 'Tis more, 'tis more, his son is elder, sir;
- His son is thirty.
- Capulet: Will you tell me that?
- His son was but a ward two years ago.
- Romeo: [To a Servingman] What lady is that, which doth
- enrich the hand
- Of yonder knight?
- Servant: I know not, sir.
- Romeo: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
- It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
- Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
- Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
- So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
- As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
- The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
- And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
- Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
- For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
- Tybalt: This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
- Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
- Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,
- To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
- Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
- To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
- Capulet: Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?
- Tybalt: Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,
- A villain that is hither come in spite,
- To scorn at our solemnity this night.
- Capulet: Young Romeo is it?
- Tybalt: 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.
- Capulet: Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;
- He bears him like a portly gentleman;
- And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
- To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:
- I would not for the wealth of all the town
- Here in my house do him disparagement:
- Therefore be patient, take no note of him:
- It is my will, the which if thou respect,
- Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
- And ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
- Tybalt: It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
- I'll not endure him.
- Capulet: He shall be endured:
- What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;
- Am I the master here, or you? go to.
- You'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
- You'll make a mutiny among my guests!
- You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!
- Tybalt: Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.
- Capulet: Go to, go to;
- You are a saucy boy: is't so, indeed?
- This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:
- You must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.
- Well said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:
- Be quiet, or—More light, more light! For shame!
- I'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!
- Tybalt: Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
- Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
- I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall
- Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.
- Exit
- Romeo: [To Juliet] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
- This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
- My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
- To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
- Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
- Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
- For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
- And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
- Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
- Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
- Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
- They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
- Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
- Romeo: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
- Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
- Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
- Romeo: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
- Give me my sin again.
- Juliet: You kiss by the book.
- Nurse: Madam, your mother craves a word with you.
- Romeo: What is her mother?
- Nurse: Marry, bachelor,
- Her mother is the lady of the house,
- And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
- I nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;
- I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
- Shall have the chinks.
- Romeo: Is she a Capulet?
- O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.
- Benvolio: Away, begone; the sport is at the best.
- Romeo: Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.
- Capulet: Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;
- We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
- Is it e'en so? why, then, I thank you all
- I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
- More torches here! Come on then, let's to bed.
- Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:
- I'll to my rest.
- Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse
- Juliet: Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?
- Nurse: The son and heir of old Tiberio.
- Juliet: What's he that now is going out of door?
- Nurse: Marry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.
- Juliet: What's he that follows there, that would not dance?
- Nurse: I know not.
- Juliet: Go ask his name: if he be married.
- My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
- Nurse: His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
- The only son of your great enemy.
- Juliet: My only love sprung from my only hate!
- Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
- Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
- That I must love a loathed enemy.
- Nurse: What's this? what's this?
- Juliet: A rhyme I learn'd even now
- Of one I danced withal.
- One calls within 'Juliet.'
- Nurse: Anon, anon!
- Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.
- Exeunt
- --oOo-- -