Romeo and Juliet

“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

ROMEO AND JULIET

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.

ACT I

SCENE I  --  Verona. A public place.

[Enter GREGORY, of the house of CAPULET, armed with swords and bucklers]

Gregory: A dog of the house of Montague moves me.  To move is to stir; to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn’st away.  That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the wall.  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.  The quarrel is between my masters and us their men. I will be cruel with the maids, and cut off their heads. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.

[Enter ABRAHAM]

Abraham: Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? 

Gregory: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir. Do you quarrel, sir? 

Abraham: Quarrel sir! no, sir.

Gregory: If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man like you. 

Abraham: You lie. 

Gregory: Draw, if you’re a man.

[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?

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: Down with the Capulets!

Second Citizen: 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

By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,

And made Verona’s ancient citizens

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 judgement-place.

Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

[Exeunt all but MONTAGUE, LADY

MONTAGUE, and BENVOLIO]

Montague: Who set this ancient quarrel? 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

Came more and more and fought on part and part,

Till the prince came, who parted either part.

Lady Montague: O, where is Romeo? Did you saw him today?

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;

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’s dew.

Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;

But all so soon as the all-cheering sun

The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,

Away from 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

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;

And 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,

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

SCENE II -- A street.

[Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant]

Paris: You’re both respectable men.

It’s a pity you’ve had to live your lives as enemies.’

Let’s get down to business,’

Capulet: My daughter is still a child:

she’s not fourteen yet. Give it time.

In a couple of years, she’ll be just about ready for marriage.’

Paris: Many girls younger than her are mothers already

Capulet: And their lives are ruined,’

‘My daughter is very special to me.

She’s my only surviving child.

All my hopes rest on her.

Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s agree to a compromise.

Take it slowly, Paris. Gain her confidence.

If she agrees to marry you then my consent will follow.

And my blessing too.’

Capulet: And now to pleasure.

Tonight I’m having a party.

There are going to be a lot of people.

My humble house will be filled with gorgeous girls.

‘Make yourself at home: look at them, talk to them, dance with them. Perhaps you’ll even like one of them better than my daughter.

It’s alright with me if you do. Marriage is a big step: you have to be sure. No use rushing these things.’

[To Servant, giving a paper]

Capulet: Go, servant, 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 sta99i’y.

[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]

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: 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?

Romeo: Where?

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

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, lady bird!

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: 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 since that time

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;

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 thypeace.

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; youngerthan 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: 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,

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]

Sevant: Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.

Lady Capulet: We follow thee.

SCENE IV -- A street.

[Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with

five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others]

Romeo: Are we going to make some excuse

for coming without being invited?’

'Or shall we just go in and see what happens?

Benvolio: The date is out of such prolixity:

We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,

Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke

But let them measure us by what they will;

We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.

Romeo: Give me the torch, Mercutio.

I’ll carry it: I’m not going to dance

Mercutio: You are a lover;

Lovers are always in the mood for dancing.’

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.

Romeo: You don’t know what it’s like until you’ve felt it.

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

Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders’ legs,

The traces of the smallest spider’s web,

O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,

Then dreams, he of another benefice:

Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again.

Making them women of good carriage:

This is she—

Romeo: Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Thou talk’st of nothing.

SCENE V -- A hall in CAPULET’s house

[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?

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:

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

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.

[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]

ACT II

SCENE I- A lane by the wall of CAPULET’s orchard

[Enter ROMEO]

Romeo: Can I go forward when my heart is here?

Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

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

[Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO]

BENVOLIO Romeo! my cousin Romeo!

Mercutio: He is wise;

And, on my lie, hath stol’n him home to bed.

Benvolio: He ran this way, and leap’d this

orchard wall:

Call, good Mercutio.

Mercutio: Nay, I’ll conjure too.

Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!

Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:

Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;

Cry but “Ay me!” pronounce but “ ove” and “dove;”

Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word

I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,

By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,

By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh

And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,

That in thy likeness thou appear to us!

Benvolio: And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

Mercutio: This cannot anger him: ’Twould anger him

That were some spite: my invocation

Is fair and honest, and in his mistress’ name

I conjure only but to raise up him.

Benvolio: Come, he hath hid himself among

these trees,

To be consorted with the humorous night:

Blind is his love and best befits the dark.

Mercutio: If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.

Now will he sit under a medlar tree,

And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit

Romeo, that she were, O, that she were

An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!

Romeo, good night: I’ll to my truckle-bed;

This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:

Come, shall we go?

Benvolio: Go, then; for ’tis in vain

To seek him here that means not to be found.

SCENE II -- CAPULET’s orchard.

[Enter ROMEO]

Romeo: He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

[JULIET appears above at a window]

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

It is my lady, O, it is my love!

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?

Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,

As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

Juliet: Ay me!

Romeo: She speaks:

O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art

As glorious to this night, being o’er my head

As is a winged messenger of heaven

Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes

Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him

When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds

And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo: [Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak

at this?

Juliet: ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

Romeo: I take thee at thy word:

Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized;

Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Juliet: What man art thou that thus bescreen’d

in night

So stumblest on my counsel?

Romeo: By a name

I know not how to tell thee who I am:

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,

Because it is an enemy to thee;

Had I it written, I would tear the word.

Juliet: My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words

Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound:

Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?

Romeo: Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.

Juliet: How did you get here, tell me,

and wherefore?

The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,

And the place death, considering who thou art,

If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

Romeo: With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls;

And what love can do that dares love attempt; Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.

Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

Romeo: Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye

Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,

And I am proof against their enmity.

Juliet: I would not for the world they saw thee here.

Romeo: I have night’s cloak to hide me from their sight;

And but thou love me, let them find me here:

My life were better ended by their hate,

Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

Juliet: By whose direction found’st thou out this place?

Romeo: By love, who first did prompt me to inquire;

He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.

I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far

Juliet: Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face,

Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek

Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say “Ay,”

And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear’st,

Thou mayst prove false; at lovers’ perjuries

Then say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,

If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:

Or if thou think’st I am too quickly won,

I’ll frown and be perverse an say thee nay

In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,

And therefore thou mayst think my ’haviuor light:

But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true

I should have been more strange, I must confess,

But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ware,

My true love’s passion: therefore pardon me,

And not impute this yielding to light love,

Which the dark night hath so discovered

Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear

That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—

Juliet: O, swear not by the moon,

the inconstant moon

Romeo: What shall I swear by?

Juliet: Do not swear at all;

Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,

Which is the god of my idolatry,

And I’ll believe thee

Romeo: If my heart’s dear love—

Juliet: Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,

I have no joy of this contract to-night:

It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;

Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be

Ere one can say “It lightens.” Sweet, good night!

Romeo: O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

Juliet: What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?

Romeo: The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow

for mine.

Juliet:I gave thee mine before thou didst request it:

And yet I would it were to give again.

Romeo: Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what

purpose, love?

Juliet: But to be frank, and give it thee again.

And yet I wish but for the thing I have:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep; the more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.

[Nurse calls within]

I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!

Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.

Stay but a little, I will come again.

[Exit, above]

Romeo: O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.

Being in night, all this is but a dream,

[Re-enter JULIET, above]

Juliet: Three words, dear Romeo,

and good night indeed.

If that thy bent of love be honourable,

Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow

Nurse: [Within] Madam!

Juliet: I come, anon.—But if thou mean’st not well,

I do beseech thee—

Nurse: [Within] Madam!

Juliet: By and by, I come:—

To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:

To-morrow will I send.

Romeo: So thrive my soul—

Juliet: A thousand times good night!

[Exit, above]

Romeo: A thousand times the worse, to want thy light

[Re-enter JULIET, above]

Juliet: Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer’s voice,

And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,

With repetition of my Romeo’s name.

Romeo: It is my soul that calls upon my name:

How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,

Like softest music to attending ears!

Juliet: Romeo!

Romeo: My dear?

Juliet: At what o’clock to-morrow

Shall I send to thee?

Romeo: At the hour of nine.

Juliet: I will not fail: ’tis twenty years till then.

I have forgot why I did call thee back.

Romeo: Let me stand here till thou remember it.

Juliet: I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,

Remembering how I love thy company.

Romeo: And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,

Forgetting any other home but this

Juliet: ’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:

And yet no further than a wanton’s bird;

Romeo: I would I were thy bird.

Juliet: Sweet, so would I:

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.

Good night, good night! parting is such

sweet sorrow,

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

[Exit above]

Romeo: Sleep dwell upon thine eyes,

peace in thy breast!

Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!

Hence will I to my ghostly father’s cell,

His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.

[Exit]

SCENE III -- FRIAR LAURENCE’s cell

[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a basket]

Friar Laurence: The grey-eyed morn smiles on the

frowning night,

Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,

And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels

The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb;

What is her burying grave that is her womb,

And from her womb children of divers kind

We sucking on her natural bosom find,

Many for many virtues excellent,

None but for some and yet all different

Two such opposed kings encamp them still

In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;

And where the worser is predominant,

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

[Enter ROMEO]

Romeo: Good morrow, father.

Friar Lawrence: Benedicite!

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?

Young son, it argues a distemper’d head

So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:

Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;

Or if not so, then here I hit it right,

Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

Romeo: That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

Friar Laurence: God pardon sin! wast thou

with Rosaline?

Romeo: With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;

I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.

Friar Laurence: That’s my good son: but where have you been, then?

Romeo: I’ll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.

I have been feasting with mine enemy

Friar Laurence: Be plain, good son, and homely

in thy drift;

Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

Romeo: Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set

On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:

As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;

And all combined, save what thou must combine

By holy marriage: when and where and how

We met, made exchange of vow,

I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,

That thou consent to marry us to-day.

Friar Laurence: Holy Saint Francis, what at a

change is here!

Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,

So soon forsaken? young men’s love then lies

Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine

Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!

And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,

Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.

Romeo: Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline.

Friar Laurence: For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

Romeo: And bad’st me bury love.

Friar Laurence: Not in a grave,

To lay one in, another out to have.

Romeo: I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now

Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;

The other did not so.

Friar Laurence: O, she knew well

Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.

But come, young waverer, come, go with me,

In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;

For this alliance may so happy prove,

To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

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

Friar Laurence Wisely and slow; they stumble that

run fast.

[Exeunt]

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]

SCENE IV -- A street.[Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO]

Mercutio:Where the devil should this Romeo be?

Came he not home to-night?

Benvolio: Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.

Mercutio: Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench,

that Rosaline.

Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

Benvolio: Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,

Hath sent a letter to his father’s house.

Mercutio: A challenge, on my life.

Benvolio: Romeo will answer it.

Mercutio: Any man that can write may answer a letter.

Benvolio: Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how

he dares, being dared.

Mercutio: Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead;

stabbed with a white wench’s black eye; shot through

the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft

with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft: and is he a man to

encounter Tybalt?

Benvolio: Why, what is Tybalt?

Mercutio: More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O,

he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights

as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and

proportion;

[Enter ROMEO]

Benvolio: Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.

Romeo, bon jour! there’s a French salutation

to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit

fairly last night.

Romeo: Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit

did I give you?

Mercutio: The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

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

[Enter Nurse and PETER]

Mercutio: A sail, a sail!

Benvolio: Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

Nurse: Peter!

Peter: Anon!

Nurse: My fan, Peter.

Mercutio: Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan’s

the fairer face.

Nurse: God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

Mercutio: God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.

Nurse: Is it good den?

Mercutio: ’Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of

the dial is now upon the prick of noon.

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

Romeo: One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for

himself to mar.

Nurse: By my troth, it is well said; “for himself to mar,

quoth a”? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I

may find the young Romeo?

Romeo: I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older

when you have found him than he was when you

sought him: I am the youngest of that name, for fault

of a worse.

Nurse: You say well.

Benvolio: She will indite him to some supper.

Mercutio: A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!

Ro What hast thou found?

Mercutiio: No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten

pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.

[Sings]

An old hare hoar,

And an old hare hoar,

Is very good meat in lent

But a hare that is hoar

Is too much for a score,

When it hoars ere it be spent.

Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll

to dinner, thither.

Romeo: I will follow you.

Mercutio: Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,

[Singing]

“lady, lady, lady.”

[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO]

Nurse: Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy

merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?

Romeo: A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself

talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand

to in a month.

Nurse: Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part

about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:

and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:

but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into

a fool’s paradise, as they say, it were a very gross

kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman

is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double

with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered

to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing

SCENE V -- CAPULET’s orchard.

[Enter JULIET]

Juliet: The clock struck nine when I did send

the nurse;

In half an hour she promised to return.

[Enter Nurse and PETER]

O honey nurse, what news?

Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

Nurse: Peter, stay at the gate.

[Exit PETER]

Juliet: Now, good sweet nurse,—O Lord, why look’st thou sad

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;

If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news

By playing it to me with so sour a face.

Nurse: I am a-weary, give me leave awhile:

Juliet: Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.

NURSE Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?

Do you not see that I am out of breath?

JULIET How art thou out of breath, when thou

hast breath

The excuse that thou dost make in this delay

Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.

Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;

Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance:

Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?

NURSE Well, you have made a simple choice; you know

not how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though

his face be better than any man’s, yet his leg excels all

men’s; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body, though

they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare:

he is not the flower of courtesy, but, I’ll warrant him, as

gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve God. What,

have you dined at home?

JULIET No, no: but all this did I know before.

What says he of our marriage? what of that?

NURSE Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I!

Juliet: Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

Nurse: Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I warrant, a virtuous,—Where is your mother?

Juliet: Where is my mother! why, she is within;

“Your love says, like an honest gentleman,

Where is your mother?”

Nurse: Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’s cell;

There stays a husband to make you a wife:

Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,

They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.

Hie you to church; I must another way,

To fetch a ladder, by the which your love

Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark:

I am the drudge and toil in your delight,

But you shall bear the burden soon at night.

Go; I’ll to dinner: hie you to the cell.

Juliet: Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.

[Exeunt]

SCENE VI -- FRIAR LAURENCE’s cell.

[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and ROMEO]

Friar Laurence: So smile the heavens upon

this holy act,

That after hours with sorrow chide us not!

Romeo: Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,

It cannot countervail the exchange of joy

Do thou but close our hands with holy words,

Then love-devouring death do what he dare;

It is enough I may but call her mine.

Friar Laurence: These violent delights have

violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey

[Enter JULIET]

Here comes the lady: O, so light a foot

Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint:

A lover may bestride the gossamer

Juliet: Good even to my ghostly confessor.

Friar Laurence: Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, forus both.

Juliet: As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

Romeo: Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy

Be heap’d like mine and that thy skill be more

words,

Brags of his substance, not of ornament:

They are but beggars that can count their worth;

But my true love is grown to such excess

I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

Friar Laurence: Come, come with me, and we will make short work;

For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone

Till holy church incorporate two in one.

[Exeunt]

ACT III

SCE II

[Enter JULIET]

Juliet: Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites

By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,

Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,

With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,

Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks

But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.

[Enter Nurse, with cords]

Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords

That Romeo bid thee fetch?

Nurse: Ay, ay, the cords.

[Throws them down]

Juliet: Ay me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?

Nurse: Ah, well-a-day! he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!

We are undone, lady, we are undone!

Juliet: Can heaven be so envious?

Nurse: Romeo can,

Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!

Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

Juliet: What kind of monster are you, saying such things?

Torturing me like this? Has Romeo killed himself?

Just say yes or no.

Nurse: I saw the wound with my own eyes.

Right here,A pitiful corpse, a blood drenched pitiful corpse.

It was pale, pale as ashes, and all covered in blood.

I fainted when I saw it.

O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!

O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!

That ever I should live to see thee dead!

Juliet: What storm is this that blows so contrary?

Is Romeo slaughter’d, and is Tybalt dead?

My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?

Nurse: Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;

Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.

Juliet: O God! did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

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

Juliet: I can’t believe it! Oh, the scoundrel.

A snake’s heart hidden by a handsome face!

Did ever such a beautiful cave harbour such a dragon?

A beautiful monster! An angelic devil, Evil in the clothes of good

– just the opposite of what he seemed.

I can’t believe that hypocrisy could live in such a gorgeous palace!’

Nurse: There’s no trust,

No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,

All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

Ah, where’s my man? give me some aqua vitae:

These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.

Shame come to Romeo!

Juliet: Blister’d be thy tongue

For such a wish! he was not born to shame:

Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;

For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d

Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Nurse: Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?

Juliet: Do you want me to speak badly of the man who is my husband?

Oh, my poor husband. Who will support you when I,

your wife of three hours, abandons you?

But why, scoundrel, did you kill my cousin?’If he hadn’t killed Tybalt that scoundrel Tybalt would have killed himWhy am I crying? My husband is alive. Tybalt wanted to kill him but Tybalt’s dead now – the villain who wanted to kill my husband. It’s all good news. So why am I crying? There is something you said, Nurse, that’s worse than Tybalt ‘s death. I wish I could forget it but it’s haunting me. ‘Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished, you said, Nurse. That ‘banished’, that one word ‘banished’ is like the death of ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt ‘s death would have been bad enough if it had ended there. But Romeo’s world’s been destroyed. The word ‘banished’ is the worst sounding word in our language. Where are my parents, Nurse?

Nurse

Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse:

Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

JULIET

Are they washing his wounds with tears?

I’ve got more tears for Romeo’s banishment than

they’ll ever have for Tybalt ‘s death.

Take the rope ladder away. Romeo’s already gone.

‘I’m going to bed. And I’ll die there with death as

my lover instead of Romeo

Nurse

Hie to your chamber: I’ll find Romeo

To comfort you: I wot well where he is.

Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:

I’ll to him; he is hid at Laurence’ cell.

JULIET

O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,

And bid him come to take his last farewell.

Exeunt

ACT 3, SCENE 3. Friar Laurence’s cell.

Enter FRIAR LAURENCE

FRIAR LAURENCE

Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:

Affliction is enamour’d of thy parts,

And thou art wedded to calamity.

Enter ROMEO

ROMEO

Father, what news? what is the prince’s doom?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,

That I yet know not?

FRIAR LAURENCE

Too familiar

Is my dear son with such sour company:

I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom.

ROMEO

What less than dooms-day is the prince’s doom?

FRIAR LAURENCE

A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,

Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

ROMEO

Ha, banishment! be merciful, say ‘death;’

For exile hath more terror in his look,

Much more than death: do not say ‘banishment.’

FRIAR LAURENCE

Hence from Verona art thou banished:

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

ROMEO

There is no world without Verona walls,

But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

Hence-banished is banish’d from the world,

And world’s exile is death: then banished,

Is death mis-term’d: calling death banishment,

Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,

And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

FRIAR LAURENCE

O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!

Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,

Taking thy part, hath rush’d aside the law,

And turn’d that black word death to banishment:

This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.

ROMEO

Torture, not mercy. Heaven is here where Juliet is,

and every cat and dog, and little mouse –

every insignificant thing – can see her but I can’t.

Even flies have more rights than I have:

they can touch her hand and kiss her lips.

But I can’t: I’m banished. Flies can do this but

I have to abandon it: they are free men but I am banished.

And you say it’s better than death?

Haven’t you got some poison or any way of

sudden death no matter how nasty?

It would be better than banishment.

Banished? Oh Friar, the damned use that word in hell.

How can you have the heart – a priest,

one who calls himself my friend – to hack at me with that word ‘banished’?

FRIAR LAURENCE

You crazy, foolish young man, listen to me

ROMEO

Oh! you’re going to talk about banishment again

FRIAR LAURENCE

I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word:

Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,

To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

ROMEO

There you are, Still going on about banishment.

To hell with philosophy. Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,

move a town, change a prince’s mind, it’s useless.

So don’t keep on!

FRIAR LAURENCE

O, then I see that madmen have no ears.

ROMEO

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

FRIAR LAURENCE

Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

ROMEO

Never! You can’t talk about something you haven’t felt,

Look here. If you were my age, and Juliet your love,

and you had been married for only an hour and

Tybalt had been murdered – in love like me and like me banished

– then you could talk. You would also tear your hair and grovel on the ground like me, thinking of only one thing: your grave.

*knocks

FRIAR LAURENCE

Get up! Hide! Quick!

ROMEO

No,I don ‘t care what happens to me,

I’m not hiding unless I can lose myself

in a mist made of my own groans.’

Knocking

FRIAR LAURENCE

Hark, how they knock! Who’s there? Romeo, arise;

Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;

Knocking

Friar:

Run to my study. By and by! God’s will,

What simpleness is this! I come, I come!

Knocking

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

Nurse

[Within] Let me come in, and you shall know

my errand;

I come from Lady Juliet.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Welcome, then.

Enter Nurse

Nurse

O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,

Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?

FRIAR LAURENCE

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

Nurse

O, he is even in my mistress’ case,

Just in her case! O woful sympathy!

Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,

Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.

Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:

For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand;

Why should you fall into so deep an O?

ROMEO

Nurse!

Nurse

Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death’s the end of all.

ROMEO

Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?

Doth she not think me an old murderer,

Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy

With blood removed but little from her own?

Where is she? and how doth she? and what says

My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?

Nurse

O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;

And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,

And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,

And then down falls again.

ROMEO

As if that name,

Shot from the deadly level of a gun,

Did murder her; as that name’s cursed hand

Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,

In what vile part of this anatomy

Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack

The hateful mansion.

Drawing his sword

FRIAR LAURENCE

What are you doing? What kind of man are you?

You look like a man but your tears are a woman’s

and your wild acts are an animal’s. I’m surprised at you.

I really thought you more grown up.

Perhaps you’ve killed Tybalt but are you going to kill yourself too?

And kill the wife who only lives for you?

Why are you cursing your birth and heaven and earth?

They’re all part of you. Do you want to lose them all by killing yourself?

Nurse

O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night

To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!

My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

ROMEO

Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

Nurse

Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:

Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

Exit

ROMEO

How well my comfort is revived by this!

FRIAR LAURENCE

Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:

Either be gone before the watch be set,

Or by the break of day disguised from hence:

Sojourn in Mantua; I’ll find out your man,

And he shall signify from time to time

Every good hap to you that chances here:

Give me thy hand; ’tis late: farewell; good night.

ROMEO

But that a joy past joy calls out on me,

It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.

Exeunt

ACT 3, SCENE 4. A room in Capulet’s house.

Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and PARIS

CAPULET

Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily,

That we have had no time to move our daughter:

Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,

And so did I:–Well, we were born to die.

‘Tis very late, she’ll not come down to-night:

I promise you, but for your company,

I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

PARIS

These times of woe afford no time to woo.

Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter.

LADY CAPULET

I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;

To-night she is mew’d up to her heaviness.

CAPULET

Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender

Of my child’s love: I think she will be ruled

In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.

Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;

Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love;

And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next–

But, soft! what day is this?

PARIS

Monday, my lord,

CAPULET

Well Wednesday is too soon. Thursday.

Make it Thursday. Tell her she’s getting married

to this noble earl on Thursday

Will you be ready then? Is it too soon?

We won’t make a fuss about it – just a friend or two.

Because, listen. Tybalt being murdered so recently,

it would be disrespectful if we celebrated too much.

So we’ll just have about a half a dozen friends and

that‘ll be it. But what do you say to Thursday?

PARIS

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

CAPULET

Well get you gone: o’ Thursday be it, then.

Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,

Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.

Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!

Afore me! it is so very very late,

That we may call it early by and by.

Good night.

Exeunt

ACT 3, SCENE 5. Capulet’s orchard.

Enter ROMEO and JULIET above, at the window

JULIET

Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO

It was the lark, the herald of the morn,

No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET

Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:

It is some meteor that the sun exhales,

To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,

And light thee on thy way to Mantua:

Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone.

ROMEO

Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death;

I am content, so thou wilt have it so.

I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,

‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow;

Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat

The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:

I have more care to stay than will to go:

Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.

How is’t, my soul? let’s talk; it is not day.

JULIET

It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!

It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.

Some say the lark makes sweet division;

This doth not so, for she divideth us:

Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,

O, now I would they had changed voices too!

Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,

Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day,

O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.

ROMEO

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

Enter Nurse, to the chamber

Nurse

Madam!

JULIET

Nurse?

Nurse

Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:

The day is broke; be wary, look about.

Exit

JULIET

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

ROMEO

Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I’ll descend.

He goeth down

JULIET

Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!

I must hear from thee every day in the hour,

For in a minute there are many days:

O, by this count I shall be much in years

Ere I again behold my Romeo!

ROMEO

Farewell!

I will omit no opportunity

That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

JULIET

O think’st thou we shall ever meet again?

ROMEO

I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve

For sweet discourses in our time to come.

JULIET

O God, I have an ill-divining soul!

Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,

As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:

Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

ROMEO

And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:

Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

Exit

JULIET

O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:

If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.

That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, fortune;

For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,

But send him back.

LADY CAPULET

[Within] Ho, daughter! are you up?

JULIET

Who is’t that calls? is it my lady mother?

Is she not down so late, or up so early?

What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?

Enter LADY CAPULET

LADY CAPULET

Why, how now, Juliet!

JULIET

Madam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULET

Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?

What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?

An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;

Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;

But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JULIET

Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

LADY CAPULET

So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend

Which you weep for.

JULIET

Feeling so the loss,

Cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LADY CAPULET

Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death,

As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

JULIET

What villain madam?

LADY CAPULET

That same villain, Romeo.

JULIET

[Aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.–

God Pardon him! I do, with all my heart;

And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULET

That is, because the traitor murderer lives.

JULIET

Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands:

Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!

LADY CAPULET

We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:

Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,

Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,

Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram,

That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:

And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

JULIET

Indeed, I never shall be satisfied

With Romeo, till I behold him–dead–

Is my poor heart for a kinsman vex’d.

Madam, if you could find out but a man

To bear a poison, I would temper it;

That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,

Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors

To hear him named, and cannot come to him.

To wreak the love I bore my cousin

Upon his body that slaughter’d him!

LADY CAPULET

Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.

But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

JULIET

And joy comes well in such a needy time:

What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

LADY CAPULET

Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;

One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,

Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,

That thou expect’st not nor I look’d not for.

JULIET

Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

LADY CAPULET

Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,

The gallant, young and noble gentleman,

The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,

Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JULIET

Now, by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too,

He shall not make me there a joyful bride.

I wonder at this haste; that I must wed

Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo.

I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,

I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,

It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,

Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!

LADY CAPULET

Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,

And see how he will take it at your hands.

Enter CAPULET and Nurse

CAPULET

When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;

But for the sunset of my brother’s son

It rains downright.

How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?

Evermore showering? In one little body

Thou counterfeit’st a bark, a sea, a wind;

For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,

Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,

Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;

Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,

Without a sudden calm, will overset

Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!

Have you deliver’d to her our decree?

LADY CAPULET

Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.

I would the fool were married to her grave!

CAPULET

Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.

How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?

Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest,

Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought

So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

JULIET

Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:

Proud can I never be of what I hate;

But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.

CAPULET

How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?

‘Proud,’ and ‘I thank you,’ and ‘I thank you not;’

And yet ‘not proud,’ mistress minion, you,

Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,

But fettle your fine joints ‘gainst Thursday next,

To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,

Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!

You tallow-face!

LADY CAPULET

Fie, fie! what, are you mad?

JULIET

Good father, I beseech you on my knees,

Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

CAPULET

Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!

I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday,

Or never after look me in the face:

Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;

My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest

That God had lent us but this only child;

But now I see this one is one too much,

And that we have a curse in having her:

Out on her, hilding!

Nurse

God in heaven bless her!

You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

CAPULET

And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,

Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

Nurse

I speak no treason.

CAPULET

O, God ye god-den.

Nurse

May not one speak?

CAPULET

Peace, you mumbling fool!

Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl;

For here we need it not.

LADY CAPULET

You are too hot.

CAPULET

God’s bread! it makes me mad:

Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,

Alone, in company, still my care hath been

To have her match’d: and having now provided

A gentleman of noble parentage,

Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train’d,

Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,

Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man;

And then to have a wretched puling fool,

A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,

To answer ‘I’ll not wed; I cannot love,

I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.’

But, as you will not wed, I’ll pardon you:

Graze where you will you shall not house with me:

Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.

Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:

An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;

And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in

the streets,

For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,

Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:

Trust to’t, bethink you; I’ll not be forsworn.

Exit

JULIET

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,

That sees into the bottom of my grief?

O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!

Delay this marriage for a month, a week;

Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed

In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

LADY CAPULET

Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word:

Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

Exit

JULIET

O God!–O nurse, how shall this be prevented?

My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;

How shall that faith return again to earth,

Unless that husband send it me from heaven

By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.

Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems

Upon so soft a subject as myself!

What say’st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?

Some comfort, nurse.

Nurse

Faith, here it is.

Romeo is banish’d; and all the world to nothing,

That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you;

Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.

Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,

I think it best you married with the county.

O, he’s a lovely gentleman!

Romeo’s a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,

Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye

As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,

I think you are happy in this second match,

For it excels your first: or if it did not,

Your first is dead; or ’twere as good he were,

As living here and you no use of him.

JULIET

Speakest thou from thy heart?

Nurse

And from my soul too;

Or else beshrew them both.

JULIET

Amen!

Nurse

What?

JULIET

Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.

Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,

Having displeased my father, to Laurence’ cell,

To make confession and to be absolved.

Nurse

Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

Exit

JULIET

Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!

Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,

Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue

Which she hath praised him with above compare

So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;

Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.

I’ll to the friar, to know his remedy:

If all else fail, myself have power to die.

Exit

Simplified Version of the Play
By Emmy Julve and Kaye Abellanosa