Shakespeare's Plays/Romeo and Juliet
ROMEO AND JULIET
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
DATE, HISTORY, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLAY.
omeo and Juliet is the production of youthful genius. It is all redolent of youth in its subject, its style, and its spirit. It is a tale of mutually youthful love, impetuous, ardent, passionate, rapturous,—yet tender, imaginative, idolatrous,—where each of the lovers is the sole object of the other's existence, and both of them reckless of all else, even of life itself. Into this one, engrossing, pervading feeling of the poem, the youthful author throws his whole soul; he pours forth his "thick-coming fancies" with the mounting spirit, the keen relish of existence of one to whom this world is still fresh and young. He does not anticipate the sad and bitter hours of the winding-up of the mournful tale he is about to tell, but luxuriates in the short-lived happiness of the lovers, and showers over them, and on all around them, the flowers and gems of poetical fancy, with a joyous, careless, extravagant wit. It is not until death is about to cast his mantle over the loves of the young and beautiful and brave, that the Poet suffers either his own mind or his reader's to repose from the constant excitement of passion, wit, or fancy. It is this buoyancy of spirit, this luxury of language and imagery, this fervid activity of intellect and of fancy, that mark Romeo and Juliet as a work of the great Poet when just arrived to the full possession and confidence of his strength, yet still immature in experience and knowledge; quite as much as the numerous "conceits depraving his pathetic strains" which Johnson censured, or those similar faults which youthful compliance with the taste of the age can best explain or excuse; and not less than the "absence (remarked by Hallam) of that thoughtful philosophy which, when it had once germinated in Shakespeare's mind, never ceased to display itself." Coleridge therefore pronounced this play to have been intended by the author to approach more to the poem than to the drama. I should rather say that it bears the internal evidence of having been written in the period of the transition of the author's mind from its purely poetical to its dramatic cast of thought; from the poetry of external nature, of ingenious fancy and active thought, to that of the deeper philosophy of the heart.
This drama is also remarkable in another point of view; as it not only exhibits to us the genius of the Poet in this stage of its progress, but it affords no small insight into the history of the progress itself. It was first printed in 1597, as having been before that time "often with great applause plaid publiquely." This edition, an original copy of which is now of great rarity and value, has been reprinted literatim by Stevens, in his edition of the original quartos of "twenty of the plays of Shakespeare." Although this first edition was probably one of those "stolen and surreptitious copies maimed and deformed by the hand which stole them," of which the old folio editions complain, yet it enables us, by the comparison of the play there given, with what was afterwards avowedly added, to trace the advance of the author's taste and judgment. It contains the whole of the plot, incidents, and characters of the play afterwards enlarged, with its sweetness and beauty of imagery and luxury of language, and almost all its gayety and wit. Its defects of taste are more conspicuous, because it contains, in a much smaller compass, all the rhyming couplets, the ingenious and long-drawn conceits, and the extravagances of fanciful metaphor, which are still intertwined with the nobler beauties of this play. In 1599 appeared a second quarto edition, "newly corrected, augmented, and enlarged," containing about one fourth more in quantity, partly from expansion of thoughts already expressed imperfectly, and partly by large and admirable additions. Among these are the several soliloquies of Juliet, and especially that before taking the sleeping-potion, and the last speech of Romeo at the tomb. These all breathe that solemn melody of rhythm which Shakespeare created for the appropriate vehicle of his own mightier thoughts; while, as compared with the earlier play, the passion becomes more direct and intense, and less imaginative, and the language assumes more of that condensed and suggestive cast which afterwards became habitual to his mind.
The original structure is the work of a poet, and arranged with the skill of a practised dramatist; yet it is also evidently the work of a man of genius whose powers were governed, controlled, and modified by the spirit and taste of the literature of his day, and it consequently partakes of the usual blemishes of the poetry and eloquence of that age. The additions and corrections are those of the same mind, with its mighty energies more developed, and now throwing off the influence of inferior minds, giving to itself its own law, and about to assume the sway of its country's language and literature.
The contrast between the revision and the original play, beautiful and glowing as that is, with all its extravagance of thought and defects of taste, is such that I fully agree with Mr. Knight's just and acute observation, that the development of power and judgment is too great to have taken place in the short period of two years, the interval between the dates of the first and second editions; and that therefore the Romeo and Juliet, when published in 1597, being then a popular acted play, must have been originally written some years before. Mr. Hallam (Literature of Europe) judging from the evidence of style and thought, places its composition before that of the Midsummer Night's Dream, which would make it, in its original form, the production of the Poet's twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth year; and this date corresponds with some slight points of circumstantial evidence collected by the commentators, such as the supposed allusion of the Nurse to the great earthquake of 1580 as having occurred eleven years before. The enlarged edition was the work of the Poet's thirty-fourth or thirty-fifth year. The third edition appeared in 1609, and this, says Collier, "was printed from the edition which came out ten years earlier; the repetition, in the folio of 1623, of some decided errors of the press, shows that it was a reprint of the quarto, 1609. It is remarkable, that although every early quarto impression contains a Prologue, it was not transferred to the folio."
The first edition has also its value, as assisting to form a correct text, several difficulties in the later editions being cleared up by its aid, and the metrical arrangement especially has been thus preserved; Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech, when improved in language, having been printed as prose in the enlarged edition, though correctly in the first. Otherwise, it is clear that the true text is to be found in the original enlarged editions, collated with each other, using the first only to correct accidental errors of the press or the copyist. But it is certainly not consistent with sound criticism to employ it, as several editors have done, to make up a text out of two differing editions, by inserting what the author had himself thrown aside, to substitute other words or lines. Wherever the text of the present edition differs from any in common use, as that of Stevens, the difference will be found to proceed from adherence to this principle, which is also followed by both Knight and Collier, the former of whom takes the folio of 1623, and the latter the 1597 quarto as the standard of his edition,—a difference which does not lead to any very material variations.
SOURCE OF THE PLOT.
“When Dante reproaches the Emperor Albert for neglect of Italy,—
‘—Thy sire and thou have suffer'd thus,
Though greediness of yonder realms detain'd,
The garden of the empire to run waste,’—
He adds,—
‘Come, see the Capulets and Montagues,
The Filippeschi and Monaldi, man,
Who car'st for nought! those sunk in grief, and these
With dire suspicion rack'd.’
The Capulets and Montagues were among the fierce spirits who, according to the poet, had rendered Italy 'savage and unmanageable.' The Emperor Albert was murdered in 1308; and the Veronese, who believe the story of Romeo and Juliet to be historically true, fix the date of this tragedy as 1303. At that period the Scalas, or Scaligers, ruled over Verona.
"If the records of history tell us little of the fair Capulet and her loved Montague, whom Shakespeare has made immortal, the novelists have seized upon the subject, as might be expected, from its interest and its obscurity. Massuccio, a Neapolitan, who lived about 1470, was, it is supposed, the writer who first gave a somcwhat similar story the clothing of a connected fiction. He places the scene at Sienna, and, of course, there is no mention of the Montagues and Capulets. The story too, of Massuccio, varies in its catastrophe; the bride recovering from her lethargy, produced by the same means as in the case of Juliet; and the husband being executed for a murder which had caused him to flee from his country. Mr. Douce has endeavoured to trace back the ground-work of the tale to a Greek romance by Xenophon Ephesius. Luigi da Porto, of Vicenza, gave a connected form to the legend of Romeo and Juliet, in a novel, under the title of "La Giulietta," which was published after his death in 1535. Luigi, in an epistle prefixed to this work, states that the story was told him by "an archer of mine, whose name was Peregrino, a man about fifty years old, well practised in the military art, a pleasant companion, and, like almost all his countrymen of Verona, a great talker." Bandello, in 1554, published a novel on the same subject, the ninth of his second collection. It begins "When the Scaligers were lords of Verona," and goes on to say that these events happened "under Bartholomew Scaliger" (Bartolomeo della Scala.) The various materials to be found in these sources were embodied in a French novel by Pierre Boisteau, a translation of which was published by Paynter in his "Palace of Pleasure," in 1567; and upon this French story was founded the English poem by Arthur Brooke published in 1562, under the title of "The tragicall Hystorye of Romeus and Juliet, written first in Italian by Bandell, and nowe in Englishe by Ar. Br." It appears highly probable that an English play upon the same subject had appeared previous to Brooke's poem; for he says in his address to the reader :—"Though I saw the same argument lately set forth on the stage with more commendation than I can look for: being there much better set foorth than I have or can dooe, yet the same matter penned as it is, may serve to lyke good effect, if the readers do brynge with them lyke good myndes, to consider it, which hath the more incouraged me to publish it, suche as it is." Thus Shakespeare had materials enough to work upon. But, in addition to these sources, there is a play by Lope de Vega in which the incidents are very similar; and an Italian tragedy also, by Luigi Groto, which Mr. Walker, in his Historical Memoirs of Italian Tragedy, thinks that the English bard read with profit. Mr. Walker gives us passages in support of his assertion, such as a description of a nightingale when the lovers are parting, which appear to confirm this opinion."—Knight.
Although Shakespeare gives us scarcely any indications of familiarity with the higher Italian literature (such as abound in Spencer,) yet as some knowledge of Italian was in his age a common as well as fashionable acquisition among persons of cultivation, it is quite probable that at some (and that not a late) period of his life, he had learned enough of the language to read it for any purpose of authorship, such as to get at the plot of an untranslated tale. The evidence in support of this probability will be found in some of the notes and remarks of this edition, on other plays. It is also well argued by Ch. A. Browne, in his Essay on Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems. It is therefore very probable that he has read or looked into all the books containing the subject of his intended play, so as to fill his mind with the incidents and accessories of the story. He had undoubtedly read either Boisteau's novel, or Paynter's inelegant translation of it, for he has taken from it at least one circumstance not found in the other versions of the plot. But he has otherwise made very little use either of Paynter or of the continental novelist, and has adhered closely to Brooke's poem. The commentators have been unjust to Brooke. His poem has been treated as a dull and inelegant composition, which it was a sort of merit for a Shakespearean critic to undergo the drudgery of reading. Mr. T. Campbell dismisses it contemptuously, as "a dull English poem, of four thousand lines." The reader who will turn to it, as reprinted by Malone, in the Variorum editions, or more accurately by Collier in his "Shakespeare's Library," will, after overcoming the first repulsive difficulties of metre and language, find it to be a poem of great power and beauty. The narration is clear, and nearly as full of interest as the drama itself; the characters are vividly depicted, the descriptions are graceful and poetical. The dramatist himself (though he points far more vividly) does not more distinctly describe than the poet that change in Juliet's impassioned character, which Mr. Campbell regards as never even conceived of by any narrators of this tale before Shakespeare,—I mean her transition from girlish confidence in the sympathy of others to the assertion of her own superiority, in the majesty of her despair. The language of the poem is of an older date than is familiar even to the reader of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and it is clouded, in additions, with affections, like those of Spenser, of still more antiquated English. The metre, too, is unusual and unpleasing to the modern reader, being of alternated twelve and fourteen-syllable lines, with an occasional redundant syllable to the already overflowing verse—a rhythm which to modern ears is associated chiefly with ludicrous or humble compositions. It has, with all these accidental drawbacks to the modern reader, the additional real defect of partaking of the faults of its times, in extravagance of imagery and harsh coarseness of phrase. Nevertheless, it is with all these faults of a noble poem, which, either coming down from antiquity under a great name, or rewritten in modern days by Pope or Campbell, would not need defence or eulogy.
To this poem, Shakespeare owed the outline at least, of every character except Mercutio (what an exception! sufficient to have made a reputation as brilliant as Sheridan's, for an ordinary dramatist.) He owes to the story abundant hints worked up in the dialogue. Will not Shakespeare's readers agree with me in the opinion that this fact is, like many others, a proof of the real greatness of his mind? He had before him, or within his reach, materials enough for his purpose, in books not familiar to his audience; but he went to the best source, although it was one where every reader of poetry might trace his adaptations, while only the judicious few of his own day would note and understand how much of the absorbing interest of the plot, of the picturesque or minute description, of the towering magnificence of thought, the wit, of the passion and the pathos, belonged to the dramatist alone. He used what was best, and improved it. The author who borrows to improve, in this fashion, is no plagiarist. In the happy phrase of some French critic, who defends Molière against a charge of plagiarism, founded on a similar use of the ideas of a preceding novelist—"Le plagiat n'est un vol que pour la médiocrité."
Malone has collected a number of minute circumstances that prove decisively that Shakespeare founded his play mainly on Arthur Brooke's poem. The following passages, pointed out by Collier, will show the nature of some of his obligations, and that they went beyond the mere plot, names, and characters. No doubt can be entertained by those who only compare a passage from a speech of Friar Laurence with three lines from Brooke's "Romeus and Juliet:"—
'Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art;
They tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast'.—(Act iii, scene 3.)
This is almost verbally from Brooke's poem:—
'Art thou, (quoth he), a man? Thy form cries out thou art;
Thy crying and thy weeping eyes denote a woman's heart * *
If thou a man or woman's wert, or els a brutish beast.'
It is also a particularly worthy remark, that Shakespeare had chosen to follow Brooke in his narration of the catastrophe from that of Bandello's novel, or what Brooke calls "Bandel's written story." According to Brooke, and Shakespeare, Juliet, when she awakes from her sleep, finds Romeo dead; but in the "Giulietta" of Luigi da Porto, and in Badello's novel, she recovers soon enough to hear Romeo speak, and see him struggle in the agonies of a painful death; then the Friar endeavours to persuade her to leave the tomb; she refuses, and determines on death, and after closing her husband's eyes, resolutely holds her breath (riccolto a se il fiato, e per buono spazio tenutolo) until, with a loud cry, she falls upon her husband's body and dies. Some of the critics (Skottowe and Dunlop) have regretted this as written in ignorance of the original story, and thus "losing circumstances more affecting and calculated for the stage." Garrick thought so too, and remodelled the catastrophe upon the original plan, thus introducing a last interview between the lovers, which, however common-place in language or thought, is always painful in its effect. Sounder criticism, and the decision of a more cultivated public taste, has of late years vindicated Shakespeare's judgement in following Brooke's narration of the Italian story, and pronounced that this softening the catastrophe is, in relation to the dramatic form of the story, the deliberate choice of exquisite taste and true feeling. After such a chain of events of deep and exciting interest, where wild hope and rapturous joy alternate with desperate grief, further prolongation of mental agony, (and that mixed with bodily suffering,) must cease to be pathetic, for it becomes merely painful. The simpler termination which the Poet deliberately preferred, leaves the youthful lovers to sink into death with calm resolution. They repose together in their antique tomb as placid as the lovely children on Chantrey's exquisite monument; the fiercer passions are hushed in their presence; old enmities die away, and a quiet solemn melancholy is spread over the scene as the day breaks slowly in gloom and sorrow over a mourning city.
(Costume of a young Venetian Nobleman, from Vecellio.)
(Bills and Partisans, from specimens.)
PERIOD OF THE ACTION, COSTUME, AND SCENERY.
"The slight foundation of historical truth which can be established in the legend of Romeo and Juliet—that of the 'civil broils' of the two rival houses of Verona—would place the period of the action about the time of Dante. But this one circumstance ought not very strictly to limit this period. The legend is so obscure that we may be justified in carrying its date forward or backward, to the extent even of a century, if any thing may be gained by such a freedom. In this case, we may venture to associate the story with the period which followed the times of Petrarch and Boccaccio—verging towards the close of the fourteenth century—a period full of rich associations of literature and art. To date the period of the action of Romeo and Juliet before this revival of learning and the arts, would be to make its accessories out of harmony with the exceeding beauty of Shakespeare's drama.
"Assuming that the incidents of this tragedy took place (at least traditionally) at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the costume of the personages represented would be that exhibited to us in the paintings of Giotto and his pupils or contemporaries."—Knight
Mr. Knight is as usual historically accurate, but as there is no historical or other connection to fix the date at any precise period of Italian story, the incidents may well have occurred at any time during the middle ages, while Italy was divided into small independent states, and its cities distracted by the fierce family factions of their nobles; as from the year 1300 almost down to the Poet's own times. Mr. Knight has therefore manifested his usual good taste in adding to his notice of the strictly historical costume of the long robes and the fantastic hats and hoods of the supposed times of the hero and heroine, that "artists of every description are perfectly justified in clothing the dramatic personae of this tragedy in the habits of the time in which it was written, by which means all serious anachronisms will be prevented."
But in another respect this play allows much less latitude to art. Romeo and Juliet have so long been the historical belief of Italy, and the poetical faith of the rest of the world, as to be characters indissolubly connected with the real scenery, palaces, churches, and monuments of Verona and Mantua. All the localities of the story are preserved by old tradition and popular opinion; and their Palladian palaces, remains of Roman grandeur, and natural beauties, still represent the very scenes that floated before the Poet's fancy. Above all, the painter will observe that the Poet, by some Mesmeric faculty of his imagination, had transported himself into Italy, and become as familiar with the banks of the Adige as with those of his own Avon. His. incidental descriptions, his allusions to rural beauties, are none of them drawn from the silver clouds, the chill moons, the long-lingering spring, and fadeless green of England; but they are all brilliant and joyous with "summer's ripening breath," beneath the hot blaze of an Italian sun, or are bathed in such moonlight as often "tips with silver" the cliffs of our Palisades or Catskills.
PROLOGUE
CHORUS.
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;
Whose misadventur'd 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.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
- ESCALUS, Prince of Verona.
- PARIS, a young Nobleman, Kinsman to the Prince.
| MONTAGUE, | Heads of two hostile Houses. | |
| CAPULET, |
- UNCLE to Capulet.
- ROMEO, Son to Montague.
- MERCUTIO, Kinsman to the Prince, and Friend of Romeo.
- BENVOLIO, nephew to Montague, and Friend to Romeo.
- TYBALT, Nephew to Lady Capulet.
- FRIAR LAURENCE, a Franciscan.
- FRIAR JOHN, of the same Order.
| SAMPSON, | Servants to Capulet. | |
| GREGORY, |
- PETER, another Servant to Capulet.
- ABRAM, Servant to Montague.
- An Apothecary.
- Three Musicians.
- CHORUS. Boy, Page to Paris; an Officer.
- LADY MONTAGUE, Wife to Montague.
- LADY CAPULET, Wife to Capulet.
- JULIET, Daughter to Capulet.
- Nurse to Juliet.
Citizens of Verona: Male and Female Relations to both Houses; Maskers, Guards, Watchmen, and Attendants.
Scene, during the greater part of the Play, in Verona; once, in the fifth act, at Mantua.
.PNG)
Scene I.—A Public Place.
Enter Sampson and Gregory, armed with Swords and Bucklers.
Sam. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.
Gre. No, for then we should be colliers.
Sam. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.
Gre. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of the collar.
Sam. I strike quickly, being moved.
Gre. But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
Sam. A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
Gre. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou run'st away.
Sam. A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.
Gre. That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the wall.
Sam. 'Tis 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.
Gre. The quarrel is between our masters, and us their men.
Sam. 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids; I will cut off their heads.
Gre. The heads of the maids?
Sam. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.
Gre. They must take it in sense, that feel it.
Sam. Me they shall feel, while I am able to stand; and 'tis known, I am a pretty piece of flesh.
Gre. '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.
Enter Abraham and Balthasar.
Sam. My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.
Gre. How! turn thy back, and run?
Sam. Fear me not.
Gre. No marry: I fear thee!
Sam. Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.
Gre. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.
Sam. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.
Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. I do bite my thumb, sir.
Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. Is the law of our side, if I say—ay?
Gre. No.
Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.
Gre. Do you quarrel, sir?
Abr. Quarrel, sir? no, sir.
Sam. If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.
Abr. No better.
Sam. Well, sir.
Enter Benvolio, at a distance.
Gre. Say—better: here comes one of my master's kinsmen.
Sam. Yes, better, sir.
Abr. You lie.
Sam. Draw, if you be men.—Gregory, remember thy swashing blow. [They fight. Ben. Part, fools! put up your swords; you know not what you do. [Beats down their Swords.
Enter Tybalt.
Tyb. What! art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.
Ben. I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.
Tyb. 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 persons of both Houses, who join the fray; then enter Citizens, with clubs or partisans.
1 Cit. Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!
Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!
Enter Capulet in his gown; and Lady Capulet.
Cap. What noise is this?—Give me my long sword, ho!
La. Cap. A crutch, a crutch!—Why call you for a sword?
Cap. My sword, I say!—Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
Enter Montague and Lady Montague.
Mon. Thou villain Capulet!—Hold me not; let me go.
La. Mon. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.
Enter Prince, with his train.
Prin. 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 mis–temper'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 Prince and Attendants; Capulet, Lady Capulet, Tybalt, Citizens, and Servants.
Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?
Ben. 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 prepar'd;
Which, as he breath'd 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.
La. Mon. O! where is Romeo?—saw you him to-day?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
Ben. 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,
Which then most sought, where most might not be found,
Being one too many by my weary self,
Pursu'd my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.
Mon. 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
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 fair daylight out,
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
Mon. I neither know it, nor can learn of him.
Ben. Have you importun'd him by any means?
Mon. 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, at a distance.
Ben. See, where he comes: so please you, step aside;
I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.
Mon. I would, thou wert so happy by thy stay,
To hear true shrift.—Come, madam, let's away. [Exeunt Montague and Lady.
Ben. Good morrow, cousin.
Rom. Is the day so young?Ben. But new struck nine.
Rom. Ah me! sad hours seem long.Was that my father that went hence so fast?
Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Rom. Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
Ben. In love?
Rom. Out.
Ben. Of love?
Rom. Out of her favour, where I am in love.
Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
Rom. 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 created!
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?
Rom. Good heart, at what?
Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.-
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast;
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it presse'd
With more of thine: this love, that thou hast shown,
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke, made with the fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lover's tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz. [Going.
Ben. Soft, I will go along:
And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
Rom. Tut! I have lost myself: I am not here;
This is not Romeo, he's some other where.
Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is it that you love.
Rom. What! shall I groan, and tell thee?
Ben Groan! why, no;But sadly tell me, who.
Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will;
A word ill urg'd to one that is so ill.-
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
Ben. I aim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd.
Rom. A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.
Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
Rom. 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 th' 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.
Ben. Then she hath sworn, that she will still live chaste?
Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starv'd 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 it to tell it now.
Ben. Be rul'd by me; forget to think of her.
Rom. O! teach me how I should forget to think.
Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes:
Examine other beauties.
To call her's, 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 stricken 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.
(Verona.)
Scene II.—A Street.
Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant.
Cap. 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.
Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both;
And pity 'tis, you liv'd at odds so long.
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
Cap. 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 bride.
Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.
Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early made.
Earth hath swallowed 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-apparel'd April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you see 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—Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out,
Whose names are written there, and to give them say, [Giving a paper. My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. [Exeunt Capulet and Paris.
Serv. 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.
Ben. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,
One pain 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.
Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
Ben. For what, I pray thee?
Rom. For your broken shin.Ben. Why, Romeo, are thou mad?
Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is:
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp'd and tormented, and—Good-den, good fellow.
Serv. God gi' good den.—I pray, sir, can you read?
Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
Serv. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book; but I pray, can you read anything you see?
Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language.
Serv. Ye say honestly. Rest you merry.
Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read. [Reads."Signior Martino, and his wife, and daughters; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitruvio; 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?
Serv. Up.
Rom. Whither? to supper?
Serv. To our house.
Rom. Whose house?
Serv. My master's.
Rom. Indeed, I should have asked you that before.
Serv. 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.Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st,
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.
Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turns 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.
Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois'd with herself in either eye;
But in those 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.
Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt.
Scene III—A Room in Capulet's House.
Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.
La. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.
Nurse. Now, by my maiden-head at twelve year old,
I bade her come—What, lamb! what, lady-bird!—
God forbid!—where's this girl?—what, Juliet!
Enter Juliet.
Jul. How now! who calls?
Nurse. Your mother. Jul. Madam, I am here.What is your will?
La. Cap. This is the matter.—Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret.—Nurse, come back again:
I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our counsel.
Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.
Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
La. Cap. She's not fourteen.
Nurse. I'll lay fourteen on my teeth.And yet to my teen be it spoken I have but four,
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
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;
.PNG)
Wilt thou not, Jule?" and, by my holy-dam,
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."
La. Cap. 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 perilous knock; and it cried bitterly.
"Yea," quoth my husband, "fall'st upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com'st to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?" it stinted, and said—"Ay."
Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
Thou was the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.
La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of:—tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
I would say, thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat.
La. Cap. 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.
La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at out' 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 obscur'd in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margin 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.
La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
Jul. 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.
Serv. 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.
La. Cap. We follow thee. 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.
Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse,
Or shall we on without apology?
Ben. The date is out of such prolixity:
We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'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.
Rom. Give me a torch; I am not for this ambling:
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
Rom. 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.
Mer. You are a lover: borrow Cupid's wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
Rom. 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.
Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.
Mer. 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: [Putting on a mask.
A visor for a visor!—what care I,
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.
Ben. Come, knock, and enter; and no sooner in,
But every man betake him to his legs.
Rom. 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.
Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word.
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
Of this save-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears.—Come, we burn day-light, ho.
Rom. Nay, that's not so.
Mer. I mean, sir, in delayWe 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.
Rom. And we mean well in going to this mask,
But 'tis no wit to go.
Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night?
Mer. And so did I.Rom. Well, what was yours?
Mer. That dreamers often lie.Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
Mer. 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
Over men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' 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 waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half 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 of mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On 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 sweet-meats 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 he dreams 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 elf-locks 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—
Thou talk'st of nothing.
Mer. 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 woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
Rom. 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, clos'd 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.
('Court-cupboard,' and Plate.)
Scene V.—A Hall in Capulet's House.
Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.
1 Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? he shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!
2 Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.
1 Serv. 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!
2 Serv. Ay, boy; ready.
1 Serv. You are looked for, and called for, asked for, and sought for, in the great chamber.
2 Serv. We cannot be here and there too.—Cheerly, boys: be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all. [They retire behind.Enter Capulet, &c., with the Guests, and the Maskers.
Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes
Unplagu'd 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 you now?
You are 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, ye 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?
1 Cap. What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:
'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,
Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.
2 Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more: his son is elder, sir;
His son is thirty.
His son was but a ward two years ago.
Rom. What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?
Serv. I know not, sir.
Rom. O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright.
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Æthiop'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!
I never saw true beauty till this night.
Tyb. 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.
1 Cap. Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?
Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain, that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.
1 Cap. Young Romeo is it?
Tyb. 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.1 Cap. 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 this 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,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
Tyb. It fits, when such a villain is a guest.
I'll not endure him.
1 Cap. He shall be endur'd:
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!
Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.
1 Cap. Go to, go to;
You are a saucy boy.—Is't so, indeed?—
This trick may chance to scath 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!
Tyb. 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. Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand [To Juliet.
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,—
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Jul. 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.
Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Rom. O! then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
Rom. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg'd. [Kissing her.
Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Rom. Sin from my lips? O, trespass sweetly urg'd!
Give me my sin again.
Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.
Rom. 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 nurs'd her daughter, that you talk'd withal;
I tell you—he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.
O, dear account! my life is my foe's debt.
Ben. Away, begone: the sport is at the best.
Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.
1 Cap. 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.
Jul. Come hither, nurse. What is yond' gentleman?
Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.
Jul. What's he, that now is going out of door?
Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.
Jul. What's he, that follows here, that would not dance?
Nurse. I know not.
Jul. 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.
Jul. 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?
Jul. A rhyme I learn'd even now Of one I danc'd withal. [One calls within, Juliet! Nurse. Anon, anon: Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone. [Exeunt.
Enter Chorus.
Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir:
That fair, for which love groan'd for, and would die,
With tender Juliet match'd is now not fair.
Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,
And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new-beloved anywhere:
But passion lends them power, time, means, to meet,
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Scene. I. – An open Place, adjoining Capulet's Garden.
Enter Romeo.
Rom. 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.
Ben. Romeo ! my cousin Romeo ! Romeo !
Mer. He is wise; And, on my life, hath stolen him home to bed.
Ben. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall.
Call, good Mercutio.
Mer. 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--Ah me ! pronounce but--love and dove; Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, One nick-name for her purblind son and heir, Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.- He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not; The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.-- I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes, By her higti 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. Men. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him. Met. This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle Of some strange nature, letting it there stand Till she had laid it, and conjur'd it down; That were some spite. My invocation Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress' name, I conjure only but to raise up him. Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees, To be consorted with the humorous night: Blind is his love, and best befits the dark. Met. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree, And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit, As maids call mediars when they laugh alone.- Romeo, good night :--I'll to my truckle-bed; This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep. Come, shall we go ? Ben. Go, then; for 'tis in vain To seek him here, that means not to be found. [Exeunt.
Scene II. – Capulet's Garden.
Enter Romeo.
Rom. 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.
Jul. Ah me !
Rom. 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 wond'ring 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.
Jul. 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.
Rom. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this ?
Jul. '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 thy name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself.
Rom. I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
Jul. What man art thou, that, thus bescreen'd in night, So stumblest on my counsel ?
Rom. 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.
Jul. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague ?
Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee displease.
Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me ? and wherefore ? The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb; And the place death, considering who thou art, If any of my kinsmen find thee here.
Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out: And what love can do, that dares love attempt; Therefore, thy kinsmen are no stop to me.
Jul. If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
Rom. Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye, Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.
Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here.
Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes; And but thou love me, let them find me here: My life were better ended by theix' hate, Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out this place ?
Rom. By love, that first did prompt me to inquire; He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot; yet weft thou as far As that vast shore wash'd with the furthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise.
Jul. Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face; Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke: but farewell compliment ! ]Dost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say--Ay; And I will take thy word; yet, if thou swear'st, Thou may'st prove thlse: at lovers' perjuries, They 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, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but, else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond; And therefore thou may'st think my 'haviour light: But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou over-heard'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.
Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,' That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,--
Jul. O! swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Rom. What shall I swear by ?
Jul. 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.
Rom. If my heart's dear love--
Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night: It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be, Ere one can say it lightens. Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest Come to thy heart, as that within my breast !
Rom. O ! wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied ?
Jul. What satisfaction eanst thou have to-night ?
Rom. Th' exchange of thy Iove's Faithful vow for mine.
Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it; And yet I would it were to give again.
Rom. Would'st thou withdraw it ? for what purpose, love ?
Jul. But to be frank, and give it thee again;
And yet I wish but for the thing I have. 
I hear some noise within: dear love, adieu!— Anon, good nurse!—Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again. [ Exit.
Rom. O blessed blessed night! I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.
Re-enter JutiET, above.
Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night, indeed. If that thy bent of love be honourable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow, By one that I'll procure to come to thee, Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite; And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, And follow thee my lord throughout the world. Nurse. [Within.] Madam. Jul. I come, anon.—But if thou mean'st not well, I do beseech thee,— Nurse. [Within.] Madam. Jul. By and by; I come.— To cease thy strife, and leave me to my grief: To-morrow will I send. Rom.
So thrive my soul,— Jul. A thousand times good night! 24
(Exit.
Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.— Love goes toward love, as school-boys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. [ Retiring. Re-enter JuizrEet, above.
Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice, To lure this tercel-gentle back again!
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud; Else would I tear the cave where echo lies, And make her airy voice more hoarse than mine With repetition of my Romeo's name.
Rom. It is my soul, that calls upon my name: How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears!
Jul. Romeo!
Rom. My dear!
Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow Shall I send to thee?
Rom. By the hour of nine.
Jul. J will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.
Rom. Let me stand here, till thou remember it.
Jul. I shall forget to have thee still stand there, Remembering how I love thy company.
Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget, Forgetting any other home but this.:
Jul. 'Tis almost morning, I would have thee
gone; And yet no further than a wanton's bird,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silk thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Rom. I would, I were thy bird.
Jul. 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.
Rom. 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 good hap to tell. [Exit.
Scene III. - Friar Laurence's Cell.
Enter Friar Laurence, with a basket.
Fri. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frown- ing night, Checquering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels: Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye The day to cheer, and night's dank dew to dry, I must up-fill this osier cage of ours, With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers. The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; And from her womb children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find: Many for many virtues excellent, None but for some, and yet all different. O ! mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give; - Nor aught so good, but strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this weak flower Poison hath residence, and medicine power: For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings encamp them still In man as well as herbs, grace, and rude will; And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Enter Romeo.
Rom. Good morrow, father!
Fri. Benedicite ! What early tongue so sweet saluteth me ?- Young son, it argues a distemper'd head, So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised youth, with unstuff'd brain,
- Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore, thy earliness doth me assure, Thou art up-rous'd by some distemperature: Or if not so, then here I hit it right-- Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.
Rom. That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
Fri. God pardon sin ! weft thou with Rosaline ?
Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father ? no; I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.
Fri. That's my good son: but where hast thou been, then ?
Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine en. emy; Where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me, That's by me wounded: both our remedies Within thy help and holy physic lies: I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo! My intercession likewise steads my foe.
Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but fiddling shrift.
Rom. 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 combin'd, save what thou must combine By holy marriage. When, and where, and how, We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow, I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray, That thou consent to marry us to-day.
Fri. Holy Saint Francis ! what a change is here ! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken ? young men's love, then, lies Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. Jesu Maria ! what a deal of brine Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline ! How much salt water thrown away in waste To season love, that of it doth not taste! The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears; Lo! here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet. If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine, Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline: And art thou chang'd ? pronounce this sentence, then-- Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.
Rom. Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rosaline.
Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Rom. And bad'st me bury love.
Fri. Not in a grave, To lay one in, another out to have.
Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she whom I love now, Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow: The other did not so.
Fri. 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' rantour to pure love.
Rom. O ! let us hence: I stand on sudden haste.
Fri. Wisely, and slow; they stumble that run fast. [Exeunt.
Scene IV. - A Street.
Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.
Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be ?- Came he not home to-night ?
Ben. Not to his father's: I spoke with his man.
Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father's house.
Mer. A challenge, on my life.
Ben. Romeo will answer it. Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter.
Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared.
Met. Alas, poor Romeo! he is already dead! stabbed with a white wench's black eye; run thorough 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 ?
Ben. Why, what is Tybalt ?
Mer. More than prince of cats, ! can tell you. O! he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in yore' bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a due!list; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado ! the punto reverso ! the hay ! -
Ben. The what ?
Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes, these new tuners of accents !--" By Jesu, a very good blade !--a very tall man !--a very good whore !"--Why! is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these l?ardonaez-mois, who stand so much on the new form, that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench ? O, their boas, their boas !
Enter Romeo.
Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring.--O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified !--Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura, to his lady, was a kitchen-wench ;--marry, she.had a better love to be-rhyme her: Dido, a dowdy; Cleopatra, a gipsy; Helen and Hero, hildings and harlots; Thisbe, a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose.--Signior Romeo, bon jour ! there's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you ?
Mer. The slip, sir, the slip: can you not conceive ?
Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in such a case as mine, a man may strain courtesy.
Mer. That's as much as to say--such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
Rom. Meaning--to courtesy.
Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.
Rom. A most courteous exposition.
Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
Rom. Pink for flower.
Mer. Right.
Rom. Why, then is my pump well flowered. ?er. Well said: follow me this jest now, till thou hast worn out thy pump; that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing, solely singular.
Rom. O single-soled jest.! solely singular ibr the singleness.
Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio, for my wits fail.
Rom. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match. ?_?er. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase I have done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one' of thy wits, than, I am sure, I have in 26 my whole five. Was I with you there for' the goose ?
Rom. Thou wast never with me for any thing, when thou wast not there for the goose.
Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not.
Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweetlug; it is a most sharp sauce.
Rom. And is it not well served in to a sweet goose ?
Mer. O ! here's a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an ineh narrow to an ell broad.
Rom. I stretch it out for that word--broad: which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide abroad--goose.
Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love ? now art thou sociable, now a?t thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature; for this driveling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
Ben. Stop there, stop there.
Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
Ben. Thou would'st else have made thy tale large.
Mer. O, thou art deceived! I would have made it short; for I xvas come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.
Rom. Here's goodly geer!
Enter Nurse and Peter.
Mer. A sail, a sail!
Ben. Two, two; a shirt, and a smock.
Nurse. Peter, pr'ythee give me my fan.
Mer. Pr'ythee, do, good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer of the two.
Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
Mer. God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.
Nurse. Is it good den ?
Mer. '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.
Rom. 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 ?
Rom. 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.
Mer. Yea! is the worst well ? very well took, i'faith; wisely, wisely.
Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.
Ben. She will indite him to some supper.
Mer. A ba;vd, a bawd, a bawd ! So ho!
Rom. What hast thou found ?
Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
An old hare hoar, and an old hare hoar, Is very good meat in lent: But a hare that is boar, is too much for a score, When it boars ere it be spent.-
Romeo, will you come to your father's ? we'll to dinner thither.
Rom. I will follow you. | An image should appear at this position in the text. If you are able to provide it, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images for guidance. |
Mer. Farewell, ancient lady ; farewell, lady, lady, lady. ^Exeunt Mkrcutio and Bknvolio.
Nurse. Marry, farewell! — I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery
Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk ; and w'ill speak more in a minute, than he will stand to in a month.
Nurse. An 'a speak any thing against me, V take him down, an 'a were lustier than he Ls, and twenty such Jacks ; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scui-vy knave ! I am none of his flirt- gills ; I am none of his skains-mates. — And thou must stand by, too, and suifer eveiy knave to use me at his pleasure ?
Pet. I saw no man use you at his pleasure ; if I had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.
Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every ])art about me quivers. — Scurvy knave I — Pray you, sir, a word ; and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out : what she bid me say, I will keep to myself; but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say, for the gentlewoman is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, ti-uly, it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mis- tress. I protest unto thee, —
Nurse. Good heart I and, i' faith, I will tell her as much. Lord, lord ! she will be a joyful woman. ^ Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse ? thou dost not mark me.
Nurse. I will tell her, sir, — that you do protest ; which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
Rom. B id her devise some means to come to shrift This afternoon ;
And there she shall at friar Laurence' cell Be shriv'd, and married. Here is for thy pains.
Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny.
Rom. Go to, I say, you shall.
Nurse. This afternoon, sir ? well, she shall be there.
27 ACT II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
SCENE V.
Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey- wall : Within this iiour my m;ui shall he with tliee. Ami biiiin tiu'f loiils made like a tackli'd stair; Which to the high top-gallant of my joy Must 1)1' my cuiivoy in the sorrot niiiht. Farcwfll !— Ui- iiiisty, and I'll '((uitc thy {lains. Karcwrll I — ('(immfiid me to thy mistress.
yur^c. Now, God in heaven ble^s thee I — Hark you, sir.
Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?
Nurse. Is your man sec ret ? Did yuu ne'er hear say, Two may kei-p counsel, j)uttii)g one away ?
Rom. 1 warrant thee; uiy man's true as steel.
Xiir.sr. Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady — Ijord, lord I — when "twas a little jnating thing, — <)I — There's a nobleman in town, one
Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard ; but she, good soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man ; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the varsal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter ?
Rom. Ay, nurse; What of that? both with an R.
Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for thee ? no : I know it begins with some other letter ; and she has the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemaiy, that it would do you good to hear it.
Rom. Commend me to thy lady. [Exit.
Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. — Peter !
Pet. Anon ?
Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before.
[Exeunt.
| An image should appear at this position in the text. If you are able to provide it, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images for guidance. |
Scene V. — Capulet's Garden. Enter Juliet.
Jul. The clock struck nine, when 1 did send the nurse ; In half an hour she promis'd to return. Peri'hancc, she cannot meet him : — that's not so. — O! she is lame ■ love's heralds should be thoughts. Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams Driving back shadows over lowering hills: Tlierelore do niml)le-|)inion'd doves draw love, And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon tlie highmost hill Of this day's journey ; and from nine till twelve Is three long hours, — yet she is not come. Had she alfeetions, and warm youthful blood, Slip'd be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would bamly her to my sweet love, And hi.s to mc :
28
But old folks, many feign as they were dead ; Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead.
Enter Nurse and Peter.
O God ! she comes. — O honey nurse ! what news ? Hast tliou met with him ? Send thy man away. Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate. [Exit Peter. Jul. Now, good sweet nurse, — O lord! why look'st thou sad ? Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily ; If good, thou sham'st the music of sweet news By playing it to me with so sour a face.
Nir.sc. I am aweary, give me leave awhile. — Fie, how my bones ache ! What a jaunt have 1 had ! Jul. I would, thou liadst my bones, and I thy news : Nay, come, I pray thee, speak ; — good, good nurse, speak. ACT II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
SCKNK VI.
Nurse. Jesn, what haste I can you not stay
awhile ? Do you not see, that I am out of breatli ?
Jul. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast
breath To say to nie — that thou art out of breath 1 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 ?
Xursc. Well, you have made a simple choice ; 30U 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 courtesj', — but, I'll warrant him, as gen- tle as a lanrb. — Go thy ways, wench : serve God. — What, have you dined at home ?
Jul. No, no : but all this did I know before. What says he of our marriage ? what of that ? Nurse. Lord, how my head aches ! what a head
have I ! It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. My back! o' t' other side. — O, my back, my
back !— Beshrew your heart for sending me about. To catch my death with jaunting up and down. Jul. r faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what saj^s 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?
.Jul. Where is my mother ? — why, she is within : Where should she be ? How oddly thou reply'st ; " Your love says like an honest gentleman, — Where is your mother?"
Nurse. O, God's lady dear!
Are you so hot ? ^laiTy, come up, I trow ; Is this the poultice for my aching bones ? Hencefonvard do your messages yourself.
Jul. Here's such a coil — Come, what says Ro- meo ?
Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shiift to-day ?
Jul. I have.
Nurse. Then, hie you hence to friar Laurence' cell, There stays a husband to make you a wife : Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks, They'll be in scarlet straight at any news. Hie you to church ; I must another way, To fetch a ladder, by the which your love Must climb a bird's nest soon, when it is dark : I am the drudge, and toil in your delight, But you shall bear the burdea soon at night. Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.
Jul. Hie to high forttme ! — honest nurse, fare-
well.
[Exeunt.
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(Nurse and Peter.)
Scene VI. — Friar Laurence's cell. Enter Friar Laurence and Romeo.
Fri. So smile the heavens upon this holy act. That after-hours with sorrow chide us not !
Rom. Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
5
That one short minute gives me in her sight : Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare ; It is enough I may but call her mine.
Fri. These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die : like fire and powder. Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
29 ACT III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
SCENE 1.
Is loathsoiuf ill his own dfliciousness, Ami in tlie lastc ct)iik)un(ls the ;ip|)ftitc : Therefore, love moderately; lon^ love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Enter Julikt.
Hcie comes tlie lady. — O! so liilht a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint: A lover may ln-stride thi' ijossamers That idle in the wanton siinnner air, And yet not fall ; so liijht is vanity.
Jul. (Jood even to my ghostly confessor.
Fri. Romeo shall tllank thee, daughter, for us both.
Jul. As much to him, else are his thanks too umch.
Rom. Ah, Juliet ! if the measure of thy joy Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue Unfold the imagin'd happiness, that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.
Jul. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament : They are but beggars that can count their worth ; But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.
Fri. 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.
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ScEXE I. — A Public Place. Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, Page, and Servants.
Ben. T jiray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire : The day is hot, the Capulets abroad. And if we meet we shall not 'scape a brawl ; P'or now, these hot days, is the mad blood stining.
Mrr. Tiiou art like one of those fellows that, when he enters the confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says, " God send me no need of thee !" and, by the operation of the second cup, draws him on the drawer, when, in- deed, there is no need.
Ben. Am I like such a fellow?
Mer. Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood, as any in Italy ; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.
Bfn. And what to .'
Mer. Nay, and there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! wliy tliou wilt (|uarnl with a man thai hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast. Thou wilt ((uarrel with a man for cracking nuLs, having no other reason, but because tliou hast haze! eyes : what eye, but such an eye, would spy out such a (piarrel .' Thy head is as fidl of quar- n-ls, as an egg is full of meat ; and yet thy head hath l)een beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, beciiuse he liath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep iti tlie sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter ? with another, for tying his new shoes with old riband 1 and yet thou wilt tutor me from quar- relling I
Ben. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, 30
any man should buy the fee-simple of iny life for an hour and a quarter.
Mer. The fee-siiuple ? O simple !
Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets.
Enter Tybalt, and others.
Mer. By my heel, I care not.
Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them. — Gentlemen, good den ! a word with one of you.
Mer. And but one word with one of us ? Couple it with something ; make it a word and a blow.
7')//>. You will find me apt enough to that, sir, if you will give me occasion.
Mer. Could you not take some occasion without giving ?
T>/b. Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo. —
Mer. Consort ! w hat ! dost thou make us min- strels ? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords : here's luy fiddlestick ; here's that shall make you dance. 'Zounds, consort !
Brn. We talk here in the jniblic haunt of men : Either withdraw unto some private place, Or reason coldly of your grievances, Or else depart ; here all eyes gaze on us.
Mer. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze : I will not biulge for no man's pleasure, I.
Enter Romeo.
Tijb. Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes
my man. Mer. But I'll be hang'd, sir, if he wear your lively : Marrj', go before to field, he'll be your follower ;
Your worship, in that sense, may call him — man. | An image should appear at this position in the text. If you are able to provide it, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images for guidance. |
Tyb. Romeo, the hate I bear thee, can afford No better term than this--thou art a villain.
Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee Doth much excuse the appertaining rage To such a greeting :--villain am I none; Therefore farewell: I see, thou know'st me not.
Tyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries That thou hast done me; theretbre, turn and draw.
Rom. I do protest, I never injur'd thee; But love thee better than thou canst devise, Till thou shalt know the reason of my love: And so, good Capulet,--which name I tender As dearly as mine own,--be satisfied.
Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! A la stoccata carries it away. [Draws. Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk ?
Tyb. What would'st thou have with me ?
Mer. Good king of cats, nothing, but one of your nine lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.
Tyb. I am for you. [Drawing.
Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
Mer. Come, sir, your passado. [They fight.
Rom. Draw, Benvolio; Beat down their weapons :---gentlemen, for shame Forbear this outrage !--Tybalt--Mercutio-- The prince expressly hath forbid this bandying In Verona streets.--Hold, Tybalt!--good Mercutio ! [Exeunt Tybalt and his Partisans.
Mer. I am hurt ;-- A plague o' both the houses !--I am sped :- Is he gone, and hath nothing ?
Ben. What ! art thou hurt ?
Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.- Where is my page ?--go, villain, fetch a surgeon. [Exit Page.
Rom. Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Met. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppe?ed, I warrant, for this world :-?- a plague o' both your houses !--'Zounds ! a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death ! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic !--Why, the devil, came you between us ? I was hurt under your arm.
Rom. I thought all for the best. Mer. Help me into some house, Benvolio, Or I shall faint.--A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me: I have it, and soundly too :--your houses!
[Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio.
Rom. This gentleman, the prince's near ally, My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt In my behalf; my reputation stain'd With Tybalt's slander, Tybalt, that an hour Hath been my cousin ;--4) sweet Juliet! Thv beauty hath made me effeminate, Anal in my temper soften'd valour's steel.
{{c|Re-enter Benvolio.}
Ben. 0 Romeo, Romeo ! brave Mereutio's dead; That gallant spirit hath aspit'd the clouds, Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.
Rom. This day's black fate on more days doth depend; This but begins the woe, others must end.
{{c|Re-enter Tybalt.}
Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.
Rom. Alive ! in triumph ! and Mercutio slain ! Away to heaven, respective lenity, And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now! Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again, That late thou gay'st me; for Mercutio's soul Is but a little way above our heads, Staying for thine to keep him company: Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.
Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here, Shalt with him hence.
Rom. This shall determine that. [They fight; Tybalt falls.
Ben. Romeo, away ! begone ! The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain Stand not amaz'd :--the prince will doom thee death, If thou art taken.--Hence !--be gone !--away
Rom. O ! I am fortune's fool.
Ben. Why dost thou stay ?
[Exit Romeo.
Enter Citizens, $c.
1 Cit. Which way ran he, that killed Mercutio ? Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he ?
Ben. There lies that Tybalt.
1 Cit. Up, sir : - go with me; I charge thee in the prince's name, obey.
Enter Prince, attended: Montague, Capulet, their Wives, and others.
Prin. Where are the vile beginners of this fray ?
Ben. O noble prince! I can discover all The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl: There lies the man, slain by young Romeo, That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.
La. Cap. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child ! O prince ! O cousin ! husband ! O, the blood is spill'd Of my dear kinsman !--Prince, as thou art true, For blood of ours shed blood of Montague. O cousin, cousin! Prin. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray ?
Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay: Romeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink How nice the quarrel was; and urg'd withal Your high displeasure :---all this, uttered With genfie breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd, Could not take truce with the unruly spleen Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast; Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point, And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats Cold death asidei and with the other sends It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud, "Hold, friends! friends, part!" and, swifter than his tongue, His agile arm beats down their fatal points, And 't?ixt them rushes; underneath whose arm, An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled; But by and by comes back to Romeo, V?rho had but newly entertain'd revenge, And to't they go like lightning; for ere I Could draw to part them was stout Tybalt slain; And as he fell did Romeo turn and fly. This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.
La. Cap. He is a kinsman to the Montague; Affection makes him false, he speaks not true: Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, And all those twenty could but kill one life. I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give: Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.
Prin. Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio; Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe ?
Mon. Not Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend; His fault concludes but what the law should end, The life of Tybalt.
Prin. And for that offence, Immediately we do exile him hence: I have an interest in your hate's proceeding, My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a bleeding; But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine, That you shall all repent the loss of mine. I will be deaf to pleading and excuses, Nor tears, nor prayers, shall purchase out abuses; Therefore, use none: let Romeo hence in haste, Else, when he's found, that hour is his last. Bear hence this body, and attend our will: Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
[Exeunt.
Scene. II. - A Room in Capulet's Houss.
Enter Juliet.
Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-looted steeds, Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a waggoner As Phaeton would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately.- Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night ! That, unawares, eyes may wink, and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk'd of, and unseen Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or if love be blind, It best agrees with night.---Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And ]earn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black manfie; 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 upon a raven's back.- Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine, That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.-- O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess'd it; and though I am ?old, Not yet enjoy'd. So tedious is this day, As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes, And may not wear them. 0 ! here comes my nurse.
Enter Nurse, with cords.
And she brings news; and ev'ry tongue, that speaks But Romeo's name, speaks heavenly eloquence.- Now, nurse, what news ? What hast thou there ? the cords That Romeo bade thee fetch ?
Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.
[Throws them down.
Jul. Ah me! what news ? why dost thou wring thy hands ?
Nurse. Ah well-a-day ! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead ! We are undone, lady, we are undone !- Alack the day !--he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead! Jul. Can heaven be so envious ? .l?rse. Romeo can, Though heaven cannot.--O Romeo, Romeo !- Who ever would have thought it ?--Romeo ! Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus ? This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell. Hath Romeo slain himself ? say thou but/, And that bare vowel,/, shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice: I am not I, if there be such an I; Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer,/. If he be slain, say--I; or if not--no: Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe. Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,?
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God save the mark !--here on his manly breast: A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse; Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood, All in gore blood ;--I swounded at the sight. JuL O break, my heart !--poor bankrupt, break at once ! To prison, eyes; ne'er look on liberty: Vile earth, to earth resign: end motion here, And thou, and Romeo, press one heavy bier! Nurse. 0 T?ybalt, Tybalt! the best friend I had: O courteous Tybalt ! honest gentleman ! That ever I should live to see thee dead! JuL What storm is this that blows so contrary ? Is Romeo slaughter'd ? and is Tybalt dead ? My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord ?- Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom; For who is living, if those two are gone ?
Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished: Romeo, that kill'd him, he is banished.
Jul. O God !---did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood ?
Nurse. It did, it did; alas the day ! it did.
Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face ! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave ? Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical ! Dove-feather'd raven ! woivish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show ! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st; A damned saint, an honourable villain !-- O, nature ! what hadst thou to do in hell, When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh ?- Was ever book containing such vile m'ltter, -- So fairly bound ? O, that deceit should dwell In such a, gorgeous palace!
Nurse. There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.-- Ah ! where's my man ? give me some aqua vitve :- These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo ! Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue, For such a wish! he was not born to shame: Upon his brow shame is asham'd 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 ?
Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband ? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin ? That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband: Back, foolish tears, back to )-our native spring; Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain; And. Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my hus- band: All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then ? Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, That murder'd me. I would forget it fain; But, O! it presses to xny memory, Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds: Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished! That--banished, that one word--banished, Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death Was woe enough, if it had ended there: Or,--if sour woe delights in fellowship, And needly will be ranked with other griefs,-- Why follow'd not, when she said--Tybalt's dead, Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, 3J,rhich modern lamentation might have mov'd ? But, with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death, Romeo is banished !--to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead :--Romeo is banished There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.- Where is my father, and my mother, nurse ?
Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse: Will you go to them ? I will bring you thither.
Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears ? mine shall be spent, When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. Take up those cords.--Poor ropes, you are beguil'd, Both you and I, for Romeo is exil'd: He made you for a highway to my bed, But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed. Come, cords; come, nurse: I'll to my wedding bed; And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead]
Nurse. Hie to your chamber; I'll find Romeo To comfort you :--I wot well where he is. Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night: I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.
Jul. O, find him ! give this ring to my true knight, And bid him come to take his last farewell. [Exeunt.
Scene. III. - Friar Laurence's Cell.
Enter Friar Laurence and Romeo.
Fri. Romeo, come forth; come forth; thou fearful man: Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity.
Rom. Father, what news ? what is the prince's doom ? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, That I yet know not ?
Fri. Too familiar Is my dear son with such sour company: I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.
Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom ?
Fri. A gentler judgment vanished from his lips, Not body's death, but body's banishment.
Rom. Ha ! banishment ? be merciful, say--death; For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death: do not say--banishment.
Fri. Hence from Verona art thou banished: Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Rom. 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 :?alling death--banishment, Thou cut'st my head off' with a golden axe, And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me.
Fri. 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 tm'n'd that black word death to banishment: This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.
Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, Where Juliet lives; and every cut, and dog, And little mouse, every unworthy thing, Live here in heaven, and may look on her; But Romeo may not.--More validity, More honourable state, more courtship lives In carrion flies, than Romeo: they may seize On the white wonder of dear Jullet's hand, And steal immortal blessing from her lips; Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin; This may flies do, when I from this must fly: And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death ? But Romeo may not; he is banished. Flies may do this, but I from this must fly: They are free men, but I am banished. Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife, No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean, But--banished--to kill me; banished ? O friar ! the damned use that word in hell; Howling attends it: how hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, To mangle me with that word--banished ?
'r/. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a
word.
Rom. O ! thou wilt speak again of banishment.
Fri. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word; Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, To comfort thee, thou?.h thou art banished.
Rom. Yet banished .--Hang up philosophy: Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
Fri. O! then I see that madmen have no ears.
Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes ?
Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel. Went thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, Doting like me, and like me banished, Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave. Fri. Arise; one knocks: good Romeo, hide thy- self. [Knocking within.
Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans, Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes. [Knocking.
Fri. Hark, how they knock !--Who's there T-- Romeo, arise; Thou wilt be taken.--Stay a while.--Stand up; [Knocking. Run to my study.--By and by :--God's will ! What wilfulness 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.
Fri. Welcome, then.
Enter Nurse.
Nurse. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar, Where is my lady's lord ? where's Romeo ?
Fri. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
Nurse. O! he is even in my mistress' case; Just in her case.
Fri. O woeful sympathy! Piteous predicament !
Nurse. Even so lies she, Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.-- Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man: For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand; Why should you fall into so deep an O ?
Rom. Nurse !
Nurse. Ah sir ! ah sir !--Death is the end of all.
Rom. Spak'st 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 XVith blood remov'd but little from her own ? XVhere is she ? and how doth she ? and what says My conceal'd lady to our cancelI'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.
Rom. As if that name, Shot from the deadly level of a gun, Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand iVIurder'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 s?m'd.
Fri. Hold thy desperate hand: Art thou a man ? thy form cries out, thou art; Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote The unreasonable fm?j of a beast: Unseemly woman, in a seeming man; Or ill-beseeming beast, in seeming both ! Thou hast amaz'd me: by my holy order, I thought thy disposition better temper'd. Hast thou slain Tybalt ? wilt thou slay thyself? And slay thy lady, too, that lives in thee, By doing damned hate upon thyself? Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth ? Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet In thee at once, which thou at once would'st lose. Fie, fie ! thou sham'st thy shape, thy love, thy wit, Which, like an usurer, abound'st in all, And usest none in that true use indeed Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. Thy noble ?hape is but a form of wax, I)igressing from the valour of a man; Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury, Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish; Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both, Like powder in a skill-less soldlet's flask, Is set afire by thine own ignorance, And thou dismember'd with thine own defence. What! rouse thee, man: thy Juliet is alive, For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead; There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee, But thou slew'st Tybalt; there art thou happy too The law, that threaten'd death, becomes thy friend, And turns it to exile; there art thou happy: A pack of blessings lights upon thy back; Happiness courts thee in her best array; But, like a mis-behav'd and sullen wench, Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love. Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed, Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her; But, look, thou stay not till the watch be set, For then thou canst not pass to Mantun; Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends, Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back, With twenty hundred thousand times more joy Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.- Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady; And bid her hasten all the house to bed, Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto: Romeo is coming.
Nurse. O Lord! I could have stay'd here all the night, To hear good counsel: O, what learning is !- My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.
Rom. I)o so, and bid my- s;veet prepare to chide. Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir. Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Exit Nurse.
Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this! l?ri. Go hence. Good night; and here stands all your state :- Either be gone before the watch be set, Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence. Sojourn in Mantun; 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.
Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me, It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell. [Exeunt.
Scene. IV. - A Room in Capulet's House.
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, and Paris.
Cap. Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily, That we have had no time to move our daughter. Look you, she lov'd 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.
Par. These times of woe afford no time to woo.- Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter.
La. Cap. I will, and know her mind early to-morrow; To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness. Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/48 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/49 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/50 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/51 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/52 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/53 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/54 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/55 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/56 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/57 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/58 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/59 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/60 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/61 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/62 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/63 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/64 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/65 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/66 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/67 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/68 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/69 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/70 "That, unawares, eyes may wink."--Thus Knight, with whom Collier agrees. They owe the reading to .Jackson's "Shakespcare's Genius Justified." "The common reading, (says Knight,) which is that 'of all the old copies, is That runaways' eyes may weep. "This passage has been a perpetual source of conten- tion to the commentators. Their difficulties are well represented by Warbarton's question--' What run-aways are these, whose eyes Juliet is wishing to have stopt ?' Warburton says, Phvebus is the run-away. Stevens ar- gues that 2Vight is the run-away. Douce thinks that Juliet is the run-away. Monck Mason is confident that the passage ought to be, ' that Reomy's eyes may wink,' Reomy being a new personage, created out of the French Renommee, and answering, we suppose, to the 'Rumour' of Spenser. After all this learning, there comes an unlearned compositor, Zachary Jackson, and sets the matter traight. Run-sways is a misprint for .unawares. The word unawares, in the old orth- ography, is unawayres, (it is so spelled in the third part of Hv.ay VI.,) and the r having been misplaced, pro- duced this word of puzzle, rn-awayes. We have not the least hesitation in adopting Jackson's reading." "Hood my VA') blood, nA. in my cheeks."-- Terms of falconry. An unmanned hawk, says Stevens, is one that is not brought to endure company. Bating, is fluttering with the win, as striving to fly away. " say thou l,d I."--The affirmative ay was, in Shakespeare's time almost invariably spelt with a capi- tal I; and "that bare vowel" it is obviously necessary .to retain here. Scrr �. ', Enter Rov.o and The stage-direction in the first edition is :--"Enter Romeo and Juliet, at the window." In the later edi- tions, "Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft." They ap- peared, probably, as Malone remarks, in the balcony at the back of the stage. The scene in the Poet's eye was doubtless the large and massy projecting balcony before one or more windows, common in Italian pal- aces, and not unfrequent in Gothic civil architecture. The loggia, an open gallery, or high terrace, communi- cating with the upper apartments of a palace, is a com- mon feature in Palladian architecture, and would also be well adapted to such a scene. Malone and Collier also have shown, in the accounts of the old English stage, the actors were intended to appear on the balcony or upper stage, usual in the construction of the old Eng- lish theatre, which was used for many similar purposes, as for the exhibition of the play in Hamlet, for dia- logues, where part is from the walls of a castle or for- tified town, as in the historical plays, &c. � " the lark makes sweet )vso."A division' in music is a number of quick notes sung to one syllable; a kind of warbling. This continued to prevail in vocal music till recently. "Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes."-- The toad having very fine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones, was the occasion of a saying that the lark and toad had changed eyes. This tradition Dr. Johnson states himself to have heard in a rustic rhyme To heaven I'd fly, But that the toad begtiled me of mine eye. Juliet means that the croak of the toad would have been no indication of the appearance of day, and conse- quently no signal for her lover's departure. The "hunts-up" was the name of the tune anciently played to wake the hunters, and collect them together. ee ChappelFs "National English Airs." �' Enter Lady In the dialogue between Juliet and her parents, and in the scenes with the Nurse, we seem to have before us the whole of her previous education and habits: we see her on the one hand, kept in severe subjection by her austere parents; and on the other fondled and spoiled by a foolish old nurse---a situation perfectly ac- cordant with the manners of the time: Then Lady Capulet comes weeping by with her train of velvet, her black hood, her fan, and rosary--the very bean-ideal of a proud Italian matron of the fifteenth centuQ', whose offer to poison Romeo in revenge for the death of Tybalt, stamps her with one very characteristic trait of the age and country. Yet she loves her daughter; and there is a' touch of remorseful tenderness in her lamentations over her, which adds to our impression of the timid softness of Juliet, and the harsh subjection in which she has been kept.--Mgs. Jrso. "0 ! he's a lovely genlleman."--The character of the Nurse exhibits a just picture of those whose actions have no principles for their foundation. She'has been unfaithful to the trust reposed in her by Capulet, and is ready to embrace any expediency that offers, to avert the consequences of her first infidelity. The picture is not, however, an original; the nurse in the poem ex- hibits the same readiness to accommodate herself to the present conjuncture. Vanbrugh, in The Relapse, has copied, in this respect, the character of his nurse from Shakespeare.--STrv.s AD MALONE. ACT IV.--ScEE I. ".rind ere this hand, by thee to Romeo srAL')."--The seals of deeds were not formerly impressed on the parch- ment itself, but were appended on distinct slips or labels affixed to it. Hence, in Ka Rcau) II., the Duke of York discovers, by the depending seal, a covenant with his son, the Duke of Aumerle, had entered into: What seal is that which hangs without thy bosom ? "Shall keep his tative progress, but surcease."--The quarto,-1597, has, A dull and heavy slumber, which shall seize Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall kccpe His natural pogress, but sureease to beat. This may seem preferable; but the whole speech is much briefer in the earliest edition, occupying only four- teen lines. "In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier."The Ital- ian custom here alluded to is still continued. Rogers, in his "Italy," describes such a scene :-- ]]ut now by fits A dull and dismal noise assailed the ear, A wail, a chant, louder and louder yet: And now a strange fantastic troop appeared ! Thronging they came, as from the shades below; 3, !! of a ghostly white !--" O say, (I cried,) l)o not the living here bury the dead ? l)o spirits cme and fetch them ? What are these That seem not of this world, and mock the day; Each with a burning taper in his hand ?"-- ' It is an ancient brotherhood thou scent. Such their apparel. Through the long, long line, Look where thou wilt, no likeness of a man: The livm � masked, tl e dead alone uncovered. But mark !"--And, lying on her funeral couch, Like one asleep, her eyelids closed, her hands Folded together on her modest breast, 9, s 'twere her nightly posture, through the crowd 8he same at !ast,--and richly, gaily clad, As for a birth-day feast ! Scr.r II. "Sirrub, go hire me twenty cv coos."--The "cunning cook," in the time of Shakespeare, was, as he is at present, a great personage. According to an entry in the books of the London Stationers' Co., for 1560, the preacher was paid six shillings and two pence for his labour; the minstrel twelve shillings; and the cook fifteen shilling. The relative scale of estimation for theology, poetry, and gastronomy, has not been much altered during two cnturies, either in the city gene- rally, or in the company which represents the city's Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/72 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/73 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/74 Page:Shakespeare’s Plays, v.3 (playswithhislife03shakuoft).djvu/75 NOTES ON ROMEO AND JULIET.
Yet the plays upon words, and sports of fancy in the will, consequently, in highly—favoured natures, express lighter dialogue, were but a picture of the more ambi- themselves in an ingenuous and figurative manner." tious and courtly style of conversation of those who Mr. Hallam has justly remarked upon the increased ~ aspired to the praise of refined elegance in the Poet’s interest given to the action by the Poet’s adherence to age, while the extravagance of metaphor and of lan- the unity of time, but he has not observed that the pe- guage may well be excused if not deiended for the ef- culiarities which he notices as faults, (and, separately fect it produces in harmonizing with the general tone considered, they may be so,) arise from and powerfully of a tale of romantic passion, and conducing to the conduce to the poetic unity of feeling to which this grand effect as a whole, however open to criticism it drama owes so much of its eff`ect. On this point, Co- may be when examined critically in detail. Such leridge thus incidentally remarks :— seems to be the impression made upon Coleridge, Haz- “ That law of unity, which has its·foundations, not litt, Mrs. J ameson, and Schlegel. Other names might in the factitious necessity of custom, but in nature it- be added. self, the unity of feeling, is everywhere and at all times “ This highly figurative and antithetical exuberance observed by Shakespeare in his plays. Read Romno of language appears natural, however critics may argue AND JUL11:·r;—all is youth and spring;--youth with against its taste or propriety. 'I`he warmth and viva- its follies, its virtues, its precipitancies;—-spring, with city of J uliet’s fancy, which plays like a light over its odours, its flowers, and its transiency; it is one aud every part of her character-—which animates every line the same feeling that commences, goes through, and she utters—which kindles every thought into a picture, ends the play. The old men, the Capulets and the and clothes her emotions in visible imzages, would natu— Montagues, are not common old men; they have an rally, under strong and unusual excitement, and in the eagerness, a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect of conflict of opposing sentiments, run into some extrava- spring : with Romeo, his change of passion, his sudden gance of diction."—Mns. JAMESON. • · · marriage, and his rash death, are all the effects of “ The censure," says Schlegel, “OI'lglI1BiCS 1n a fan- youth ;-—Wh1le, 1n Juliet, love has all that xs tender ciless way of thinking, to which every thing appears and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is volup- unnatural that does not suit its tame insipidity. Hence tuous in the rose, with whatever is sweet in the fresh- an idea has been formed of simple and natural pathos, ness of spring; but it ends with a long deep sigh, like which consists of exclamations destitute of imagery, the last breeze of the Italian evening. This unity of and nowise elevated above every-day life; but ener- feeling and character pervades every drama of Shake- getic passions electrify the whole mental powers, and speare."
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(Tomb of the Scaligeri, Verona.)