And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;
A base foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;
One that hath ever been God's enemy.

Then, in the name of God and all these rights,
Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.
For me, the ransom of my bold attempt
Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;
But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt
The least of you shall share his part thereof.
Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;
God and Saint George! Richmond and victory! Exeunt
Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, attendants,
and forces
KING RICHARD. What said Northumberland as touching
Richmond?
RATCLIFF. That he was never trained up in arms.
KING RICHARD. He said the truth; and what said Surrey
then?
RATCLIFF. He smil'd, and said 'The better for our purpose.'
KING He was in the right; and so indeed it is.
[Clock strikes]
Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.
Who saw the sun to-day?
RATCLIFF. Not I, my lord.
KING RICHARD. Then he disdains to shine; for by the book
He should have brav'd the east an hour ago.
A black day will it be to somebody.
Ratcliff!
RATCLIFF. My lord?
KING RICHARD. The sun will not be seen to-day;
The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.
I would these dewy tears were from the ground.
Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me
More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven
That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.
Enter NORFOLK
NORFOLK. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.
KING RICHARD. Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse;
Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.
I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,
And thus my battle shall be ordered:
My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,
Consisting equally of horse and foot;
Our archers shall be placed in the midst.
John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,
Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.
They thus directed, we will follow
In the main battle, whose puissance on either side
Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.
This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou,
Norfolk?
NORFOLK. A good direction, warlike sovereign.
This found I on my tent this morning.
[He sheweth him a paper]
KING RICHARD. [Reads]
'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold,
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'
A thing devised by the enemy.
Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge.
Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell;
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.
His ORATION to his ARMY
What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?

And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,
Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?
A milk-sop, one that never in his life
Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?
Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;
Lash hence these over-weening rags of France,
These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;
Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,
For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves.

Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives,
Ravish our daughters? [Drum afar off] Hark! I hear their
drum.
Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yeomen!
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!
Enter a MESSENGER
What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?
MESSENGER. My lord, he doth deny to come.
KING RICHARD.
NORFOLK. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh.
After the battle let George Stanley die.
KING RICHARD. A thousand hearts are great within my
bosom.
Advance our standards, set upon our foes;
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
Upon them! Victory sits on our helms. Exeunt
Another part of the field
Alarum; excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces; to him CATESBY
CATESBY. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
The King enacts more wonders than a man,
Daring an opposite to every danger.
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost.
Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD
KING RICHARD. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
CATESBY. Withdraw, my lord! I'll help you to a horse.
KING RICHARD. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast
And I Will stand the hazard of the die.
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! Exeunt
Another part of the field
Alarum. Enter RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight; RICHARD is slain. Retreat and flourish. Enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown, with other LORDS
RICHMOND.
DERBY. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!

Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.
RICHMOND. Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!
But, teLL me is young George Stanley living.
DERBY. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,
Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.
RICHMOND. What men of name are slain on either side?
DERBY. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,
Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.
RICHMOND. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.
Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled
That in submission will return to us.
And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,
We will unite the white rose and the red.
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
That long have frown'd upon their emnity!
What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,
The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;
All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided in their dire division,
O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!
And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so,
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again-
That she may long live here, God say Amen! Exeunt
1595
THE PROLOGUE.
ACT I
Scene I.
A public place.
Scene II.
A Street.
Scene III.
Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene IV.
A Street.
Scene V.
A Hall in Capulet’s House.
ACT II
CHORUS.
Scene I.
An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.
Scene II.
Capulet’s Garden.
Scene III.
Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene IV.
A Street.
Scene V.
Capulet’s Garden.
Scene VI.
Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
ACT III
Scene I.
A public Place.
Scene II.
A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene III.
Friar Lawrence’s cell.
Scene IV.
A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene V.
An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.
ACT IV
Scene I.
Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene II.
Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene III.
Juliet’s Chamber.
Scene IV.
Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene V.
Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.
ACT V
Scene I.
Mantua. A Street.
Scene II.
Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene III.
A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.
ESCALUS, Prince of Verona.
MERCUTIO, kinsman to the Prince, and friend to Romeo.
PARIS, a young Nobleman, kinsman to the Prince.
Page to Paris.
MONTAGUE, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Capulets.
LADY MONTAGUE, wife to Montague.
ROMEO, son to Montague.
BENVOLIO, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo.
ABRAM, servant to Montague.
BALTHASAR, servant to Romeo.
CAPULET, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Montagues.
LADY CAPULET, wife to Capulet.
JULIET, daughter to Capulet.
TYBALT, nephew to Lady Capulet.
CAPULET’S COUSIN, an old man.
NURSE to Juliet.
PETER, servant to Juliet’s Nurse.
SAMPSON, servant to Capulet.
GREGORY, servant to Capulet.
Servants.
FRIAR LAWRENCE, a Franciscan.
FRIAR JOHN, of the same Order.
An Apothecary.
CHORUS.
Three Musicians.
An Officer.
Citizens of Verona; several Men and Women, relations to both
houses; Maskers, Guards, Watchmen and Attendants.
Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth 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.
[Exit.]
Enter Sampson and Gregory armed with swords and bucklers.
SAMPSON.
Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry coals.
GREGORY.
No, for then we should be colliers.
SAMPSON.
I mean, if we be in choler, we’ll draw.
GREGORY.

SAMPSON.
I strike quickly, being moved.
GREGORY.
But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
SAMPSON.
A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
GREGORY.
To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn’st away.
SAMPSON.
A dog of that house shall move me to stand.
I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.
GREGORY.
That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.
SAMPSON.
True, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,
are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push Montague’s men
from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.
GREGORY.
The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.
SAMPSON.
’Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought
with the men I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads.
GREGORY.
The heads of the maids?
SAMPSON.
Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense
thou wilt.
GREGORY.
They must take it in sense that feel it.
SAMPSON.
Me they shall feel while I am able to stand:
and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
GREGORY.
’Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor
John. Draw thy tool; here comes of the house of Montagues.
Enter Abram and Balthasar.
SAMPSON.
My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.
GREGORY.
How? Turn thy back and run?
SAMPSON.
Fear me not.
GREGORY.
No, marry; I fear thee!
SAMPSON.
Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.
GREGORY.
I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they
list.
SAMPSON.
Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is
disgrace to them if they bear it.
ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON.
I do bite my thumb, sir.
ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON.
Is the law of our side if I say ay?
GREGORY.
No.
SAMPSON.
No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my
thumb, sir.
GREGORY.
Do you quarrel, sir?
ABRAM.
Quarrel, sir? No, sir.
SAMPSON.
But if you do, sir, am for you. I serve as good a man as
you.
ABRAM.
No better.
SAMPSON.
Well, sir.
Enter Benvolio.
GREGORY.
Say better; here comes one of my master’s kinsmen.
SAMPSON.
Yes, better, sir.
ABRAM.
You lie.
SAMPSON.
Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy washing blow.
[They fight.]
BENVOLIO.

[Beats down their swords.]
Enter Tybalt.
TYBALT.
What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee Benvolio, look upon thy death.
BENVOLIO.
I do but keep the peace, put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.
TYBALT.
What, drawn, and talk of peace?
[They fight.]
Enter three or four Citizens with clubs.
FIRST CITIZEN.
Clubs, bills and partisans! Strike! Beat them down!
Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!
Enter Capulet in his gown, and Lady Capulet.
CAPULET.
What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!
LADY CAPULET.
A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?
CAPULET.
My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
Enter Montague and his Lady Montague.
MONTAGUE.
Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not, let me go.
LADY MONTAGUE.
Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.
Enter Prince Escalus, with Attendants.
PRINCE.
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,—
Will they not hear? What, ho!
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 farther pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
[Exeunt Prince and Attendants; Capulet, Lady Capulet, Tybalt, Citizens and Servants.]
MONTAGUE.
Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?
BENVOLIO.
Here were the servants of your adversary
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.
I drew to part them, in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword 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.
LADY MONTAGUE.
O where is Romeo, saw you him today?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
BENVOLIO.
Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad,
Where underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from this city 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.
MONTAGUE.
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
BENVOLIO.
My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
MONTAGUE.
I neither know it nor can learn of him.
BENVOLIO.
Have you importun’d him by any means?
MONTAGUE.
Both by myself and many other friends;
But he, his own affections’ counsellor,
Is to himself—I will not say how true—
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure as know.
Enter Romeo.
BENVOLIO.
See, where he comes. So please you step aside;
I’ll know his grievance or be much denied.
MONTAGUE.
I would thou wert so happy by thy stay
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away,
[Exeunt Montague and Lady Montague.]
BENVOLIO.
Good morrow, cousin.
ROMEO.
Is the day so young?
BENVOLIO.
But new struck nine.
ROMEO.
Ay me, sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?
BENVOLIO.
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?
ROMEO.
Not having that which, having, makes them short.
BENVOLIO.
In love?
ROMEO.
Out.
BENVOLIO.
Of love?
ROMEO.
Out of her favour where I am in love.
BENVOLIO.
Alas that love so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.
ROMEO.
Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
BENVOLIO.
No coz, I rather weep.
ROMEO.
Good heart, at what?
BENVOLIO.
At thy good heart’s oppression.
ROMEO.
Why such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it prest
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
 A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.
[Going.]
BENVOLIO.
Soft!
ROMEO.
Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here.
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.
BENVOLIO.
Tell me in sadness who is that you love?
ROMEO.
What, shall I groan and tell thee?
BENVOLIO.
Groan! Why, no; but sadly tell me who.
ROMEO.

In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
BENVOLIO.
I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you lov’d.
ROMEO.
A right good markman, and she’s fair I love.
BENVOLIO.
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
ROMEO.
Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit;
And in strong proof of chastity well arm’d,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’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’s rich in beauty, only poor
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.
BENVOLIO.
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
ROMEO.
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty 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 to tell it now.
BENVOLIO.
Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.
ROMEO.
O teach me how I should forget to think.
BENVOLIO.
By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.
ROMEO.
’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair;
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair?
Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.
BENVOLIO.

[Exeunt.]
Enter Capulet, Paris and Servant.
CAPULET.
But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.
PARIS.

But now my lord, what say you to my suit?
CAPULET.
But saying o’er what I have said before.
My child is yet a stranger in the world,
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
PARIS.
Younger than she are happy mothers made.
CAPULET.
And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
The earth hath 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;
And she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love, and you among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be:
Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me. Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out
Whose names are written there, [gives a paper] and to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.
[Exeunt Capulet and Paris.]
SERVANT.
Find them out whose names are written here!
It is written that the shoemaker should meddle with
his yard and the tailor with his last, the fisher with
his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am
sent to find those persons whose names are here writ,
and can never find what names the writing person
hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good time!
Enter Benvolio and Romeo.
BENVOLIO.

ROMEO.
Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
BENVOLIO.
For what, I pray thee?
ROMEO.
For your broken shin.
BENVOLIO.
Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
ROMEO.

SERVANT.
God gi’ go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?
ROMEO.
Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
SERVANT.
Perhaps you have learned it without book.
But I pray, can you read anything you see?
ROMEO.
Ay, If I know the letters and the language.
SERVANT.
Ye say honestly, rest you merry!
ROMEO.
Stay, fellow; I can read.
[He reads the letter.]
Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;
The lady widow of Utruvio;
Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces;
Mercutio and his brother Valentine;
Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;
My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;
Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt;
Lucio and the lively Helena.
A fair assembly. [Gives back the paper] Whither should they come?
SERVANT.
Up.
ROMEO.
Whither to supper?
SERVANT.
To our house.
ROMEO.
Whose house?
SERVANT.
My master’s.
ROMEO.
Indeed I should have ask’d you that before.
SERVANT.
Now I’ll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet,
and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come and crush a cup of
wine. Rest you merry.
[Exit.]
BENVOLIO.
At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s
Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov’st;
With all the admired beauties of Verona.

ROMEO.
When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire;
And these who, often drown’d, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.
BENVOLIO.
Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois’d with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’d
Your lady’s love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now shows best.
ROMEO.
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of my own.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.
LADY CAPULET.
Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.
NURSE.
Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
I bade her come. What, lamb! What ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!
Enter Juliet.
JULIET.
How now, who calls?
NURSE.

JULIET.
Madam, I am here. What is your will?
LADY CAPULET.
This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again,
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel.
Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.
NURSE.
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
LADY CAPULET.
She’s not fourteen.
NURSE.
I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
LADY CAPULET.
A fortnight and odd days.
NURSE.
Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she,—God rest all Christian souls!—
Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me. But as I said,
On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it—,
Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse 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 dovehouse: ’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 th’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!

Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying, and said ‘Ay’.
To see now how a jest shall come about.
I warrant, and I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it. ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said ‘Ay.’
LADY CAPULET.
Enough of this; I pray thee hold thy peace.
NURSE.
Yes, madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh,
To think it should leave crying, and say ‘Ay’;
And yet I warrant it had upon it 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 comest to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted, and said ‘Ay’.
JULIET.
And stint thou too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I.
NURSE.
Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nurs’d:
And I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.
LADY CAPULET.
Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET.
It is an honour that I dream not of.
NURSE.
An honour! Were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.
LADY CAPULET.
Well, think of marriage now: younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers.  Thus, then, in brief;
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
NURSE.
A man, young lady! Lady, such a man
As all the world—why he’s a man of wax.
LADY CAPULET.
Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.
NURSE.
Nay, he’s a flower, in faith a very flower.
LADY CAPULET.
What say you, can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen.
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur’d in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea; and ’tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
NURSE.
No less, nay bigger. Women grow by men.
LADY CAPULET.
Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?
JULIET.
I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Enter a Servant.
SERVANT.
Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you
called, my young lady asked for, the Nurse cursed
in the pantry, and everything in extremity. I must
hence to wait, I beseech you follow straight.
LADY CAPULET.
We follow thee.
[Exit Servant.]
Juliet, the County stays.
NURSE.
Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers; Torch-bearers and others.
ROMEO.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?
BENVOLIO.
The date is out of such prolixity:
We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance:
But let them measure us by what they will,
We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.
ROMEO.
Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy I will bear the light.
MERCUTIO.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
ROMEO.
Not I, believe me, you have dancing shoes,
With nimble soles, I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
MERCUTIO.

ROMEO.
I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
MERCUTIO.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
ROMEO.
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.
MERCUTIO.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in: [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.
BENVOLIO.
Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in
But every man betake him to his legs.
ROMEO.
A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase,
I’ll be a candle-holder and look on,
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.
MERCUTIO.
Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word:
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire
Or save your reverence love, wherein thou stickest
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho.
ROMEO.
Nay, that’s not so.
MERCUTIO.
I mean sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.
ROMEO.
And we mean well in going to this mask;
But ’tis no wit to go.
MERCUTIO.
Why, may one ask?
ROMEO.
I dreamt a dream tonight.
MERCUTIO.
And so did I.
ROMEO.
Well what was yours?
MERCUTIO.
That dreamers often lie.
ROMEO.
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
MERCUTIO.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her 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 hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
 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,—
ROMEO.
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace,
Thou talk’st of nothing.
MERCUTIO.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.
BENVOLIO.
This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
ROMEO.

But he that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen!
BENVOLIO.
Strike, drum.
[Exeunt.]
Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.
FIRST SERVANT.
Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away?
He shift a trencher! He scrape a trencher!
SECOND SERVANT.
When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s
hands, and they unwash’d too, ’tis a foul thing.
FIRST SERVANT.
Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look
to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as
thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
Antony and Potpan!
SECOND SERVANT.
Ay, boy, ready.
FIRST SERVANT.
You are looked for and called for, asked for
and sought for, in the great chamber.
SECOND SERVANT.
We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys.
Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.
CAPULET.
Welcome, gentlemen, ladies that have their toes
Unplagu’d with corns will have a bout with you.
Ah my mistresses, which of you all
Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,
She I’ll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
That I have worn a visor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,
Such as would please; ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone,
You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.
A hall, a hall, give room! And foot it, girls.
[Music plays, and they dance.]
More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.
Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,
For you and I are past our dancing days;
How long is’t now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?
CAPULET’S COUSIN.
By’r Lady, thirty years.
CAPULET.
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.
CAPULET’S COUSIN.
’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir;
His son is thirty.
CAPULET.
Will you tell me that?
His son was but a ward two years ago.
ROMEO.
What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?
SERVANT.
I know not, sir.
ROMEO.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
TYBALT.
This by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.
CAPULET.
Why how now, kinsman!
Wherefore storm you so?
TYBALT.
Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.
CAPULET.
Young Romeo, is it?
TYBALT.
’Tis he, that villain Romeo.
CAPULET.
Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,
A bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth.
I would not for the wealth of all the town
Here in my house do him disparagement.
Therefore be patient, take no note of him,
It is my will; the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
TYBALT.
It fits when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him.
CAPULET.
He shall be 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!
TYBALT.
Why, uncle, ’tis a shame.
CAPULET.

 Is’t so, indeed?
This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what.
You must contrary me! Marry, ’tis time.
Well said, my hearts!—You are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or—More light, more light!—For shame!
I’ll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts.
TYBALT.
Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.
[Exit.]
ROMEO.
[To Juliet.] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET.
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET.
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO.
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO.
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg’d.
[Kissing her.]
JULIET.
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO.
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d!
Give me my sin again.
JULIET.
You kiss by the book.
NURSE.

ROMEO.
What is her mother?
NURSE.
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.
I nurs’d her daughter that you talk’d withal.
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.
ROMEO.
Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.
BENVOLIO.
Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.
ROMEO.
Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.
CAPULET.
Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone,
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
Is it e’en so? Why then, I thank you all;
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
More torches here! Come on then, let’s to bed.
Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late,
I’ll to my rest.
[Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse.]
JULIET.
Come hither, Nurse. What is yond gentleman?
NURSE.
The son and heir of old Tiberio.
JULIET.
What’s he that now is going out of door?
NURSE.
Marry, that I think be young Petruchio.
JULIET.
What’s he that follows here, that would not dance?
NURSE.
I know not.
JULIET.
Go ask his name. If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
NURSE.

JULIET.
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.
NURSE.
What’s this? What’s this?
JULIET.
A rhyme I learn’d even now
Of one I danc’d withal.
[One calls within, ‘Juliet’.]
NURSE.
Anon, anon!
Come let’s away, the strangers all are gone.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.
Now old desire doth in his deathbed 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,
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.
[Exit.]
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.
[He climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]
Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.
BENVOLIO.
Romeo! My cousin Romeo! Romeo!
MERCUTIO.
He is wise,
And on my life hath stol’n him home to bed.
BENVOLIO.
He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.
MERCUTIO.
Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but ‘Ah me!’ Pronounce but Love and dove;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Abraham 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 high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.
BENVOLIO.
An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.
MERCUTIO.
This cannot anger him. ’Twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle,
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and 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.
BENVOLIO.
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees
To be consorted with the humorous night.
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.
MERCUTIO.
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!
Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle-bed.
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.
Come, shall we go?
BENVOLIO.
Go then; for ’tis in vain
To seek him here that means not to be found.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Juliet appears above at a window.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

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.

JULIET.
Ay me.
ROMEO.
She speaks.
O speak again bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
JULIET.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO.
[Aside.] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
JULIET.
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
ROMEO.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptis’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
JULIET.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night
So stumblest on my counsel?
ROMEO.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
JULIET.
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of thy tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound.
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?
ROMEO.
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
JULIET.
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.
ROMEO.
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.
JULIET.
If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
ROMEO.
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
JULIET.
I would not for the world they saw thee here.
ROMEO.
I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes,
And but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
JULIET.
By whose direction found’st thou out this place?
ROMEO.
By love, that first did prompt me to enquire;
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash’d with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.
JULIET.
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell compliment.
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say Ay,
And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear’st,
Thou mayst prove false. At lovers’ perjuries,
They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou thinkest 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 mayst 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 overheard’st, ere I was ’ware,
My true-love passion; therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.
ROMEO.
Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,—
JULIET.
O swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
ROMEO.
What shall I swear by?
JULIET.
Do not swear at all.
Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I’ll believe thee.
ROMEO.
If my heart’s dear love,—
JULIET.
Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight;
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.
ROMEO.
O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
JULIET.
What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?
ROMEO.
Th’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.
JULIET.
I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;
And yet I would it were to give again.
ROMEO.
Would’st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?
JULIET.
But to be frank and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu.
[Nurse calls within.]
Anon, good Nurse!—Sweet Montague be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again.
[Exit.]
ROMEO.
O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial.
Enter Juliet above.
JULIET.
Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,
By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
NURSE.
[Within.] Madam.
JULIET.
I come, anon.— But if thou meanest not well,
I do beseech thee,—
NURSE.
[Within.] Madam.
JULIET.
By and by I come—
To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief.
Tomorrow will I send.
ROMEO.
So thrive my soul,—
JULIET.
A thousand times good night.
[Exit.]
ROMEO.
A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.
[Retiring slowly.]
Re-enter Juliet, above.
JULIET.
Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer’s voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again.
Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud,
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo’s name.
ROMEO.
It is my soul that calls upon my name.
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.
JULIET.
Romeo.
ROMEO.
My nyas?
JULIET.
What o’clock tomorrow
Shall I send to thee?
ROMEO.
By the hour of nine.
JULIET.
I will not fail. ’Tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.
ROMEO.
Let me stand here till thou remember it.
JULIET.
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.
ROMEO.
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.
JULIET.

ROMEO.
I would I were thy bird.
JULIET.
Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
[Exit.]
ROMEO.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And darkness fleckled like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s pathway, made by Titan’s wheels
Hence will I to my ghostly Sire’s cell,
His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.
[Exit.]
Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.

Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught 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.
Enter Romeo.
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.

ROMEO.
Good morrow, father.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.
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 uprous’d with some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.
ROMEO.
That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
God pardon sin. Wast thou with Rosaline?
ROMEO.
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s my good son. But where hast thou been then?
ROMEO.
I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
ROMEO.
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all 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 today.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that 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 yet ring in mine ancient ears.

If ere 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.
ROMEO.
Thou chidd’st me oft for loving Rosaline.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
ROMEO.
And bad’st me bury love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Not in a grave
To lay one in, another out to have.
ROMEO.
I pray thee chide me not, her I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.
ROMEO.
O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.
MERCUTIO.
Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?
BENVOLIO.
Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.
MERCUTIO.
Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so that he
will sure run mad.
BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father’s
house.
MERCUTIO.

BENVOLIO.
Romeo will answer it.
MERCUTIO.
Any man that can write may answer a letter.
BENVOLIO.
Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how he
dares, being dared.
MERCUTIO.
 And is he a man to encounter Tybalt?
BENVOLIO.
Why, what is Tybalt?
MERCUTIO.
More than Prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous captain of compliments.
He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion. He
rests his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher
of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house,
of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the
hay.
BENVOLIO.
The what?
MERCUTIO.
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; these new tuners of
accent. 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 pardon-me’s, who stand
so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O their
bones, their bones!
Enter Romeo.
BENVOLIO.
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!
MERCUTIO.
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!
Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura, to his lady, was but
a kitchen wench,—marry, she had a better love to berhyme her: Dido a
dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bonjour! There’s a
French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last
night.
ROMEO.
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
MERCUTIO.
The slip sir, the slip; can you not conceive?
ROMEO.
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as mine a man
may strain courtesy.
MERCUTIO.
That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in
the hams.
ROMEO.
Meaning, to curtsy.
MERCUTIO.
Thou hast most kindly hit it.
ROMEO.
A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO.
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
ROMEO.
Pink for flower.
MERCUTIO.
Right.
ROMEO.
Why, then is my pump well flowered.
MERCUTIO.
Sure wit, 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.
ROMEO.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!
MERCUTIO.
Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.
ROMEO.
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs; or I’ll cry a match.
MERCUTIO.
Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done. For thou hast more of the
wild-goose in one of thy wits, than I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I
with you there for the goose?
ROMEO.
Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the goose.
MERCUTIO.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
ROMEO.
Nay, good goose, bite not.
MERCUTIO.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most sharp sauce.
ROMEO.
And is it not then well served in to a sweet goose?
MERCUTIO.
O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell
broad.
ROMEO.
I stretch it out for that word broad, which added to the goose, proves thee far
and wide a broad goose.
MERCUTIO.
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now
art thou Romeo; not art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature. For
this drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to
hide his bauble in a hole.
BENVOLIO.
Stop there, stop there.
MERCUTIO.
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
BENVOLIO.
Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
MERCUTIO.
O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short, for I was come to the whole
depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy the argument no longer.
Enter Nurse and Peter.
ROMEO.
Here’s goodly gear!
A sail, a sail!
MERCUTIO.
Two, two; a shirt and a smock.
NURSE.
Peter!
PETER.
Anon.
NURSE.
My fan, Peter.
MERCUTIO.
Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan’s the fairer face.
NURSE.
God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
MERCUTIO.
God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.
NURSE.
Is it good-den?
MERCUTIO.
’Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the
prick of noon.
NURSE.
Out upon you! What a man are you?
ROMEO.
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.
NURSE.
By my troth, it is well said; for himself to mar, quoth a? Gentlemen, can any
of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?
ROMEO.
I can tell you: but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he
was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
NURSE.
You say well.
MERCUTIO.
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’faith; wisely, wisely.
NURSE.
If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.
BENVOLIO.
She will endite him to some supper.
MERCUTIO.
A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!
ROMEO.
What hast thou found?
MERCUTIO.
No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale
and hoar ere it be spent.
[Sings.]
An old hare hoar,
And an old hare hoar,
Is very good meat in Lent;
But a hare that is hoar
Is too much for a score
When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to dinner thither.
ROMEO.
I will follow you.
MERCUTIO.
Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady.
[Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio.]
NURSE.

ROMEO.
A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a
minute than he will stand to in a month.
NURSE.
And a speak anything against me, I’ll take him down, and a were lustier
than he is, and twenty such Jacks. And if I cannot, I’ll find those that
shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his
skains-mates.—And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to use me
at his pleasure!
PETER.
I saw no man use you 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 part about me quivers. Scurvy knave.
 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, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to
any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
ROMEO.
Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto
thee,—
NURSE.
Good heart, and i’faith I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord, she will be
a joyful woman.
ROMEO.
What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me.
NURSE.
I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a
gentlemanlike offer.
ROMEO.
Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Lawrence’ cell
Be shriv’d and married. Here is for thy pains.
NURSE.
No truly, sir; not a penny.
ROMEO.
Go to; I say you shall.
NURSE.
This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.
ROMEO.
And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall.
Within this hour my man shall be with thee,
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,
Which to the high topgallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell, be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains;
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.
NURSE.
Now God in heaven bless thee. Hark you, sir.
ROMEO.
What say’st thou, my dear Nurse?
NURSE.
Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say,
Two may keep counsel, putting one away?
ROMEO.
I warrant thee my man’s as true as steel.
NURSE.
Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! When ’twas a
little prating thing,—O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that
would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very
toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the
properer man, but I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as
any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a
letter?
ROMEO.
Ay, Nurse; what of that? Both with an R.
NURSE.
Ah, mocker! That’s the dog’s name. R is for the—no, I know it
begins with some other letter, and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of
you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.
ROMEO.
Commend me to thy lady.
NURSE.
Ay, a thousand times. Peter!
[Exit Romeo.]
PETER.
Anon.
NURSE.
Before and apace.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Juliet.
JULIET.
The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse,
In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him. That’s not so.
O, she is lame. Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over lowering hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She’d be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me.
But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
Enter Nurse and Peter.
O God, she comes. O honey Nurse, what news?
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.
NURSE.
Peter, stay at the gate.
[Exit Peter.]
JULIET.
Now, good sweet Nurse,—O Lord, why look’st thou sad?
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou sham’st the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.
NURSE.
I am aweary, give me leave awhile;
Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunt have I had!
JULIET.
I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
Nay come, I pray thee speak; good, good Nurse, speak.
NURSE.
Jesu, what haste? Can you not stay a while?
Do you not see that I am out of breath?
JULIET.
How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that;
Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance.
Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?
NURSE.
Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man. Romeo?
No, not he. Though his face be better than any man’s, yet his leg excels
all men’s, and for a hand and a foot, and a body, though they be not to
be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but
I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench, serve God.
What, have you dined at home?
JULIET.
No, no. But all this did I know before.
What says he of our marriage? What of that?
NURSE.
Lord, how my head aches!
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 jauncing up and down.
JULIET.
I’faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me, what says my love?
NURSE.
Your love says like an honest gentleman,
And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome,
And I warrant a virtuous,—Where is your mother?
JULIET.
Where is my mother? Why, she is within.
Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest.
‘Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
‘Where is your mother?’
NURSE.
O God’s lady dear,
Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow.
Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.
JULIET.
Here’s such a coil. Come, what says Romeo?
NURSE.
Have you got leave to go to shrift today?
JULIET.
I have.
NURSE.

Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Hie you to church. I must another way,
To fetch a ladder by the which your love
Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go. I’ll to dinner; hie you to the cell.
JULIET.
Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.
ROMEO.
Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
 The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Enter Juliet.
Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.
A lover may bestride the gossamers
That idles in the wanton summer air
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.
JULIET.
Good even to my ghostly confessor.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.
JULIET.
As much to him, else is his thanks too much.
ROMEO.
Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heap’d like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue
Unfold the imagin’d happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.
JULIET.
Conceit more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars that can count their worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
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.]
Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, Page and Servants.
BENVOLIO.
I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,
For now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.
MERCUTIO.
Thou art like one of these 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 indeed there is no need.
BENVOLIO.
Am I like such a fellow?
MERCUTIO.
Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as soon
moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.
BENVOLIO.
And what to?
MERCUTIO.
Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill
the other. Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a
hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for
cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes.   Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the
street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst
thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with
another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt tutor me
from quarrelling!
BENVOLIO.
And I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee simple of
my life for an hour and a quarter.
MERCUTIO.
The fee simple! O simple!
Enter Tybalt and others.
BENVOLIO.
By my head, here comes the Capulets.
MERCUTIO.
By my heel, I care not.
TYBALT.
Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good-den: a word with one of you.
MERCUTIO.
And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and
a blow.
TYBALT.

MERCUTIO.
Could you not take some occasion without giving?
TYBALT.
Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.
MERCUTIO.
Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of us, look
to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that
shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!
BENVOLIO.
We talk here in the public haunt of men.

MERCUTIO.
Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.
Enter Romeo.
TYBALT.
Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.
MERCUTIO.
But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.
Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower;
Your worship in that sense may call him man.
TYBALT.
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this: Thou art a villain.
ROMEO.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.
TYBALT.
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.
ROMEO.
I do protest I never 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.
MERCUTIO.
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
[Draws.] Alla stoccata carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?
TYBALT.
What wouldst thou have with me?
MERCUTIO.
Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to make bold
withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, 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.
TYBALT.
[Drawing.] I am for you.
ROMEO.
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
MERCUTIO.
Come, sir, your passado.
[They fight.]
ROMEO.
Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage,
Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath
Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!
[Exeunt Tybalt with his Partizans.]
MERCUTIO.
I am hurt.
A plague o’ both your houses. I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?
BENVOLIO.
What, art thou hurt?
MERCUTIO.
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough.
Where is my page? Go villain, fetch a surgeon.
[Exit Page.]
ROMEO.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO.
No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but
’tis enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find
me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’
both your houses. Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to
death. A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
arithmetic!—Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.
ROMEO.
I thought all for the best.
MERCUTIO.
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses.
They have made worms’ meat of me.
I have it, and soundly too. Your houses!
[Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio.]
ROMEO.
This gentleman, the Prince’s near ally,
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation stain’d
With Tybalt’s slander,—Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my cousin.
Re-enter Benvolio.
BENVOLIO.

ROMEO.
This day’s black fate on mo days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.
Re-enter Tybalt.
BENVOLIO.
Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.
ROMEO.
Again 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 gav’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.
TYBALT.
Thou wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence.
ROMEO.
This shall determine that.
[They fight; Tybalt falls.]
BENVOLIO.
Romeo, away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
Stand not amaz’d. The Prince will doom thee death
If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!
ROMEO.
O, I am fortune’s fool!
BENVOLIO.
Why dost thou stay?
[Exit Romeo.]
Enter Citizens.
FIRST CITIZEN.
Which way ran he that kill’d Mercutio?
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?
BENVOLIO.
There lies that Tybalt.
FIRST CITIZEN.
Up, sir, go with me.
I charge thee in the Prince’s name obey.
Enter Prince, attended; Montague, Capulet, their Wives and others.
PRINCE.
Where are the vile beginners of this fray?
BENVOLIO.
O noble Prince, I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.
LADY CAPULET.
Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother’s child!
O Prince! O 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.
PRINCE.

BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay;
Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink
How nice the quarrel was, and urg’d withal
Your high displeasure. All this uttered
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow’d
Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,
‘Hold, friends! Friends, part!’ and swifter than his tongue,
His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled.
But by and by comes back to Romeo,
Who had but newly entertain’d revenge,
And to’t they go like lightning; for, ere I
Could draw to part them was stout Tybalt slain;
And as he fell did Romeo turn and fly.
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.
LADY CAPULET.
He is a kinsman to the Montague.
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.

I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give;
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.
PRINCE.
Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio.
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?
MONTAGUE.
Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend;
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.
PRINCE.
And for that offence
Immediately we do exile him hence.
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding.
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body, and attend our will.
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Juliet.
JULIET.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging. 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 runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties: or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle, till strange love, grow 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.

O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my Nurse,
And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.
Enter Nurse, with cords.
Now, Nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?
NURSE.
Ay, ay, the cords.
[Throws them down.]
JULIET.
Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?
NURSE.
Ah, well-a-day, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone.

JULIET.
Can heaven be so envious?
NURSE.
Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo.
Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!
JULIET.
What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but Ay,
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.

If he be slain, say Ay; or if not, No.
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
NURSE.
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
 I swounded at the sight.
JULIET.
O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, break at once.
To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.
Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.
NURSE.
O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had.
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead.
JULIET.
What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead?
My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?
NURSE.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.
JULIET.
O God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?
NURSE.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did.
JULIET.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!

Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.
NURSE.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo.
JULIET.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is 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?
JULIET.
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three-hours’ wife have mangled it?

That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you mistaking offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
That murder’d me. I would forget it fain,
But O, it presses to my memory
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.
That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there.
Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
Why follow’d not, when she said Tybalt’s dead,
Thy father or thy mother, nay or both,
Which modern 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.
JULIET.
Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are 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 Lawrence’ cell.
JULIET.
O find him, give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Friar Lawrence.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.
Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts
And thou art wedded to calamity.
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company.
I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.
ROMEO.
What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.
ROMEO.
Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say banishment.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hence from Verona art thou banished.
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
ROMEO.

Hence banished is banish’d from the world,
And world’s exile is death. Then banished
Is death misterm’d.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!

This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.
ROMEO.
’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
They are free men but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?

Howlings 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?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Thou fond mad man, hear me speak a little,
ROMEO.
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
ROMEO.
Yet banished? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, then I see that mad men have no ears.
ROMEO.
How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO.
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
[Knocking within.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.
ROMEO.
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.
[Knocking.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise,
Thou wilt be taken.—Stay awhile.—Stand up.
[Knocking.]
Run to my study.—By-and-by.—God’s will,
What simpleness is this.—I come, I come.
[Knocking.]
Who knocks so hard?
NURSE.
[Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.
I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Welcome then.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE.
O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
NURSE.
O, he is even in my mistress’ case.
Just in her case! O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament. Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man.
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
ROMEO.
Nurse.
NURSE.
Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.
ROMEO.
Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
With blood remov’d but little from her own?
Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?
NURSE.
O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
ROMEO.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
[Drawing his sword.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold thy desperate hand.
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And 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?

Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?
Since birth, and heaven and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy.
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.
A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But like a misshaped and sullen wench,
Thou putt’st up thy Fortune and thy love.

Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.
NURSE.
O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.
ROMEO.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
NURSE.
Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
[Exit.]
ROMEO.
How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
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 Mantua. I’ll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand; ’tis late; farewell; good night.
ROMEO.
But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and Paris.
CAPULET.
Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily
That we have had no time to move our daughter.
 Well, we were born to die.
’Tis very late; she’ll not come down tonight.
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been abed an hour ago.
PARIS.
These times of woe afford no tune to woo.
Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.
LADY CAPULET.
I will, and know her mind early tomorrow;
Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.
CAPULET.
Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child’s love. I think she will be rul’d
In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.

PARIS.
Monday, my lord.
CAPULET.
Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
A Thursday let it be; a Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?
We’ll keep no great ado,—a friend or two,
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much.
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?
PARIS.
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.
CAPULET.
Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.

Farewell, my lord.—Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me, it is so very very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Romeo and Juliet.
JULIET.
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

JULIET.
Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhales
To be to thee this night a torchbearer
And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.
ROMEO.
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death,
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.
Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go.
Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.
JULIET.
It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes.
O, now I would they had chang’d voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O now be gone, more light and light it grows.
ROMEO.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE.
Madam.
JULIET.
Nurse?
NURSE.

The day is broke, be wary, look about.
[Exit.]
JULIET.
Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
ROMEO.
Farewell, farewell, one kiss, and I’ll descend.
[Descends.]
JULIET.
Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay husband, friend,
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days.
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo.
ROMEO.
Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
JULIET.
O thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO.
I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
JULIET.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.
ROMEO.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.
[Exit below.]
JULIET.
O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle,
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune;
For then, I hope thou wilt not keep him long
But send him back.
LADY CAPULET.
[Within.] Ho, daughter, are you up?
JULIET.
Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET.
Why, how now, Juliet?
JULIET.
Madam, I am not well.
LADY CAPULET.
Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.
Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love,
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
JULIET.
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
LADY CAPULET.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.
JULIET.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
LADY CAPULET.
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death
As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.
JULIET.
What villain, madam?
LADY CAPULET.
That same villain Romeo.
JULIET.
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
God pardon him. I do, with all my heart.
And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
LADY CAPULET.
That is because the traitor murderer lives.
JULIET.
Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands.
Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.
LADY CAPULET.
We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.
JULIET.
Indeed I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d.
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it,
That Romeo should upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.
LADY CAPULET.
Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
JULIET.
And joy comes well in such a needy time.
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
LADY CAPULET.
Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
One who to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.
JULIET.
Madam, in happy time, what day is that?
LADY CAPULET.
Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
JULIET.
Now by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste, that I must wed
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.
LADY CAPULET.
Here comes your father, tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.
Enter Capulet and Nurse.
CAPULET.
When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother’s son
It rains downright.
How now? A conduit, girl? What, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind.
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood, the winds, thy sighs,
Who raging with thy tears and they with them,
Without a sudden calm will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?
Have you deliver’d to her our decree?
LADY CAPULET.
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave.
CAPULET.
Soft.
How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
JULIET.

Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate that is meant love.
CAPULET.
How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this?
Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not;
And yet not proud. Mistress minion you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next
To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!
LADY CAPULET.
Fie, fie! What, are you mad?
JULIET.
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
CAPULET.
Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That God had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her.
Out on her, hilding.
NURSE.
God in heaven bless her.
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
CAPULET.
And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
NURSE.
I speak no treason.
CAPULET.
O God ye good-en!
NURSE.
May not one speak?
CAPULET.
Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,
For here we need it not.
LADY CAPULET.

CAPULET.
God’s bread, it makes me mad!
Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match’d, and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied,
Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man,
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love,
I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’
But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you.
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.
Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise.
And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.
[Exit.]
JULIET.
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O sweet my mother, cast me not away,
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
LADY CAPULET.
Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
[Exit.]
JULIET.
O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself.
What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, Nurse.
NURSE.
Faith, here it is.

Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the County.
O, he’s a lovely gentleman.
Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.
JULIET.
Speakest thou from thy heart?
NURSE.
And from my soul too,
Or else beshrew them both.
JULIET.
Amen.
NURSE.
What?
JULIET.
Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in, and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell,
To make confession and to be absolv’d.
NURSE.
Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
[Exit.]
JULIET.
Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais’d him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy.
If all else fail, myself have power to die.
[Exit.]
Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.
PARIS.
My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course; I like it not.
PARIS.
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she do give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears,
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
[Aside.] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.—
Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.
Enter Juliet.
PARIS.
Happily met, my lady and my wife!
JULIET.
That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
PARIS.
That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.
JULIET.
What must be shall be.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s a certain text.
PARIS.
Come you to make confession to this father?
JULIET.
To answer that, I should confess to you.
PARIS.
Do not deny to him that you love me.
JULIET.
I will confess to you that I love him.
PARIS.
So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
JULIET.

PARIS.

JULIET.
The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.
PARIS.
Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.
JULIET.
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
PARIS.
Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.
JULIET.
It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
PARIS.
God shield I should disturb devotion!—
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye,
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
[Exit.]
JULIET.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this County.
JULIET.
Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
If in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel, or behold
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it.
And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.
JULIET.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower,
Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk
Where serpents are.
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble,
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow;
Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest,
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part depriv’d of supple government,
Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death.
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
Then as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes, uncover’d, on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come, and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
JULIET.
Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear!
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.
JULIET.
Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse and Servants.
CAPULET.
So many guests invite as here are writ.
[Exit first Servant.]
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.
SECOND SERVANT.
You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can
lick their fingers.
CAPULET.
How canst thou try them so?
SECOND SERVANT.
Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers;
therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.
CAPULET.
Go, begone.
[Exit second Servant.]
We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time.
What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?
NURSE.
Ay, forsooth.
CAPULET.
Well, he may chance to do some good on her.
A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.
Enter Juliet.
NURSE.
See where she comes from shrift with merry look.
CAPULET.
How now, my headstrong. Where have you been gadding?
JULIET.
Where I have learnt me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d
By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here,
To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you.
Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you.
CAPULET.
Send for the County, go tell him of this.
I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.
JULIET.
I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell,
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.
CAPULET.
Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up.
This is as’t should be. Let me see the County.
Ay, marry. Go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now afore God, this reverend holy Friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.
JULIET.
Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?
LADY CAPULET.
No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.
CAPULET.
Go, Nurse, go with her. We’ll to church tomorrow.
[Exeunt Juliet and Nurse.]
LADY CAPULET.
We shall be short in our provision,
’Tis now near night.
CAPULET.
Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.
I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone.
I’ll play the housewife for this once.—What, ho!—
They are all forth: well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare him up
Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Juliet and Nurse.
JULIET.
Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin.
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET.
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?
JULIET.
No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you,
For I am sure you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business.
LADY CAPULET.
Good night.
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.
[Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse.]
JULIET.
Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
[Laying down her dagger.]
What if it be a poison, which the Friar
Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!

Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink! I drink to thee.
[Throws herself on the bed.]
Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.
LADY CAPULET.
Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, Nurse.
NURSE.
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.
Enter Capulet.
CAPULET.
Come, stir, stir, stir!
Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica;
Spare not for cost.
NURSE.

CAPULET.
No, not a whit. What! I have watch’d ere now
All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.
LADY CAPULET.
Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;
But I will watch you from such watching now.
[Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse.]
CAPULET.
A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!
Enter Servants, with spits, logs and baskets.
Now, fellow, what’s there?
FIRST SERVANT.
Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.
CAPULET.
Make haste, make haste.
[Exit First Servant.]
—Sirrah, fetch drier logs.
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.
SECOND SERVANT.
I have a head, sir, that will find out logs
And never trouble Peter for the matter.
[Exit.]
CAPULET.
Mass and well said; a merry whoreson, ha.

The County will be here with music straight,
For so he said he would. I hear him near.
[Play music.]
Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, Nurse, I say!
Re-enter Nurse.

I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,
Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already.
Make haste I say.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Nurse.
NURSE.
Mistress! What, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.
Why, lamb, why, lady, fie, you slug-abed!
Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweetheart! Why, bride!
What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now.
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The County Paris hath set up his rest
That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!
Marry and amen. How sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the County take you in your bed,
He’ll fright you up, i’faith. Will it not be?
What, dress’d, and in your clothes, and down again?
I must needs wake you. Lady! Lady! Lady!
Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead!
O, well-a-day that ever I was born.
Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET.
What noise is here?
NURSE.
O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET.
What is the matter?
NURSE.
Look, look! O heavy day!
LADY CAPULET.
O me, O me! My child, my only life.

Help, help! Call help.
Enter Capulet.
CAPULET.
For shame, bring Juliet forth, her lord is come.
NURSE.
She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s dead; alack the day!
LADY CAPULET.

CAPULET.
Ha! Let me see her. Out alas! She’s cold,
Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
NURSE.
O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET.
O woful time!
CAPULET.

Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris with Musicians.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
CAPULET.
Ready to go, but never to return.
O son, the night before thy wedding day
Hath death lain with thy bride. There she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.

And leave him all; life, living, all is death’s.
PARIS.
Have I thought long to see this morning’s face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?
LADY CAPULET.
Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day.
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage.
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight.
NURSE.
O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day.
Most lamentable day, most woeful day
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!

Never was seen so black a day as this.

PARIS.
Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain.
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d,
By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown.
O love! O life! Not life, but love in death!
CAPULET.
Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d.
Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?
O child! O child! My soul, and not my child,
Dead art thou.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Peace, ho, for shame. Confusion’s cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid.
Your part in her you could not keep from death,
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion,
For ’twas your heaven she should be advanc’d,
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?

She’s not well married that lives married long,
But she’s best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,
And in her best array bear her to church;
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.
CAPULET.
All things that we ordained festival
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,
And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave.
The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;
Move them no more by crossing their high will.
[Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar.]
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.
NURSE.
Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up,
For well you know this is a pitiful case.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
[Exit Nurse.]
Enter Peter.
PETER.
Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’
‘Heart’s ease’, O, and you will have me live, play
‘Heart’s ease.’
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Why ‘Heart’s ease’?
PETER.
O musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is
full’. O play me some merry dump to comfort me.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Not a dump we, ’tis no time to play now.
PETER.
You will not then?
FIRST MUSICIAN.
No.
PETER.
I will then give it you soundly.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
What will you give us?
PETER.
No money, on my faith, but the gleek! I will give you the
minstrel.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Then will I give you the serving-creature.
PETER.
Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will carry
no crotchets.  Do you note me?
FIRST MUSICIAN.

SECOND MUSICIAN.

PETER.
Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an
iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.
‘When griping griefs the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound’—
Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’?
What say you, Simon Catling?
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
PETER.
Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
SECOND MUSICIAN.
I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.
PETER.
Prates too! What say you, James Soundpost?
THIRD MUSICIAN.
Faith, I know not what to say.
PETER.
 I will say for you. It is ‘music
with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for sounding.
‘Then music with her silver sound
With speedy help doth lend redress.’
[Exit.]
FIRST MUSICIAN.
What a pestilent knave is this same!
SECOND MUSICIAN.
Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay
dinner.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,—
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv’d, and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.
Enter Balthasar.
News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.
BALTHASAR.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
ROMEO.
Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.
BALTHASAR.
I do beseech you sir, have patience.
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.
ROMEO.
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?
BALTHASAR.
No, my good lord.
ROMEO.
No matter.  I’ll be with thee straight.
[Exit Balthasar.]
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
Let’s see for means. O mischief thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples, meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.
What, ho! Apothecary!
Enter Apothecary.
APOTHECARY.
Who calls so loud?
ROMEO.
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.
Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
APOTHECARY.
Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.
ROMEO.
 Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it and take this.
APOTHECARY.
My poverty, but not my will consents.
ROMEO.
I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
APOTHECARY.
Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
ROMEO.
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.
[Exeunt.]
Enter Friar John.
FRIAR JOHN.
Holy Franciscan Friar! Brother, ho!
Enter Friar Lawrence.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
This same should be the voice of Friar John.
Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
FRIAR JOHN.
Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth,
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
FRIAR JOHN.
I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge,
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger.
FRIAR JOHN.
Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.
[Exit.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now must I to the monument alone.
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come.
Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb.
[Exit.]
Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.
PARIS.
Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof.
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,
Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear’st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
PAGE.
[Aside.] I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.
[Retires.]
PARIS.
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans.
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
[The Page whistles.]
The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?
What, with a torch! Muffle me, night, awhile.
[Retires.]
Enter Romeo and Balthasar with a torch, mattock, &c.
ROMEO.
Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death
Is partly to behold my lady’s face,
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
BALTHASAR.
I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
ROMEO.
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.
Live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.
BALTHASAR.
For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout.
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
[Retires]
ROMEO.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
[Breaking open the door of the monument.]
And in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food.
PARIS.
This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died,—
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.
[Advances.]
Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague.
Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.
Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.
ROMEO.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.
Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O be gone.
By heaven I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm’d against myself.
Stay not, be gone, live, and hereafter say,
A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.
PARIS.
I do defy thy conjuration,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.
ROMEO.
Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!
[They fight.]
PAGE.
O lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.
[Exit.]
PARIS.
O, I am slain! [Falls.] If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
[Dies.]
ROMEO.
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet.
Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so?
I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
A grave?
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.
[Laying Paris in the monument.]
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! Which their keepers call
A lightning before death. O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife,
Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquer’d. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.

O, what more favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that I still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again. Here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace!