I have more care1 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.

JUL. 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;2
This doth not so, for she divideth us:

Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes;3
O, now I would they had chang'd voices too;
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.
ROм. More light and light?

woes.

more dark and dark our

Enter Nurse.

NURSE. Madam!

JUL. Nurse?

NURSE. Your lady mother's coming to your chamber: The day is broke; be wary, look about.

[Exit Nurse.

JUL. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
ROM. Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.
[ROMEO descends.
JUL. Art thou gone so? my love! my lord! my friend!

I must hear from thee every day i' 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.5

ROM. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

1) Care was frequently used in Shakspeare's age for inclination. Ma

lone.

2) Division, the technical phrase for the pauses or parts of a musical composition. To run a division, is also a musical term.

3) The toad having very fine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones, was the occasion of a common saying amongst the people, that the toad and lark had changed eyes. To this the speaker alludes. Warburton.

4) If the toad and lark had changed voices, the unnatural croak of the latter would have been no inROMEO AND JULIET.

dication of the appearance of day, and consequently no signal for her lover's departure. This is apparently the aim and purpose of Juliet's wish. Heath. Johnson gives the following explication: The lark, they say, has lost her eyes to the toad, and now I would the toad had her voice too, since she uses it to the disturbance of lovers.

5) A rare example of one poet meeting with the idea of another. Ovid says, Heroid. Ep. I:

Certe ego, quae fueram te discedente puella,
Protinus ut redeas, facta videbor anus.
5

JUL. O, think'st thou, we shall ever meet again? ROM. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve For sweet discourses in our time to come,

JUL. Alas, I have an ill-divining soul: Methinks, I see thee, now thou art below, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:

Either my eye-sight fails, or thou look'st pale.

ROM. And trust me, love, in mine eye so do you: Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu! adieu! [Exit ROMEO.

JUL. O fortune! fortune! all men call thee fickle: 2

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.

LA. CAP. [Within.] Ho, daughter! are you up.
JUL. Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?3
What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?

4

Enter LADY CAPULET.

LA. CAP. Why, how now, Juliet!

JUL.

Madam, I am not well. LA. CAP. 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.

JUL. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss. 5

LA. CAP. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend, Which you weep for.

JUL.

Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LA. CAP. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his

death,

As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.

1) There is a proverb - "Sorrow's dry." He is accounting for their paleness. It was an ancient notion that sorrow consumed the blood, and shortened life. Hence in the third part of King Henry VI. we have blood-sucking sighs."

2) Inconstant, unstable, caprici

ous.

3) Is she not laid down in her bed at so late an hour as this? or rather is she risen from bed at so early an hour of the morn? Malone.

4) Procures for brings.

5) Affecting, tending to excite the passions; as, he spoke with feeling eloquence.

JUL. What villain, madam?

LA. CAP.

That same villain, Romeo.

JUL. Villain and he are many miles asunder. Heaven pardon him! I do, with all my heart; And yet no man, like he, doth grieve my heart.

LA. CAP. That is, because the traitor murderer lives. JUL. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands. 'Would, none but I might 'venge my cousin's death!

LA. CAP. 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 runagate1 doth live,-
That shall bestow on him so sure a draught,
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

JUL. 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.
To hear him nam'd,

O, how my heart abhors.
and cannot come to him,

To wreak 2 the love I bore my cousin Tybalt
Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!

LA. CAP. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

But now,

JUL. And joy comes well in such a needful time: What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

LA. CAP. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child; One, who, to put thee from thy heaviness,

Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,

That thou expect'st not, nor I look'd not for.

JUL. Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

LA. CAP. 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.

1) Fugitive, rebel, vagabond.

2) To wreak (pr. reek), to revenge.

3) A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected, when the hearer

was not quite so well pleased as the speaker.

4) It is remarked, that Paris, though in one place called Earl, is most commonly styled the County in this play.

JUL. 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 ar news indeed!

LA. CAP. Here comes your father: tell him so yourself, And see how he will take it at your hands.

Enter CAPULET and NURSE.

CAP. When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;1 But for the sunset of my brother's son,

It rains downright.

2

How now? a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
Ever more showering; in one little body

Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind:
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood: the winds, thy sighs;
raging with thy tears, and they with them,
Without a sudden calm, will overset

Who,

Thy tempest-tossed body,

How now, wife?

Have you deliver'd to her our decree?

LA. CAP. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks. I would, the fool were married to her grave!

CAP. Soft, take me with you,3 take me with you, wife. How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?

Is she not proud? doth she not count her bless'd,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought

So worthy a gentleman to be her bridgeroom?

JUL. Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have: Proud can I never be of what I hate;

But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.

CAP. How now! how now, chop-logick!5 What is this? Proud, and, I thank you, and, I thank you not;

1) To drizzle, from the German rieseln (compare the Latin ros, dew; the French arroser), to shed in small drops. We say, it drizzles; drizzling rain or tears.

2) A channel or passage for water; a gutter.

3) That is, Explain yourself more clearly.

4) To esteem or consider.

5) Chop-logick is a vulgar nickname, meaning a fool.

And yet not proud;

Mistress minion1 you,

Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But settle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,2
To go with Paris to St. Peter's church,

Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

LA. CAP.

Fye, fye! what, are you mad? JUL. Good father, I beseech you on my knees, Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

CAP. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!4 I tell thee what, get thee to church o' Thursday, Or never after look me in the face:

Speak not, reply not, do not answer me:

My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us bless'd,
That heaven had sent us but this only child :

But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her.

NURSE. You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
CAP. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
NURSE. May not one speak?

САР.

No: Peace, you mumbling fool!

Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,
For here we need it not.

LA. CAP.

You are too hot.

CAP. God's bread! it makes me mad: Day, night, late, early, At home, abroad, alone, in company,

Waking, or sleeping, still my care hath been
To have her match'd: and having now provided
A gentleman of princely parentage,

Of fair demesnes, 5 youthful, and nobly train'd,"
Stuff'd (as they say) with honourable parts,7
Proportion'd as one's heart could wish a man,
And then to have a wretched puling fool,

1) The French mignon, darling, favourite.

2) That is, prepare yourself, and be ready by next Thursday.

3) A sledge or crate on which criminals were drawn to the place of execution.

4) Such expressions would not be tolerated now, but they were in frequent use in the less refined age in which Shakspeare wrote,

8

5) Demesnes (pron. demēnes), spelled also demains, the plural of demesne (pron. demēne), that land which a man holds originally of himself; an estate in lands.

6) To train, to educate, to bring up, commonly with up.

7) Parts, in the plural, qualities, faculties, accomplishments.

8) Crying like a chicken; whining.