Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from the city's side, 128
So early walking did I see your son:
Towards him I made; but he was ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood:
I, measuring his affections by my own,
That most are busied when they're most alone,
Pursu'd my humour not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.
Mon. Many a morning hath he there been
136 With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew, Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs:
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing! of nothing first create.
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick
health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
Ben.
No, coz, I rather weep. 188
Rom. Good heart, at what?
Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.
Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, 192
Which thou wilt propagate to have it press'd
With more of thine: this love that thou hast
shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; 197
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.
Soft, I will go along; An if you leave me so, you do me wrong. Rom. Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here;
Ben. I aim'd so near when I suppos'd you lov'd.
Rom. A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.
212 Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
Rom. Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not
be hit
With Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd, 216
From love's weak childish bow she lives un-
harm'd.
Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early
made.
Earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
220 My will to her consent is but a part;
An she agree, within her scope of choice
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O! she is rich in beauty; only poor
That, when she dies, with beauty dies her Lies my consent and fair according voice.
store.
This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,
Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still Whereto I have invited many a guest
live chaste?
Such as I love; and you, among the store,
Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes One more, most welcome, makes my number 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.
never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good time.
Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO.
Ben. Tut! man, one fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish; 48 Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish:
With all the admired beauties of Verona:
Go thither; and, with unattainted eye
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow. 92
Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to
fires!
And these, who often drown'd could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars! 96
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.
Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being
by,
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.
Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for 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.
104
Ben. For what, I pray thee?
Rom.
For your broken shin.
Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a
madman is;
Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipp'd and tormented, and-Good den, good fellow.
Serv. God gi' good den. I pray, sir, can you read?
Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. 60 Serv. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book: but, I pray, can you read any thing you see?
Rom. Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
Serv. Ye say honestly; rest you merry!
[Offering to go.
Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.
Signior Martino and his wife and daugh-
ters; County Anselme and his beauteous sis-
ters; the lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior
Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio and
his brother Valentine; mine uncle Capulet, his
wife and daughters; my fair niece Rosaline;
Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt;
Lucio and the lively Helena.
A fair assembly: whither should they come?
Serv. Up.
Rom. Whither?
Serv. To supper; to our house.
Rom. Whose house?
Serv. My master's.
Rom. Indeed, I should have asked you that before.
Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry!
[Exit. Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's, Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st, 88
Lady Cap. A fortnight and odd days.
Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Susan and she-God rest all Christian souls!—
Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me. But, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean'd, I never shall forget it,
Of all the days of the year, upon that day;
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
My lord and you were then at Mantua.
Nay, I do bear a brain:-but, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool!
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug.
'Shake,' quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need,
I trow,
For then she could stand high lone; nay, by the rood, 36
She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before she broke her brow:
And then my husband-God be with his soul!
A' was a merry man-took up the child:
'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my halidom,
The pretty wretch left crying, and said 'Ay.' 44
To see now how a jest shall come about!
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?'
quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.' Lady Cap. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
Nurse. Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh,
To think it should leave crying, and say 'Ay.' And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone; A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly: 'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou com'st to age; 56
Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.' Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
This night you shall behold him at our feast; 80
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 eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story: 92
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him making yourself no less.
Nurse. No less! nay, bigger; women grow by
Serv. 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 Cap. We follow thee. Juliet, the county stays.
Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. [Exeunt.
SCENE IV.-The Same. A Street. Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six Masquers, Torch-Bearers, and Others. Rom. What! shall this speech be spoke for our excuse,
Or shall we on without apology?
Ben. The date is out of such prolixity:
If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire,
Of-save your reverence-love, wherein thou
stick'st
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!
Rom. Nay, that's not so.
Mer.
I mean, sir, in delay 44
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf, 4 Five times in that ere once in our five wits.
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With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
Mer. You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his
shaft
To soar with his light feathers; and so bound 20
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
Under love's heavy burden do I sink.
Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing. 24 Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.
Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in:
A visor for a visor! what care I,
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me. 32
Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no sooner
in,
But every man betake him to his legs.
Rom. A torch for me; let wantons, light of heart,
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; 64
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of
love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice;
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
40 Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 85
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels,
For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase;
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.
The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.
Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's
own word:
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