ACT I, scene iii
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
Your mother.
JULIET
Madam, I am here.
What is your will?
LADY CAPULET
This is the matter:–Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret:–nurse, come back again;
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel.
Thou know’st my daughter’s of a pretty age.
NURSE
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
NURSE
Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.
LADY CAPULET
Marry, that ‘marry’ is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET
It is an honour that I dream not of.
NURSE
An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.
LADY CAPULET
Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
NURSE
A man, young lady! lady, such a man
As all the world–why, he’s a man of wax.
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 obscured 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 every thing 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
ACT I, scene 4
A street
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 a 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
You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
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:
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.
ACT I, scene 5
ROMEO
[To a Servingman] What lady is that, which doth
enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?
Servant
I know not, sir.
ROMEO
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
TYBALT
This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
CAPULET
Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?
TYBALT
Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,
A villain that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.
CAPULET
Young Romeo is it?
TYBALT
‘Tis he, that villain Romeo.
CAPULET
Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;
He bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth:
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,
And ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
TYBALT
It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him.
CAPULET
He shall be endured:
What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;
Am I the master here, or you? go to.
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop! you’ll be the man!
Exit
ROMEO
[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
JULIET
You kiss by the book.
Nurse
Madam, your mother craves a word with you.
ROMEO
What is her mother?
Nurse
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
I nursed her daughter, that you talk’d withal;
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.
ROMEO
Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! my life is my foe’s debt.
BENVOLIO
Away, begone; the sport is at the best.
ROMEO
Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.
CAPULET
Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
Is it e’en so? why, then, I thank you all
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
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 Petrucio.
JULIET
What’s he that follows there, that would not dance?
Nurse
I know not.
JULIET
Go ask his name: if he be married.
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
Nurse
His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
The only son of your great enemy.
JULIET
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.
Nurse
What’s this? what’s this?
JULIET
A rhyme I learn’d even now
Of one I danced withal.
One calls within ‘Juliet.’
Nurse
Anon, anon!
Come, let’s away; the strangers all are gone.
Exeunt