Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
| Enter Sampson and Gregory, of the house of Capulet, armed with swords and |
| bucklers |
| Sampson | Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals. |
| Gregory | No, for then we should be colliers. |
| Sampson | I mean, an we be in choler, we’ll draw. |
| Gregory | Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar. |
| 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 cruel with the maids, and 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 two of the house of the Montagues. |
| 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 a disgrace to them, if they bear it. |
| Enter Abraham and Balthasar |
| Abraham | Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? |
| Sampson | I do bite my thumb, sir. |
| Abraham | Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? |
| Sampson | [Aside to Gregory] 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? |
| Abraham | Quarrel sir! no, sir. |
| Sampson | If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you. |
| Abraham | No better. |
| Sampson | Well, sir. |
| Gregory | Say ‘better:’ here comes one of my master’s kinsmen. |
| Sampson | Yes, better, sir. |
| Abraham | You lie. |
| Sampson | Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow. |
| They fight | |
| Enter Benvolio | |
| Benvolio | Part, fools! |
| Put up your swords; you know not what you do. |
| 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! I hate the word, |
| As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: |
| Have at thee, coward! |
| They fight | |
| Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray; then enter 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 Lady Montague |
| Montague | Thou villain Capulet — Hold me not, let me go. |
| Lady Montague | Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe. |
| Enter Prince, with Attendants |
| Prince | Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, |
| Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel — |
| Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts, |
| That quench the fire of your pernicious rage |
| With purple fountains issuing from your veins, |
| On pain of torture, from those bloody hands |
| Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground, |
| And hear the sentence of your moved prince. |
| Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, |
| By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, |
| Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets, |
| And made Verona’s ancient citizens |
| Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, |
| To wield old partisans, in hands as old, |
| Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate: |
| If ever you disturb our streets again, |
| Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. |
| For this time, all the rest depart away: |
| You Capulet; shall go along with me: |
| And, Montague, come you this afternoon, |
| To know our further pleasure in this case, |
| To old Free-town, our common judgment-place. |
| Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. |
| Exeunt all but Montague, Lady Montague, and Benvolio |
| 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 prepared, |
| Which, as he breathed 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 to-day? |
| 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 sycamoreThat westward rooteth from the city’s side,So early walking did I see your son:Towards him I made, but he was ware of meAnd stole into the covert of the wood:I, measuring his affections by my own,That most are busied when they’re most alone,Pursued 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 dew.Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;But all so soon as the all-cheering sunShould in the furthest east begin to drawThe shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,Away from the light steals home my heavy son,And private in his chamber pens himself,Shuts up his windows, locks far daylight outAnd 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 importuned 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 Montazgue and Lady Montazgue |
| 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 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? |
| 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 prestWith more of thine: this love that thou hast shownDoth add more grief to too much of mine own.Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; |
| Benvolio | 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. |
| 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 | Bid a sick man in sadness make his will: |
| Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman. |
| Benvolio | I aim’d so near, when I supposed you loved. |
| Romeo | A right good mark-man! 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 unharm’d.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 store. |
| Benvolio | Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste? |
| Romeo | She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste, |
| For beauty starved with her severityCuts 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 vowDo I live dead that live to tell it now. |
| Benvolio | Be ruled by me, forget to think of her. |
| Romeo | O, teach me how I should forget to think. |
| Benvolio | By giving liberty unto thine eyes; |
| Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant |
| Capulet | But Montague is bound as well as I, |
| Paris | In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,For men so old as we to keep the peace.Of honourable reckoning are you both; |
| And pity ’tis you lived at odds so long.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 swallow’d all my hopes but she,She is the hopeful lady of my earth:But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,My will to her consent is but a part;An she agree, within her scope of choiceLies 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 nightEarth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:Such comfort as do lusty young men feelWhen well-apparell’d April on the heelOf limping winter treads, even such delightAmong fresh female buds shall you this nightInherit at my house; hear all, all see,And like her most whose merit most shall be:Which on more view, of many mine being oneMay stand in number, though in reckoning none,Come, go with me. |
| To Servants, giving a paper |
| Go, sirrah, trudge about |
| Through fair Verona; find those persons out |
| Whose names are written there, 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 | Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning,One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:Take thou some new infection to thy eye,And the rank poison of the old will die. |
| Romeo | Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that. |
| Benvolio | For what, I pray thee? |
| Romeo | For your broken shin. |
| Benvolio | Why, Romeo, art thou mad? |
| Romeo | Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;Shut up in prison, kept without my food,Whipp’d and tormented and — God-den, good fellow. |
| Servant | God gi’ god-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 any thing 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. |
| Breads | |
| ‘Signior Martino and his wife and daughters; County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitravio; 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? |
| Servant | Up. |
| Romeo | Whither? |
| Servant | To supper; 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’sSups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,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. |
| Romeo | When the devout religion of mine eyeMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;And these, who often drown’d could never die,Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sunNe’er saw her match since first the world begun. |
| Benvolio | Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by, |
| 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. |
| Lady Capulet | She’s not fourteen. |
| Nurse | I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth —And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four —She is not fourteen. How long is it nowTo 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 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 nippleOf my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!Shake quoth the dove-house: ’twas no need, I trow,To bid me trudge:And since that time it is eleven years;For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,She could have run and waddled all about;For even the day before, she broke her brow:And then my husband — God be with his soul!A’ was a merry man — took up the child:‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face?Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;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, 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 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 its browA 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 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 nursed:An I might live to see thee married once,I have my wish. |
| Lady Capulet | Marry, that ‘marry’ is the very themeI 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 yearsThat 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 manAs 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 contentAnd what obscured in this fair volume liesFind 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 prideFor 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 eyeThan 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. |
| 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 spokeAfter 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 leadSo 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 IWhat 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 heartTickle 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 mireOf this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick’stUp to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho! |
| Romeo | Nay, that’s not so. |
| Mercutio | I mean, sir, in delayWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.Take our good meaning, for our judgment sitsFive 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 dream’d a dream to-night. |
| 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 comesIn shape no bigger than an agate-stoneOn the fore-finger of an alderman,Drawn with a team of little atomiesAthwart men’s noses as they lie asleep;Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders’ legs, |
| The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,The traces of the smallest spider’s web,The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams,Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film,Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,Not so big as a round little wormPrick’d from the lazy finger of a maid;Her chariot is an empty hazel-nutMade by the joiner squirrel or old grub,Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.And in this state she gallops night by nightThrough lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight,O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tailTickling 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,Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anonDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,And being thus frighted swears a prayer or twoAnd sleeps again. This is that very MabThat plats the manes of horses in the night,And bakes the elflocks 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, |
| Musicians waiting. Enter Servingmen with napkins |
| 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 unwashed too, ’tis a foul thing. |
| First Servant | Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell. Antony, and Potpan! |
| 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. |
| Enter Capulet, with Juliet and others of his house, meeting the Guests and Maskers |
| Capulet | Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toesUnplagued with corns will have a bout with you.Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all |
| Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,She, I’ll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the dayThat I have worn a visor and could tellA 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 IWere in a mask? |
| Second Capulet | By’r lady, thirty years. |
| Capulet | What, man! ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much: |
| ’Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,Come pentecost as quickly as it will,Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d. |
| Second Capulet | ’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 | [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 nightLike 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 slaveCome 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 himTo be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth:I would not for the wealth of all the townHere 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! |
| Tybalt | Why, uncle, ’tis a shame. |
| Capulet | Go to, go to;You are a saucy boy: 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 meetingMakes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. |
