The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

on Romeo cries, And then down falls again.

Rom. As if that name,

Shot from the deadly level of a gun,

Did murther 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. [Draws his dagger.]

Friar. 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!

Or 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?

And slay thy lady that in thy life lives, By doing damned hate upon thyself?

Why railest 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 shamest 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 get afire by thine own ignorance,

And thou dismemb’red 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. Tybalt would kill thee, But thou slewest Tybalt. There art thou happy too.

The law, that threat’ned 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 misbhav’d and sullen wench, Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love.

Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

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.

Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

Nurse. Here is a ring she bid me give you, sir.

Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. Exit.

Rom. How well my comfort is reviv’d by this!

Friar. 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.

Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me, It were a grief so brief to part with thee.

Farewell.

Exeunt.

 

Scene IV.

Capulet’s house

 

Enter Old Capulet, his Wife, and Paris.

 

Cap. Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily That we have had no time to move our daughter.

Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly, And so did I. 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.

Par. These times of woe afford no tune to woo.

Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.

Lady. I will, and know her mind early tomorrow; Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.

Cap. 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.

Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed; Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love And bid her (mark you me?) on Wednesday next-But, soft! what day is this?

Par. Monday, my lord.

Cap. Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.

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?

Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.

Cap. Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.

Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed;

Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.

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

Scene V.

Capulet’s orchard.

 

Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft, at the Window.

 

Jul. 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.

Rom. 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.

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Jul. 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 the way to Mantua.

Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone.

Rom. 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.

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; This doth not so, for she divideth us.

Some say the lark and loathed toad chang’d 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.

Rom. More light and light-more dark and dark our woes!

 

Enter Nurse.

 

Nurse. Madam!

Jul. Nurse?

Nurse. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.

The day is broke; be wary, look about.

Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

[Exit.]

Rom. Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I’ll descend.

He goeth down.

Jul. Art thou gone so, my lord, my love, my 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!

Rom. Farewell!

I will omit no opportunity

That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

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. O God, 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 eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.

Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

Exit.

Jul. 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. [within] Ho, daughter! are you up?

Jul. Who is’t that calls? It is my lady mother.

Is she not down so late, or up so early?

What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?

 

Enter Mother.

 

Lady. Why, how now, Juliet?

Jul. Madam, I am not well.

Lady. Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?

What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?

An 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.

Lady. 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.

Lady. Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

Jul. What villain, madam?

Lady. That same villain Romeo.

Jul. [aside] 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. 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!

Lady. 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.

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. O, how my heart abhors To hear him nam’d and cannot come to him, To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him!

Lady. Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.

But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

Jul. And joy comes well in such a needy time.

What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

Lady. 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.

Jul. Madam, in happy time! What day is that?

Lady. 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.

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