Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare [top rated books of all time txt] 📗

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.

 

ROMEO: A torch for me: let wantons light of heart

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.

 

MERCUTIO: Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word:

If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick’st Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!

 

ROMEO: Nay, that’s not so.

 

MERCUTIO: I mean, sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits Five 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 comes 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 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 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’ coachmakers. 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 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 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, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That 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, Which is as thin of substance as the air

And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes

Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

 

BENVOLIO: This wind, you talk of, blows us from our selves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

 

ROMEO: I fear, too early: for my mind misgives

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night’s revels and expire the term

Of a despised life closed in my breast

By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

But He, that hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.

 

BENVOLIO: Strike, drum. [Exeunt.]

 

SCENE V: A hall in Capulet’s house.

[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

toes

Unplagued 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 day

That I have worn a visor and could tell

A 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 I Were 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 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 honor 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! 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 meeting

Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall

Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall. [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.]

Act II

 

 

 

PROLOGUE

 

 

ACT II

 

 

 

 

[Enter Chorus.]

 

 

SCENE I: A lane by the wall of Capulet’s orchard. [Enter ROMEO.]

ROMEO: Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

 

Chorus: Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie, And young affection gapes to be his heir;

That fair for which love groan’d for and would die, With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair.

Now Romeo is beloved and loves again, Alike betwitched by the charm of looks, But to his foe supposed he must complain,

And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks: Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear; And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new-beloved any where:

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet

Tempering extremities with extreme sweet. [Exit.]

[He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it.] [Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.]

BENVOLIO: Romeo! my cousin Romeo!

 

MERCUTIO: He is wise;

And, on my lie, hath stol’n him home to bed.

 

BENVOLIO: He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:

Call, good Mercutio.

 

MERCUTIO: Nay, I’ll conjure too. Romeo! humors! madman! passion! lover!