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

say, Two may keep counsel, putting one away?

ROMEO: I warrant thee, my man’s as true as steel. NURSE: Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady—

Lord, Lord! when ’twas a little prating thing:—O, there

is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer man; but, I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?

ROMEO: Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R. Nurse: Ah. mocker! that’s the dog’s name; R is for

the—No; I know it begins with some other

letter:—and she hath the prettiest sententious of

it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good

to hear it.

 

ROMEO: Commend me to thy lady. Nurse: Ay, a thousand times.

[Exit Romeo.] Peter!

PETER: Anon!

 

Nurse: Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace. [Exeunt]

 

SCENE V: Capulet’s orchard.

 

 

[Enter JULIET.]

 

JULIET: The clock struck nine when I did send the

nurse;

In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him: that’s not so.

O, she is lame! love’s heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams, Driving back shadows over louring hills:

Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love, And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill

Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve

Is three long hours, yet she is not come.

Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She would be as swift in motion as a ball;

My words would bandy her to my sweet love, And his to me:

But old folks, many feign as they were dead; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

O God, she comes!

[Enter Nurse and PETER.] O honey nurse, what news?

Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

Nurse: Peter, stay at the gate.

 

[Exit PETER.]

 

JULIET: Now, good sweet nurse,—O Lord, why look’st thou sad?

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;

If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news

By playing it to me with so sour a face.

 

Nurse: I am a-weary, give me leave awhile:

Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!

 

JULIET: I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news: Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.

 

Nurse: Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile? Do you not see that I am out of breath?

 

JULIET: How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath

To say to me that thou art out of breath?

The excuse that thou dost make in this delay

Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.

Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that; Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance: Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?

 

Nurse: Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his face be better than any man’s, yet his leg excels all men’s; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare: he is not the flower of courtesy, but, I’ll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?

 

JULIET: No, no: but all this did I know before. What says he of our marriage? what of that?

 

Nurse: Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I! It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.

My back o’ t’ other side,—O, my back, my back! Beshrew your heart for sending me about,

To catch my death with jaunting up and down!

 

JULIET: I’ faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.

Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

 

Nurse: Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I warrant, a virtuous,—Where is your mother?

 

JULIET: Where is my mother! why, she is within; Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!

‘Your love says, like an honest gentleman, Where is your mother?’

 

Nurse: O God’s lady dear! Are you so hot? marry, come up, I trow; Is this the poultice for my aching bones? Henceforward do your messages yourself.

 

JULIET: Here’s such a coil! come, what says Romeo? Nurse: Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day? JULIET: I have.

Nurse: Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’ cell; There stays a husband to make you a wife:

Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,

They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news. Hie you to church; I must another way,

To fetch a ladder, by the which your love

Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark: I am the drudge and toil in your delight,

But you shall bear the burden soon at night. Go; I’ll to dinner: hie you to the cell.

 

JULIET: Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.

80

 

[Exeunt.]

 

 

SCENE VI: Friar Laurence’s cell.

 

[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and ROMEO.]

 

FRIAR LAURENCE: So smile the heavens upon this holy act,

That after hours with sorrow chide us not!

 

ROMEO: Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,

It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight: Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare;

It is enough I may but call her mine.

 

FRIAR LAURENCE: These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

And in the taste confounds the appetite: Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

 

[Enter JULIET.]

 

Here comes the lady: O, so light a foot Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint: A lover may bestride the gossamer

That idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

 

JULIET: Good even to my ghostly confessor.

 

FRIAR LAURENCE: Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

JULIET: As much to him, else is his thanks too much. ROMEO: Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy

Be heap’d like mine and that thy skill be more

To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbor air, and let rich music’s tongue Unfold the imagined happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.

 

JULIET: Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament:

They are but beggars that can count their worth; But my true love is grown to such excess

I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

 

FRIAR LAURENCE: Come, come with me, and we will make short work;

For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone

Till holy church incorporate two in one. [Exeunt.]

ACT III

 

SCENE I: A public place.

[Enter MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, Page, and Servants.] BENVOLIO: I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:

The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,

And, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;

For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

 

MERCUTIO: Thou art like one of those fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says ‘God send me no need of thee!’ and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.

 

BENVOLIO: Am I like such a fellow?

 

MERCUTIO: Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.

BENVOLIO: And what to?

 

MERCUTIO: Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a man for cough- ing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!

 

BENVOLIO: An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.

 

MERCUTIO: The fee-simple! O simple!

BENVOLIO: By my head, here come the Capulets.

 

MERCUTIO: By my heel, I care not.

[Enter TYBALT and others.]

 

TYBALT: Follow me close, for I will speak to them. Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.

 

MERCUTIO: And but one word with one of us? couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.

 

TYBALT: You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion.

 

MERCUTIO: Could you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALT: Mercutio, thou consort’st with Romeo,— MERCUTIO: Consort! what, dost thou make us min-

strels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear noth-

ing but discords: here’s my fiddlestick; here’s that shall make you dance. ‘Zounds, consort!

BENVOLIO: We talk here in the public haunt of men:

Either withdraw unto some private place, And reason coldly of your grievances,

Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

 

MERCUTIO: Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze; I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

 

[Enter ROMEO.]

TYBALT: Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.

 

MERCUTIO: But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your liv- ery:

Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower; Your worship in that sense may call him ‘man.’

 

TYBALT: Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford

No better term than this,—thou art a villain.

 

ROMEO: Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee

Doth much excuse the appertaining rage To such a greeting: villain am I none; Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.

TYBALT: Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries

That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.

 

ROMEO: I do protest, I never injured thee, But love thee better than thou canst devise, Till thou shalt know the reason of my love: And so, good Capulet,—which name I tender As dearly as my own,—be satisfied.

 

MERCUTIO: O calm, dishonorable, vile submission! Alla stoccata carries it away.

 

[Draws.]

 

Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk? TYBALT: What wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIO: Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine

lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the

eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your

ears ere it be out.

 

TYBALT: I am for you. [Drawing.]

ROMEO: Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up. MERCUTIO: Come, sir, your passado.

[They fight.]

 

ROMEO: Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons. Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!

Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath

Forbidden bandying in Verona streets: Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!

 

[TYBALT under ROMEO’s arm stabs MERCUTIO, and flies

with his followers.]

 

MERCUTIO: I am hurt. A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped.

Is he gone, and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO: What, art thou hurt? MERCUTIO: Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis

enough.

Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon. [Exit Page.]

ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

 

MERCUTIO: No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough,’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both your houses! ‘Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a 100 rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.

 

ROMEO: I thought all for