William Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet

To merit bliss by making me despair.

She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow

Do 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.

Examine other beauties.

ROMEO. ’Tis the way

To call hers, exquisite, in question more.

These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,

Being black, 27puts us in mind they hide the fair.

He that is strucken blind cannot forget

The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.

Show me a mistress that is passing fair,

What doth her beauty serve but as a note

Where I may read who passed that passing fair?

Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.

BENVOLIO. I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt. 28

(Exeunt.)

Scene 2

The same; later in the day.

Enter Capulet, County Paris, and the Clown, a Servant.

CAPULET. But Montague is bound as well as I,

In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,

For men so old as we to keep the peace.

PARIS. 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. 29

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 marred are those so early made.

Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she;

She’s the hopeful lady of my earth. 30

But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart.

My will to her consent is but a part,

And, she agreed, within her scope of choice

Lies my consent and fair according voice. 31

This night I hold an old accustomed 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 night

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light. 32

Such comfort as do lusty young men feel

When well-apparelled April 33on the heel

Of limping winter treads, even such delight

Among fresh female 34buds shall you this night

Inherit at my house. Hear all; all see;

And like her most whose merit most shall be;

Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,

May stand in number, though in reckoning none. 35

Come, go with me. (To Servant.) 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 learnèd. In good time!

(Enter Benvolio and Romeo.)

BENVOLIO. Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning.

One pain is lessened 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 plantain 36leaf 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 madman is;

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,

Whipped and tormented 37and – Good-e’en, 38good fellow.

SERVANT. God gi’ good-e’en. 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 anything 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.

(He reads the letter.)

“Signor Martino and his wife and daughters. County Anselm and his beauteous sisters. The lady widow of Utruvio. Signor Placentio and his lovely nieces. Mercutio and his brother Valentine. Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters. My fair niece Rosaline and Livia. Signor Valentio and his cousin Tybalt. Lucio and the lively Helena.”

A fair asssembly. Whither should they come?

SERVANT. Up.

ROMEO. Whither? To supper?

SERVANT. To our house.

ROMEO. Whose house?

SERVANT. My master’s.

ROMEO. Indeed I should have asked thee 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 Servant.)

BENVOLIO. At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s

Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so loves, 39

With all the admirèd 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 eye

Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;

And these, who, often drowned, could never die,

Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!

One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun

Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun. 40

BENVOLIO. Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,

Herself poised with herself in either eye.

But in that crystal scales let there be weighed 41

Your lady’s love against some other maid

That I will show you shining at this feast,

And she shall scant show well that now seems best.

ROMEO. I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,

But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.

(Exeunt.)

Scene 3

Within Capulet’s house.

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, 42

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 remembered me, thou’s hear our counsel.

Thou knowest 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 teen be it spoken, I have but four –

She’s not fourteen. How long is it now

To Lammastide 43?

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; 44

And she was weaned – I never shall forget it –

Of all the days of the year, upon that day.

For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, 45

Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse 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 nipple