In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think, For men so old as we to keep the peace.
Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both; And pity 't is you lived at odds so long. But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
Cap. 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.
Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made. Cap. And too soon marred are those so early made.
The earth hath swallowed 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 choice Lies my consent and fair according voice. 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. Such comfort as do lusty young men feel When well-apparelled April on the heel Of limping winter treads, even such delight Among fresh female buds shall you this night Inherit at my house: hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be: Such, amongst view of many, mine, being one, May stand in number, though in reckoning none. Come, go with me.-Go, sirrah, trudge about Through fair Verona; find those persons out Whose names are written there [gives a paper],
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. [Exeunt CAPULET and Paris.
Serv. 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.
Ben. 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 lan- guish :
Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.
Serv. Up.
Rom. Whither?
Serv. To supper; to our house. Rom. Whose house?
Serv. My master's.
Rom. Indeed I should have asked you that before.
Serv. 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.
Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st; With all the admiréd beauties of Verona: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall shew, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
Rom. 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. Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by;
Herself poised with herself in either eye : But in those crystal scales, let there be weighed Your lady-love against some other maid That I will shew you, shining at this feast, And she shall scant shew well, that now shews best.
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 weaned-I never shall forget itOf all the days of the year, upon that day: For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, 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 Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool! To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug. "Shake," quoth the dovehouse: 't was no need,
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 holy-dam, 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?"
Thou wilt fall backward when thou com'st to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?" it stinted, and said "Ay." Jul. 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 C. Marry, that marry is the very theme I came to talk of. -Tell me, daughter Juliet, How stands your disposition to be married? Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of. Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only
I'd say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy
Lady C. 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 years That 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 man, As all the world-why, he's a man of wax.
Lady C. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
Lady C. 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 content;
And what obscured in this fair volume lies, Find written in the margin 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 pride For 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.
Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move : But no more deep will I endart mine eye Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity. I must hence to wait: I beseech you, follow straight.
Lady C. We follow thee.-Juliet, the County stays.
Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. [Exeunt.
Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six Maskers, Torchbearers, and others.
Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?
Ben. The date is out of such prolixity. We'll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf, Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath, Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke After the prompter, for our entrance: But, let them measure us by what they will, We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.
Rom. Give me a torch: I am not for this am- bling :
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
Com. Not I, believe me: you have dancing-shoes, With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead, So stakes me to the ground, I cannot move. Mer. You are a lover: borrow Cupid's wings, And soar with them above a common bound. Rom. I am too sore empiercéd 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.
Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love : Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn. Mer. 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. [Putting on a mask.
A visor for a visor! - what care I What curious eye doth quote deformities? Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me. Ben. Come, knock, and enter; and no soonerin, But every man betake him to his legs.
Rom. A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels; For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase,- I'll be a candle-holder, and look on ;— The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.
Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
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Mer. 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 forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep: Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' 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 half so big as a round little worm Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid: Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On 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. Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit: Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep, And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Then dreams he of another benefice: Sometimes 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
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;
True, I talk of dreans,
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 angered, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
Ben. This wind you talk of, blows us from ourselves:
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
Rom. 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 despiséd 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. Ben. Strike, drum.
SCENE V.- A Hall in CAPULET'S House. Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.
1st Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!
2nd Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.
1st Serv. 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!
2nd Serv. Ay, boy; ready.
1st Serv. You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber. 2nd Serv. We cannot be here and there too. -Cheerly, boys; be brisk a while, and the longer liver take all. [They retire behind.
Enter CAPULET, &c., with the Guests and the Maskers.
Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you :
You are welcome, gentlemen!-Come, musicians, play.
A hall! a hall! give room, and foot it, girls. [Music plays, and they dance. More light, ye knaves; and turn the tables up, And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.- Ah, sirrah, this unlooked-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?
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Of yonder knight?
Serv. I know not, sir.
Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear: Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shews a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shews. The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blesséd my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague:- Fetch me my rapier, boy: -What! dares the slave Come hither, covered with an antick 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.
1st Cap. Why, how now, kinsman; where
Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe; A villain, that is hither come in spite, solemnity this night.
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