More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
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On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
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Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.
They are free men but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
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But ‘banished’ to kill me? ‘Banished’?
O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
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To mangle me with that word ‘banished’?
FRIAR LAURENCE
Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.
ROMEO O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAURENCE
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
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To comfort thee though thou art banished.
ROMEO Yet ‘banished’? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more.
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FRIAR LAURENCE
O, then I see that mad men have no ears.
ROMEO
How should they when that wise men have no eyes?
FRIAR LAURENCE
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
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An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave. [knock]
70
FRIAR LAURENCE
Arise, one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.
ROMEO Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes. [knock]
FRIAR LAURENCE
Hark how they knock. – Who’s there? – Romeo, arise,
Thou wilt be taken. – Stay awhile. – Stand up.
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[knock]
Run to my study. – By and by. – God’s will,
What simpleness is this? – I come, I come. [knock]
Who knocks so hard?
Whence come you, what’s your will?
NURSE [within]
Let me come in and you shall know my errand.
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I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAURENCE Welcome then.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?
FRIAR LAURENCE
There on the ground, with his own tears made
drunk.
NURSE O, he is even in my mistress’ case,
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Just in her case. O woeful sympathy,
Piteous predicament. Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up. Stand, and you be a man.
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
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Why should you fall into so deep an O? [He rises.]
ROMEO Nurse.
NURSE Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.
ROMEO Spak’st thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
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With blood remov’d but little from her own?
Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?
NURSE O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps,
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
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And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
ROMEO As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me,
105
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
FRIAR LAURENCE Hold thy desperate hand.
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
110
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz’d me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
115
Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady that in thy life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?
Since birth, and heaven, and earth all three do meet
120
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st 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.
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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,
130
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
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For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt. There art thou happy.
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile. There art thou happy.
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A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But like a mishav’d and a sullen wench
Thou pouts upon thy fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
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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
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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 wentst forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady
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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.
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My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.
ROMEO Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
[Nurse offers to go in and turns again.]
NURSE Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. Exit.
ROMEO How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.
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FRIAR LAURENCE
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
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Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand. ’Tis late. Farewell. Good night.
ROMEO But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell. Exeunt.
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3.4 Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET and PARIS.
CAPULET Things have fallen 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.
5
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been abed an hour ago.
PARIS These times of woe afford no times to woo.
Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.
LADY CAPULET
I will, and know her mind early tomorrow.
10
Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.
[Paris offers to go in and Capulet calls him again.]
CAPULET 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,
15
Acquiant her here of my son Paris’ love,
And bid her – mark you me? – on Wednesday next –
But soft – what day is this?
PARIS Monday, my lord.
CAPULET
Monday! Ha ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.
A Thursday let it be, a’ Thursday, tell her,
20
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,
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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?
PARIS
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.
CAPULET Well, get you gone. A’ Thursday be it then.
30
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 late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night. Exeunt.
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3.5 Enter ROMEO and JULIET aloft at the window.
JULIET 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.
5
ROMEO 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.
10
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET 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 thy way to Mantua.
15
Therefore stay yet: thou need’st not to be gone.
ROMEO 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.
20
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.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 450