The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

Home > Fiction > The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works > Page 127
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 127

by William Shakespeare


  We would as willingly give cure as know.

  Enter Romeo

  BENVOLIO

  See where he comes. So please you step aside,

  I’ll know his grievance or be much denied.

  MONTAGUE

  I would thou wert so happy by thy stay

  To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away.

  Exeunt Montague and his Wife

  BENVOLIO

  Good morrow, cousin.

  ROMEO Is the day so young?

  BENVOLIO

  But new struck nine.

  ROMEO Ay me, sad hours seem long.

  Was that my father that went hence so fast?

  BENVOLIO

  It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?

  ROMEO

  Not having that which, having, makes them short.

  BENVOLIO In love.

  ROMEO Out.

  BENVOLIO Of love?

  ROMEO

  Out of her favour where I am in love.

  BENVOLIO

  Alas that love, so gentle in his view,

  Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.

  ROMEO

  Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,

  Should without eyes see pathways to his will.

  Where shall we dine? ⌈Seeing blood⌉ O me! What fray

  was here?

  Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

  Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.

  Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,

  O anything of nothing first create;

  O heavy lightness, serious vanity,

  Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,

  Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,

  Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is I

  This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

  Dost thou not laugh?

  BENVOLIO No, coz, I rather weep.

  ROMEO

  Good heart, at what?

  BENVOLIO At thy good heart’s oppression.

  ROMEO Why, such is love’s transgression.

  Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,

  Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed

  With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown

  Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

  Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,

  Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes,

  Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears.

  What is it else? A madness most discreet,

  A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

  Farewell, my coz.

  BENVOLIO Soft, I will go along;

  An if you leave me’so, you do me wrong.

  ROMEO

  Tut, I have lost myself. I am not here.

  This is not Romeo; he’s some other where.

  BENVOLIO

  Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?

  ROMEO What, shall I groan and tell thee?

  BENVOLIO

  Groan? Why no; but sadly tell me who.

  ROMEO

  Bid a sick man in sadness make his will,

  A word ill urged to one that is so ill.

  In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

  BENVOLIO

  I aimed so near when I supposed you loved.

  ROMEO

  A right good markman; and she’s fair I love.

  BENVOLIO

  A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

  ROMEO

  Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit

  With Cupid’s arrow; she hath Dian’s wit,

  And, in strong proof of chastity well armed,

  From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharmed.

  She will not stay the siege of loving terms,

  Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes,

  Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.

  O, she is rich in beauty, only poor

  That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.

  BENVOLIO

  Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

  ROMEO

  She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;

  For beauty starved with her severity

  Cuts beauty off from all posterity.

  She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,

  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, puts 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. Exeunt

  1.2 Enter Capulet, Paris, and ⌈Peter,⌉ a servingman

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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,

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

  May stand in number, though in reck’ning none.

  Come, go with me. (Giving ⌈Peter⌉ a paper) 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

  ⌈PETER⌉ 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 per
son hath here

  writ. I must to the learned.Enter Benvolio and Romeo

  In good time.

  BENVOLIO (to Romeo)

  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 leaf 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 and—(to ⌈Peter⌉ Good e’en,

  good fellow.

  ⌈PETER⌉

  God gi‘good e’en. I pray, sir, can you read?

  ROMEO

  Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

  ⌈PETER⌉ erhaps 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.

  ⌈PETER⌉ Ye say honestly. Rest you merry.

  ROMEO Stay, fellow, I can read.

  He reads the letter

  ‘Signor Martino and his wife and daughters,

  County Anselme and his beauteous sisters,

  The lady widow of Vitruvio,

  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 assembly. Whither should they come?

  ⌈PETER⌉ Up.

  ROMEO Whither?

  ⌈PETER⌉ To supper to our house.

  ROMEO Whose house?

  ⌈PETER⌉ My master’s.

  ROMEO

  Indeed, I should have asked thee that before.

  ⌈PETER⌉ 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

  BENVOLIO

  At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s

  Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so loves,

  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.

  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

  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

  1.3 Enter Capulet’s Wife and the Nurse

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.

  NURSE

  Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old,

  I bade her come. What, lamb, what, ladybird—

  God forbid—where is this girl? What, Juliet!

  Enter Juliet

  JULIET How now, who calls?

  NURSE Your mother.

  JULIET

  Madam, I am here. What is your will?

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  This is the matter.—Nurse, give leave a while.

  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.

  CAPULET’S WIFE 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?

  CAPULET’S WIFE 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,

  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,

  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 wi’th’ dug!

  ‘Shake’, quoth the dove-housed‘Twas no need, I trow,

  To bid me trudge;

  And since that time it is eleven years,

  For then she could stand high-lone. Nay, by th’ 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 halidom,

  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?’ quoth he,

  And, pretty fool, it stinted and said ‘Ay’.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace.

  NURSE

  Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh

  To think it should leave crying and say ‘Ay’.

  And yet, I warrant, it had upon it brow

  A bump as big as a young cock‘rel’s stone.

  A perilous knock, and it cried bitterly.

  ‘Yea,’ quoth my husband, ‘fall’st upon thy face?

  Thou wilt fall backward when thou com’st to age,

  Wilt thou not, Jule?’ It stinted and said ‘Ay’.

  JULIET

  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.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Marry, that ’marry’ is the very theme

  I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,

  How stands your dispositions to be married?

  JULIET

  It is an honour that I dream not of.

  NURSE

  ‘An honour’! Were not I thine only nurse,

  I would say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat.

  CAPULET’S WIFE


  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.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.

  NURSE

  Nay, he’s a flower, in faith, a very flower.

  CAPULET’S WIFE (to Juliet)

  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.

  NURSE

  No less, nay, bigger. Women grow by men.

  CAPULET’s WIFE (to Juliet)

  Speak briefly: can you like of Paris’ love?

  JULIET

  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.

  Enter ⌈Peter⌉

  ⌈PETER⌉ 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.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  We follow thee. Exit ⌈Peter⌉

  Juliet, the County stays.

  NURSE

  Go, girl; seek happy nights to happy days. Exeunt

  1.4 Enter Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio, as masquers, with five or six other masquers, ⌈bearing a drum and torches⌉

  ROMEO

  What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse,

  Or shall we on without apology?

  BENVOLIO

  The date is out of such prolixity.

  We’ll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf,

 

‹ Prev