The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.

  Enter the Nurse ⌈hastily⌉

  NURSE Madam.

  JULIET Nurse.

  NURSE

  Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.

  The day is broke; be wary, look about. Exit

  JULIET

  Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

  ROMEO

  Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I’ll descend.

  ⌈He lets down the ladder of cords and goes down⌉

  JULIET

  Art thou gone so, love, lord, my husband, friend?

  I must hear from thee every day in the hour,

  For in a minute there are many days.

  O, by this count I shall be much in years

  Ere I again behold my Romeo.

  ROMEO Farewell.

  I will omit no opportunity

  That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

  JULIET

  O, think’st thou we shall ever meet again?

  ROMEO

  I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve

  For sweet discourses in our times to come.

  ⌈JULIET⌉

  O God, I have an ill-divining soul!

  Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,

  As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.

  Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

  ROMEO

  And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.

  Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu. Exit

  JULIET ⌈pulling up the ladder and weeping⌉

  O fortune, fortune, all men call thee fickle.

  If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him

  That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, fortune,

  For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long,

  But send him back.

  Enter Capulet’s Wife ⌈below⌉

  CAPULET’S WIFE Ho, daughter, are you up?

  JULIET

  Who is’t that calls? It is my lady mother.

  Is she not down so late, or up so early?

  What unaccustomed cause procures her hither?

  ⌈She goes down and enters below⌉

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Why, how now, Juliet?

  JULIET Madam, I am not well.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?

  What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?

  An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live,

  Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of love,

  But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

  JULIET

  Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend

  Which you so weep for.

  JULIET Feeling so the loss,

  I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death

  As that the villain lives which slaughtered him.

  JULIET

  What villain, madam?

  CAPULET’S WIFE That same villain Romeo.

  JULIET (aside)

  Villain and he be many miles asunder.

  (To her mother) God pardon him—I do, with all my

  heart,

  And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  That is because the traitor murderer lives.

  JULIET

  Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.

  Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.

  Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,

  Where that same banished runagate doth live,

  Shall give him such an unaccustomed dram

  That he shall soon keep Tybalt company;

  And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.

  JULIET

  Indeed, I never shall be satisfied

  With Romeo till I behold him, dead,

  Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vexed.

  Madam, if you could find out but a man

  To bear a poison, I would temper it

  That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,

  Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors

  To hear him named and cannot come to him

  To wreak the love I bore my cousin

  Upon his body that hath slaughtered him!

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.

  But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

  JULIET

  And joy comes well in such a needy time.

  What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;

  One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,

  Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy

  That thou expect’st not, nor I looked not for.

  JULIET

  Madam, in happy time. What day is that?

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn

  The gallant, young, and noble gentleman

  The County Paris at Saint Peter’s Church

  Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

  JULIET

  Now, by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too,

  He shall not make me there a joyful bride.

  I wonder at this haste, that I must wed

  Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.

  I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,

  I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear

  It shall be Romeo—whom you know I hate—

  Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.

  Enter Capulet and the Nurse

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Here comes your father. Tell him so yourself,

  And see how he will take it at your hands.

  CAPULET

  When the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle dew,

  But for the sunset of my brother’s son

  It rains downright.

  How now, a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?

  Evermore show‘ring? In one little body

  Thou counterfeit’st a barque, a sea, a wind,

  For still thy eyes—which I may call the sea—

  Do ebb and flow with tears. The barque thy body is,

  Sailing in this salt flood; the winds thy sighs,

  Who, raging with thy tears and they with them,

  Without a sudden calm will overset

  Thy tempest-tossed body.—How now, wife?

  Have you delivered to her our decree?

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Ay, sir, but she will none, she gives you thanks.

  I would the fool were married to her grave.

  CAPULET

  Soft, take me with you, take me with you, wife.

  How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?

  Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,

  Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought

  So worthy a gentleman to be her bride?

  JULIET

  Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.

  Proud can I never be of what I hate,

  But thankful even for hate that is meant love.

  CAPULET

  How, how, how, how—chopped logic? What is this?

  ‘Proud’, and ‘I thank you’, and ’I thank you not’,

  And yet ‘not proud’ ? Mistress minion, you,

  Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,

  But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next

  To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,

  Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

  Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage,

&
nbsp; You tallow-face!

  CAPULET’S WIFE Fie, fie, what, are you mad?

  JULIET (kneeling)

  Good father, I beseech you on my knees,

  Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

  CAPULET

  Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!

  I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday,

  Or never after look me in the face.

  Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.

  ⌈Juliet rises⌉

  My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest

  That God had lent us but this only child,

  But now I see this one is one too much,

  And that we have a curse in having her.

  Out on her, hilding!

  NURSE God in heaven bless her!

  You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

  CAPULET

  And why, my lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,

  Good Prudence. Smatter with your gossips, go!

  NURSE

  I speak no treason.

  ⌈CAPULET⌉ O, God-i’-good-e’en!

  ⌈NURSE⌉

  May not one speak?

  CAPULET Peace, you mumbling fool,

  Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,

  For here we need it not.

  CAPULET’S WIFE You are too hot.

  CAPULET

  God’s bread, it makes me mad. Day, night; work, play;

  Alone, in company, still my care hath been

  To have her matched; and having now provided

  A gentleman of noble parentage,

  Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly lined,

  Stuffed, as they say, with honourable parts,

  Proportioned as one’s thought would wish a man—

  And then to have a wretched puling fool,

  A whining maumet, in her fortune’s tender,

  To answer ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love;

  I am too young, I pray you pardon me’!

  But an you will not wed, I’ll pardon you!

  Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.

  Look to‘t, think on’t. I do not use to jest.

  Thursday is near. Lay hand on heart. Advise.

  An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend.

  An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,

  For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,

  Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.

  Trust to’t. Bethink you. I’ll not be forsworn. Exit

  JULIET

  Is there no pity sitting in the clouds

  That sees into the bottom of my grief’

  O sweet my mother, cast me not away!

  Delay this marriage for a month, a week;

  Or if you do not, make the bridal bed

  In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

  CAPULET’S WIFE

  Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.

  Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. Exit

  JULIET

  O, God—ONurse, how shall this be prevented?

  My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.

  How shall that faith return again to earth

  Unless that husband send it me from heaven

  By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.

  Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems

  Upon so soft a subject as myself!

  What sayst thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?

  Some comfort, Nurse.

  NURSE Faith, here it is: Romeo

  Is banished, and all the world to nothing

  That he dares ne‘er come back to challenge you,

  Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.

  Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,

  I think it best you married with the County.

  O, he’s a lovely gentleman!

  Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,

  Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye

  As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,

  I think you are happy in this second match,

  For it excels your first; or if it did not,

  Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were

  As living hence and you no use of him.

  JULIET Speak’st thou from thy heart?

  NURSE

  And from my soul, too, else beshrew them both.

  JULIET Amen.

  NURSE What?

  JULIET

  Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.

  Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,

  Having displeased my father, to Laurence’ cell

  To make confession and to be absolved.

  NURSE

  Marry, I will; and this is wisely done. ⌈Exit⌉

  JULIET (watching her go)

  Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!

  Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,

  Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue

  Which she hath praised him with above compare

  So many thousand times? Go, counsellor!

  Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.

  I’ll to the friar, to know his remedy.

  If all else fail, myself have power to die. Exit

  4.1 Enter Friar Laurence and Paris

  FRIAR LAURENCE

  On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

  PARIS

  My father Capulet will have it so,

  And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

  FRIAR LAURENCE

  You say you do not know the lady’s mind?

  Uneven is the course. I like it not.

  PARIS

  Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,

  And therefore have I little talked of love,

  For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.

  Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous

  That she do give her sorrow so much sway,

  And in his wisdom hastes our marriage

  To stop the inundation of her tears,

  Which, too much minded by herself alone,

  May be put from her by society.

  Now do you know the reason of this haste.

  FRIAR LAURENCE (aside)

  I would I knew not why it should be slowed.—

  Enter Juliet

  Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.

  PARIS

  Happily met, my lady and my wife.

  JULIET

  That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

  PARIS

  That ’may be’ must be, love, on Thursday next.

  JULIET

  What must be shall be.

  FRIAR LAURENCE That’s a certain text.

  PARIS

  Come you to make confession to this father?

  JULIET

  To answer that, I should confess to you.

  PARIS

  Do not deny to him that you love me.

  JULIET

  I will confess to you that I love him.

  PARIS

  So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

  JULIET

  If I do so, it will be of more price,

  Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

  PARIS

  Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.

  JULIET

  The tears have got small victory by that,

  For it was bad enough before their spite.

  PARIS

  Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.

  JULIET

  That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,

  And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

  PARIS

  Thy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it.

  JULIET

  It may be so, for it is not mine own.—

  Are you at leisure, holy father, now,

  Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

  FRIAR LAURENCE

 
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.

  My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

  PARIS

  God shield I should disturb devotion!—

  Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye.

  (Kissing her) Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss.

  Exit

  JULIET

  O, shut the door, and when thou hast done so,

  Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!

  FRIAR LAURENCE

  O Juliet, I already know thy grief.

  It strains me past the compass of my wits.

  I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,

  On Thursday next be married to this County.

  JULIET

  Tell me not, friar, that thou hear’st of this,

  Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.

  If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,

  Do thou but call my resolution wise,She draws a knife

  And with this knife I’ll help it presently.

  God joined my heart and Romeo‘s, thou our hands,

  And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s sealed,

  Shall be the label to another deed,

  Or my true heart with treacherous revolt

  Turn to another, this shall slay them both.

  Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,

  Give me some present counsel; or, behold,

  ’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife

  Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that

  Which the commission of thy years and art

  Could to no issue of true honour bring.

  Be not so long to speak. I long to die

  If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

  FRIAR LAURENCE

  Hold, daughter, I do spy a kind of hope

  Which craves as desperate an execution

  As that is desperate which we would prevent.

  If, rather than to marry County Paris,

  Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,

  Then is it likely thou wilt undertake

  A thing like death to chide away this shame,

  That cop‘st with death himself to scape from it;

  And, if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

  JULIET

  O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,

  From off the battlements of any tower,

  Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk

  Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears,

  Or hide me nightly in a charnel house,

  O’ercovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones,

  With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;

  Or bid me go into a new-made grave

  And hide me with a dead man in his tomb—

  Things that, to hear them told, have made me

  tremble—

  And I will do it without fear or doubt,