ROMEO.
By the hour of nine.
JULIET.
I will not fail. ’Tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.
ROMEO.
Let me stand here till thou remember it.
JULIET.
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.
ROMEO.
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.
JULIET.
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone,
And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
ROMEO.
I would I were thy bird.
JULIET.
Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
[Exit.]
ROMEO.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.
Hence will I to my ghostly Sire’s cell,
His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s pathway, made by Titan’s fiery wheels
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb:
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find.
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strain’d from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified.
Enter Romeo.
Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs,—grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
ROMEO.
Good morrow, father.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And where care lodges sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art uprous’d with some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.
ROMEO.
That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
God pardon sin. Wast thou with Rosaline?
ROMEO.
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s my good son. But where hast thou been then?
ROMEO.
I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
ROMEO.
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combin’d, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how
We met, we woo’d, and made exchange of vow,
I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us today.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste.
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears.
Lo here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet.
If ere thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline,
And art thou chang’d? Pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.
ROMEO.
Thou chidd’st me oft for loving Rosaline.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
ROMEO.
And bad’st me bury love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Not in a grave
To lay one in, another out to have.
ROMEO.
I pray thee chide me not, her I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.
ROMEO.
O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IV. A Street.
Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.
MERCUTIO.
Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?
BENVOLIO.
Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.
MERCUTIO.
Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so that he will sure run mad.
BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father’s house.
MERCUTIO.
A challenge, on my life.
BENVOLIO.
Romeo will answer it.
MERCUTIO.
Any man that can write may answer a letter.
BENVOLIO.
Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how he dares, being dared.
MERCUTIO.
Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black eye; run through the ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft. And is he a man to encounter Tybalt?
BENVOLIO.
Why, what is Tybalt?
MERCUTIO.
More than Prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion. He rests his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay.
BENVOLIO.
The what?
MERCUTIO.
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; these new tuners of accent. By Jesu, a very good blade, a very tall man, a very good whore. Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardon-me’s, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O their bones, their bones!
Enter Romeo.
BENVOLIO.
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!
MERCUTIO.
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench,—marry, she had a better love to berhyme her: Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bonjour! There’s a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
ROMEO.
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
MERCUTIO.
The slip sir, the slip; can you not conceive?
ROMEO.
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
MERCUTIO.
That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
ROMEO.
Meaning, to curtsy.
MERCUTIO.
Thou hast most kindly hit it.
ROMEO.
A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO.
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
ROMEO.
Pink for flower.
MERCUTIO.
Right.
ROMEO.
Why, then is my pump well flowered.
MERCUTIO.
Sure wit, follow me this jest now, till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing, solely singular.
ROMEO.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!
MERCUTIO.
Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.
ROMEO.
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs; or I’ll cry a match.
MERCUTIO.
Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done. For thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits, than I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?
ROMEO.
Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the goose.
MERCUTIO.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
ROMEO.
Nay, good goose, bite not.
MERCUTIO.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most sharp sauce.
ROMEO.
And is it not then well served in to a sweet goose?
MERCUTIO.
O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad.
ROMEO.
I stretch it out for that word broad, which added to
