Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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3.2 Enter Juliet

JULIET

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a waggoner

As Phaeton would whip you to the west

And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaways’ eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these arms untalked of and unseen.

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites

By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,

It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,

Thou sober-suited matron all in black,

And learn me how to lose a winning match

Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.

Hood my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks,

With thy black mantle till strange love grown bold

Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come night, come Romeo; come, thou day in night,

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.

Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night,

Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

O, I have bought the mansion of a love

But not possessed it, and though I am sold,

Not yet enjoyed. So tedious is this day

As is the night before some festival

To an impatient child that hath new robes

And may not wear them.

Enter the Nurse, ⌈wringing her hands,⌉ with the ladder of cords ⌈in her lap⌉

O, here comes my Nurse,

And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks

But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.

Now, Nurse, what news ? What, hast thou there

The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?

NURSE ⌈putting down the cords⌉ Ay, ay, the cords.

JULIET

Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?

NURSE

Ah, welladay! He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!

We are undone, lady, we are undone.

Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s killed, he’s dead!

JULIET

Can heaven be so envious?

NURSE Romeo can,

Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo,

Who ever would have thought it Romeo?

JULIET

What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?

This torture should be roared in dismal hell.

Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ‘Ay’,

And that bare vowel ‘I’ shall poison more

Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.

I am not I if there be such an ‘Ay’,

Or those eyes shut that makes thee answer ‘Ay’.

If he be slain, say ‘Ay’; or if not, ‘No’.

Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

NURSE

I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,

God save the mark, here on his manly breast—

A piteous corpse, a bloody, piteous corpse—

Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,

All in gore blood; I swooned at the sight.

JULIET

O, break, my heart, poor bankrupt, break at once!

To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.

Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here,

And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!

NURSE

O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!

O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman,

That ever I should live to see thee dead!

JULIET

What storm is this that blows so contrary?

Is Romeo slaughtered, and is Tybalt dead?

My dearest cousin and my dearer lord?

Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom,

For who is living if those two are gone?

NURSE

Tybalt is gone and Romeo banished.

Romeo that killed him—he is banished.

JULIET

O God, did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

⌈NURSE⌉

It did, it did, alas the day, it did.

⌈JULIET⌉

O serpent heart hid with a flow‘ring face!

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical!

Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!

Despisèd substance of divinest show!

Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st—

A damnèd saint, an honourable villain.

O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell

When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend

In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?

Was ever book containing such vile matter

So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell

In such a gorgeous palace!

NURSE

There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men;

All perjured, all forsworn, all naught, dissemblers all.

Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.

These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.

Shame come to Romeo!

JULIET Blistered be thy tongue

For such a wish! He was not born to shame.

Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit,

For ’tis a throne where honour may be crowned

Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

NURSE

Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?

JULIET

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name

When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?

But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?

That villain cousin would have killed my husband.

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!

Your tributary drops belong to woe,

Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.

My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;

And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.

All this is comfort. Wherefore weep I then?

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,

That murdered me. I would forget it fain,

But O, it presses to my memory

Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds!

‘Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.’

That ‘banishèd’, that one word ‘banishèd’

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death

Was woe enough, if it had ended there;

Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship

And needly will be ranked with other griefs,

Why followed not, when she said ‘Tybalt’s dead’,

‘Thy father’, or ‘thy mother’, nay, or both,

Which modern lamentation might have moved?

But with a rearward following Tybalt’s death,

‘Romeo is banishèd‘-to speak that word

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,

All slain, all dead. ‘Romeo is banishèd’—

There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,

In that word’s death. No words can that woe sound.

Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?

NURSE

Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corpse.

Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

JULIET

Wash they his wounds with tears; mine shall be spent

When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.

Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguiled,

Both you and I, for Romeo is exiled.

He made you for a highway to my bed,

But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.

Come, cords; come, Nurse; I’ll to my wedding bed,

And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

NURSE (taking up the cords)

Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo

To comfort you. I wot well where he is.

Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.

I’ll to him. He is hid at Laurence’ cell.

JULIET (giving her a ring)

O, find him! Give this ring to my true knight,

And bid him come to take his last farewell.

Exeunt ⌈severally⌉

3.3 Enter Friar Laurence

FRIAR LAURENCE

Romeo, come forth, come forth, thou fear-full man.

Affliction is enamoured of thy parts,

And thou art wedded to calamity.

Enter Romeo

ROMEO

Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand

That I yet know not?

FRIAR LAURENCE Too familiar

Is my dear son with such sour company.

I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.

ROMEO

What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?

FRIAR LAURENCE

A gentler judgement vanished from his lips:

Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

ROMEO

Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say ‘death’,

For exile hath more terror in his look,

Much more than death. Do not say ‘banishment’.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Hence from Verona art thou banished.

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

ROMEO

There is no world without Verona walls

But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

Hence banished is banished from the world,

And world’s exile is death. Then ‘banishèd’

Is death mistermed. Calling death ‘banishèd’

Thou cutt‘st my head off with a golden axe,

And smil’st upon the stroke that murders me.

FRIAR LAURENCE

O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!

Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,

Taking thy part, hath rushed aside the law

And turned that black word ’death’ to banishment.

This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.

ROMEO

‘Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here

Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

Live here in heaven and may look on her,

But Romeo may not. More validity,

More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize

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.

Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.

They are free men, but I am banished.

And sayst thou yet that exile is not death?

Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,

No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,

But ‘banishèd’ to kill me—‘banishèd’?

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 professed,

To mangle me with that word ‘banishèd’?

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,

To comfort thee though thou art banished.

ROMEO

Yet ‘banishèd’? 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.

FRIAR LAURENCE

O, then I see that madmen 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,

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,

He falls upon the ground

Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

Knock within

FRIAR LAURENCE

Arise, one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.

ROMEO

Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans

Mist-like enfold me from the search of eyes.

Knocking within

FRIAR LAURENCE

Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise.

Thou wilt be taken.—Stay a white.—Stand up.

Still knock within

Run to my study.—By and by!—God’s will,

What simpleness is this?

Knock within

I come, I come.

Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What’s your

will?

NURSE (within)

Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.

I come from Lady Juliet.

FRIAR LAURENCE ⌈opening the door⌉ Welcome then.

Enter the 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,

Just in her case! O woeful sympathy,

Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,

Blubb’ring and weeping, weeping and blubb’ring.

(To Romeo) Stand up, stand up, stand an you be a man,

For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.

Why should you fall into so deep an O?

ROMEO (rising)

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 stained the childhood of our joy

With blood removed but little from her own?

Where is she, and how doth she, and what says

My concealed lady to our cancelled love?

NURSE

O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps,

And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,

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

Murdered her kinsman. O tell me, friar, tell me,

In what vile part of this anatomy

Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack

The hateful mansion.

⌈He offers to stab himself, and the Nurse snatches the dagger away⌉

FRIAR LAURENCE Hold thy desperate hand.

Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.

Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote

The unreasonable fury of a beast.

Unseemly woman in a seeming man,

And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!

Thou hast amazed me. By my holy order,

I thought thy disposition better tempered.

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

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.

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 vowed to cherish;

Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,

Misshapen in the conduct of them both,

Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask

Is set afire by thine own ignorance,

And thou dismembered with thine own defence.

What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,

For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead:

There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,

But thou slewest Tybalt: there art thou happy.

The law that threatened death becomes thy friend,

And turns it to exile: there art thou happy.

A pack of blessings light upon thy back,

Happiness courts thee in her best array,

But, like a mishavèd and sullen wench,

Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love.

Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

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

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 went’st forth in lamentation.

Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,

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 stayed here all the night

To hear good counsel! O, what learning is!

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 (giving the ring)

Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.

Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

ROMEO

How well my comfort is revived by this. Exit Nurse

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 disguised from hence.

Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man,

And he shall signify from time to time

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 ⌈severally⌉

3.4 Enter Capulet, his Wife, and Paris

CAPULET

Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily

That we have had no time to move our daughter.

Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,

And so did I. Well, we were born to die.

’Tis very late. She’ll not come down tonight.

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.

CAPULET’S WIFE

I will, and know her mind early tomorrow.

Tonight she’s mewed 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 ruled

In all respects by me. Nay, more, I doubt it not.

Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed.

Acquaint 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.

O’ Thursday let it be. 0’ Thursday, tell her,

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,

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. O’ Thursday be it, then.

(To his Wife) 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 ⌈Capulet and his wife at one door, Paris at another door⌉

3.5 Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft ⌈with the ladder of cords⌉

JULIET

Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierced the fear-full hollow of thine ear.

Nightly she sings on yon pom’granate tree.

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

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.

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET

Yon light is not daylight; I know it, I.

It is some meteor that the sun exhaled

To be to thee this night a torchbearer

And light thee on thy way to Mantua.

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;

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.

Come, death, and welcome; Juliet wills it so.

How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.

JULIET

It is, it is. Hie hence, be gone, away.

It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.

Some say the lark makes sweet division;

This doth not so, for she divideth us.

Some say the lark and loathed toad changed eyes.

O, now I would they had changed voices, too,

Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,

Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.

O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.

ROMEO

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,

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