Original subtitles

[silence]

*

[street ambience]

*

[birds flapping]

Two households, both alike in dignity,

in fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

from ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

whose misadventured piteous overthrows

do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

and the continuance of their parents' rage,

which, but their children's end, nought could remove,

is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

what here shall miss,

our toil shall strive to mend.

*

Yo, do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

I do bit my thumb, sir.

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

Is the law of our side, if I say ay?

No.

No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir,

but I bite my thumb, sir.

Do you quarrel, sir?

Quarrel sir! No, sir.

If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.

- No better. - Well, sir.

Say "better:" here comes one of my master's kinsmen.

- Yes, better, sir. - You lie.

Draw, if you be men!

[growling]

Part, fools!

You know not what you so.

What, what, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?

Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

I do but keep the peace.

What, drawn, and talk of peace!

I hate the word, as I hate hell,

all Montagues, and thee:

Have at thee, coward!

[grunting]

[shouts]

What noise is this?!

Give me my long sword, ho!

[laughter]

A crutch, a crutch!

Why call you for a sword?

Old Montague is come, and flourishes his blade in spite of me!

Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not, let me go.

Though shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,

profaners of this neighbour-stained steel--

Will they not hear?

What, ho, you men, you beasts,

that quench the fire of your pernicious rage

with purple fountains issuing from your veins,

on pain of torture, from those bloody hands

throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,

and hear the sentence of your moved prince.

Three civil brawls,

bred of an airy word,

by thee, old Capulet, and Montague,

have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets.

If ever you disturb our streets again,

your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

For this time, all the rest depart away:

You Capulet; shall go along with me:

And, Montague, come you this afternoon,

to know our farther pleasure in this case.

Once more, on pain of death,

all men depart.

O, where is Romeo? Saw you him today?

Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun

peer'd forth the golden window of the east,

a troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;

Where, underneath the grove of sycamore,

so early walking did I see your son.

For many a morning hath he there been seen,

with tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew.

Away from light steals home my heavy son,

and private in his chamber pens himself,

shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out

and makes himself an artificial night.

Black and portentous must this humour prove,

Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

I neither know it nor can learn of him.

See, where he comes:

so please you, step aside;

I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.

[motorcycle approaching]

[audience cheering, applause]

- Good-morrow, cousin. - Is the day so young?

But new struck nine.

Ay me! Sad hours seem long.

Was that my father that went hence so fast?

It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

Not having that which, having, makes them short.

- In love? - Out--

Of love?

Out of her favour, where I am in love.

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,

should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,

should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!

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 any thing, of nothing first create!

O heavy lightness, serious vanity!

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke,

cold fire, sick health!

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

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

- Dost thou not laugh? - No, coz, I rather weep.

Good heart, at what?

At thy good heart's oppression.

Why, such is love's transgression.

Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,

which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest

with more of thine:

this love that thou hast shown

doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

Love is...

...a smoke

raised with the fume of sighs;

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;

Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:

What is it else?

A madness most discreet,

a choking gall and a preserving sweet.

Farewell, my coz.

Soft! I will go along; and if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

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

This is not Romeo, he's some other where.

Tell me in sadness, who is that you love.

What, shall I groan and tell thee?

Groan, why, no. But sadly tell me who.

In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

I aimed so near, when I supposed you loved.

A right fair mark-man! And she is fair I love.

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

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 arm'd,

from love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.

Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

She hath... [laughs]

...and in that sparing makes huge waste.

She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow

do I live dead that live to tell it now.

Be ruled by me.

forget to think of her.

O, teach me how I should forget to think.

By giving liberty unto thine eyes;

Examine other beauties.

'Tis the way

to call hers exquisite, in question more:

These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows

Being black put 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 pass'd that passing fair?

Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.

I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.

[revs motorcycle]

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.

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?

But saying o'er what I have said before:

My child is yet a stranger in the world.

Let two more summers wither in their pride,

ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

Younger than she are happy mothers made.

And too soon marr'd are those so early married.

She is the hopeful lady of my earth:

But woo her, gentle Paris,

get her heart!

My will to her consent is but a part;

An she agreed, within her scope of choice

lies my consent and fair according voice.

This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,

such as I love; and you are invited,

one more, most welcome, to my house.

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-apparell'd April on the heels

of limping winter treads, even such delight

among fresh fennel buds shall you this night

inherit at my house.

At my house hear all, all see,

and like her most whose merit most shall be:

Go, sirrah, trudge about through fair Verona;

find those persons out whose names are written there,

and to them say,

to my house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

Come, go with me.

Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,

one pain is lessen'd 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.

Your plantain-leaf is excellent for that.

- For what, I pray thee? - for your broken shin.

Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,

Whipp'd and tormented and--

God-den, good fellow.

God gi'god-den. I pray, sir...

[laughs]

...can you read?

Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

Perhaps you have learned it without book:

but, I pray, can you read any thing you see?

Ay, if I know the letters and the language.

Ye say honestly: rest you merry!

Stay, fellow; I can read.

"Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;

Mercutio and his brother Valentine;

my fair niece Rosaline; Livia;

Lucio and the lively Helena."

A fair assembly: whither should they come?

My master's.

Indeed, I should have asked thee that before.

Now I'll tell you without asking:

my master in the great rich Capulet;

and if you be not of the house of Montagues,

I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.

[audience laughing]

Rest you merry.

At this same ancient feast of Capulet's

sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,

with all the admired 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.

One fairer than my love!

The all-seeing sun

ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.

Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,

herself poised with herself in either eye.

I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,

but to rejoice in splendor of mine own.

[girls giggling]

[Lady Capulet] Nurse!

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

I bade her come.

What, lamb! What, ladybird!

God forbid! Where's this girl?

What, Juliet!

- How now! Who calls? - Your mother.

Madam...

...I am here. What is your will?

This is the matter: Nurse, give leave awhile,

we must talk in secret.

Nurse, come back again:

I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.

Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.

Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

Susan and she-- God rest all Christian souls--

were of an age:

well, Susan is with God;

She was too good for me.

I remember it well.

'Tis since the earthquake, and she was wean'd--

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 dove-house 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 with the dug!

Shake quoth the dove-house:

'twas no need, I trow,

to bid me trudge:

and 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 com'st of age;

Wilt thou not, Jule?"

and, by my holidame,

the pretty wretch left crying and said

"Ay."

[laughter]

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."

And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.

[laughing]

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.

Marry.

That "marry" is the very theme I came to talk of.

Tell me, daughter Juliet,

how stands your disposition to be married?

It is an honour that I dream not of.

[audience laugh]

An honour!

Were not I thine only nurse,

I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.

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.

A man, young lady!

Lady, such a man as all the world--

Why, he's a man of wax!

Verona's summer hath not such a flower.

Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.

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 margent of his eyes.

This precious book of love, this unbound lover,

to beautify him, only lacks a cover:

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.

No less! Nay, bigger;

women grow by men.

Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?

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.

Madam, the guests are come,

I beseech you, follow straight.

We follow thee.

Juliet, the county stays.

Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

[Romeo] Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;

Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

Not I, believe me:

you have dancing shoes with nimble soles:

I have a soul of lead

so stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,

and soar with them above a common bound.

I am too sore enpierced with his shaft

to soar with his light feathers, and so bound,

I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:

Under love's heavy burden do I sink.

And, to sink in it, should you burden love;

Too great oppression for a tender thing.

Is love a tender thing?

[audience laugh]

It's too rough, too rude,

too boisterous, and it pricks like thorns.

If love be rough with you, be rough with love;

Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.

Come, every man betake him to his legs.

Come, we burn daylight, ho!

And we mean well in going to this mask;

but 'tis no wit to go.

Why, may one ask?

- I dream'd a dream to-night. - So did I.

Well, what was yours?

That dreamers often lie.

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

in shape no bigger than an agate-stone

on the fore-finger of an alderman,

drawn with a team of little atomies

over men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut

made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,

the cover of the wings of grasshoppers,

her traces, the smallest spider web,

her collars are the moonshine's watery beams,

her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,

her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,

not half so big as a round little worm

pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;

And in this state she gallops night by night

through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,

o'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,

o'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:

Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

and then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

of hells five-fathom deep; and then anon

drums in his ear, at which he starts, wakes,

and being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

and sleeps again.

This is that very Mab

that plats the manes of horses in the night,

and bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,

which once being untangled, much misfortune bodes:

This is the hag,

when maids lie on their backs,

that presses them and learns them first to bear,

making them women of good carriage:

This is she--

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Thou talk'st of nothing.

True, I talk of dreams,

which are the children of an idle brain,

begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

which is as thin of substance as the air

and more inconstant than the wind, who woos,

even now, the frozen bosom of the north,

and, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,

turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

I fear, too early:

for my mind misgives

some consequence yet hanging in the stars...

But He, that hath the steerage of my course,

direct my suit!

On, lusty gentlemen!

[drums beating] [people shouting, whistling]

[rhythmic music *]

Welcome, gentlemen!

I have seen the day that I have worn a visor

and could tell a whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,

such as would please!

[laughter]

'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone.

Come, musicians, play!

A hall, a hall! Give room!

And foot it, girls!

[crowd cheers]

[rhythmic music *]

*

[no audible dialogue]

[music fades out *]

What lady is that,

which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?

I know not.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,

as yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.

The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,

and, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.

Did my heart love till now?

Forswear it, sight!

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

This, by his voice,

should be a Montague.

Fetch me my rapier, boy.

What dares the slave come hither,

cover'd with an antic face,

to fleer and scorn at our solemnity?

Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,

to strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.

How now, kinsman! Wherefore storm you so?

Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,

a villain that is hither come in spite,

to scorn at our solemnity this night.

- Young Romeo is it? - 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.

Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;

He bears him like a portly gentleman;

And, to say truth, Verona brags of him

to be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:

I would not for the wealth of all the town

here in my house do him disparagement:

Therefore be patient, take no note of him:

It is my will, the which if thou respect,

show a fair presence and put off these frowns,

and ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

It fist when such a villain is a guest:

- I'll not endure him. - He shall be endured!

What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;

am I the master here, or you?

Go to. You'll not endure him!

God shall mend my soul!

You'll make a mutiny among my guests!

- Why, uncle, 'tis a shame! - Go to, go to.

Be quiet, or for shame, I'll make you quiet!

Patience perforce with willful choler meeting

makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.

I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall

now seeming sweet convert to bitt'rest gall.

[music fades back in *]

*

[music fades out *]

[awkward giggle]

[audience laugh]

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

this holy shrine,

the gentle sin is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Good pilgrim,

you do wrong your hand too much,

which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Have saints not lips, and holy palmers too?

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

O, then,

dear saint,

let lips do what hands do; they pray

grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Saints do not move,

though grant for prayer's sake.

Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!

Give me my sin again.

You kiss by the book.

[Nurse] Madam,

your mother craves a word with you.

[audience laugh]

What is her mother?

Marry, bachelor,

her mother is the lady of the house.

- Is she a Capulet? - Away!

Begone; the sport is at the best.

Ay,so I fear; the more is my unrest.

Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?

The son and heir of old Tiberio.

What's he that now is going out of door?

Marry, that, I think be young Petrucio.

What's he that follows here, that would not dance?

I know not.

Go ask his name...

If he be married, my grave is like to be my wedding bed.

His name is Romeo, and a Montague;

the only son of your great enemy.

My only love sprung from my only hate.

Too early seen unknown, and known too late.

Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

that I must love a loathed enemy.

What's this? What's this?

A rhyme I learn'd even now of one I danced withal.

[woman] Juliet!

Anon, anon!

Come, let's away; the strangers all have gone.

*

Romeo! My cousin Romeo!

He is wise;

And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.

He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:

Call, good Mercutio.

Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover!

[audience laugh]

Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:

I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,

by her high forehead and her scarlet lip,

by her fine foot,

straight leg and quivering thigh,

and the demesnes that there adjacent lie,

that in thy likeness thou appear to us!

And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

This cannot anger him.

my invocation is fair and honest,

and in his mistress' name

I conjure only but to raise up him.

Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,

to be consorted with the humourous night:

Blind is his love and best befits the dark.

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.

This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:

Come, shall we go?

Go, then; for 'tis in vain

to seek him here that means not to be found.

- Romeo! - Shh!

Good night.

He jests at scars

that never felt a wound.

[grunts]

But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

[sighs]

It is the east,

and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun,

and kill the envious moon,

who is already sick and pale with grief,

that thou her maid

art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

and none but fools do wear it;

cast it off.

It is my lady,

O, it is my love!

O, that she knew she were!

[inaudible]

She speaks

yet she says nothing: what of that?

Her eye discourses;

I will answer it.

I am too bold,

'tis not to me she speaks:

Two of the fairest stars

in all the heaven,

having some business, do entreat her eyes

to twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,

as daylight doth a lamp;

her eyes in heaven

would through the airy region stream so bright

that birds would sing and think it were not night.

[sighs]

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

that I might touch that cheek!

- Ay me! - She speaks:

O, speak again, bright angel

for thou art as glorious to this night,

being o'er my head

as is a winged messenger of heaven

unto the white-upturned wondering eyes

of mortals that fall back to gaze on him

when he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds

and sails upon the bosom of the air.

O Romeo...

Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse they name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

and I'll no longer be a capulet.

Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague?

It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face,

nor any other part belonging to a man.

O, be some other name!

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose by any other word

would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,

retain that dear perfection

which he owes Without that title.

O, Romeo, doff thy name,

and for thy name which is no part of thee...

...take all myself.

I take thee at thy word:

Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;

Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night

so stumblest on my counsel?

By a name

I know not how to tell thee who I am:

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,

because it is an enemy to thee;

Had I it written, I would tear the word.

My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words

of that tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound:

Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?

Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?

The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,

and the place death, considering who thou art,

if any of my kinsmen find thee here.

With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;

For stony limits cannot hold love out,

and what love can do that dares love attempt;

Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye

than twenty of their swords:

look thou but sweet,

and I am proof against their enmity.

I would not for the world they saw thee here.

I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes;

And but thou love me, let them find me here:

My life were better ended by their hate,

than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

By whose direction found'st thou out this place?

By love,

that first did prompt me to inquire;

He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes.

I am no pilot;

yet, wert thou as far

as that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,

I would adventure for such merchandise.

Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face,

else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek

for that which thou hast heard me speak to-night

fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny

what I have spoke: but farewell compliment!

Dost thou love me?

I know thou wilt say 'Ay,'

and I will take thy word:

yet if thou swear'st, thou mayst prove false;

at lovers' perjuries, they say, Jove laughs.

O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love,

pronounce it faithfully:

Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,

I'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay,

so thou wilt woo;

but else,

not for the world.

In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,

and therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light:

but trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true

than those that have more cunning to be strange.

I should have been more strange, I must confess,

but that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,

my true love passion:

therefore pardon me,

and not impute this yielding to light love,

which the dark night hath so discovered.

Lady, by yonder blessed moon do I vow

that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops--

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,

that monthly changes in her circled orb,

lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

What should I swear by?

Do not swear at all;

Or, if thou wilt,

swear by thy gracious self,

which is the god of my idolatry,

and I'll believe thee.

If my heart's dear love--

Well, do not swear:

although I joy in thee,

I have no joy of this contract to-night:

It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;

Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be

ere one can say "It lightens."

Sweet, good night!

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,

may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

Good night, good night!

As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart

as that within my breast!

O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?

The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.

I gave thee mine before thou didst request it:

And yet I would it were to give again.

Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?

But to be frank, and give it thee again.

And yet I wish but for the thing I have:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

my love as deep;

the more I give to thee,

the more I have, for both are infinite.

[Nurse] Juliet!

I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!

Anon, good nurse!

Sweet Montague, be true.

Stay but a little, I will come again.

[audience laugh]

O blessed, blessed night!

I am afeard.

Being in night, all this is but a dream,

too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.

If that thy bent of love be honourable,

thy purpose marriage,

send me word to-morrow,

by one that I'll procure to come to thee,

where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;

And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay

and follow thee my lord throughout the world.

[Nurse] Madam!

I come, anon! But if thous meanest not well, I do beseech thee--

[Nurse] Madam!

By and by, I come-- To cease thy stripe, and leave me to my grief:

To-morrow will I send.

So thrive my soul--

A thousand times good night!

A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.

Love goes toward love,

as schoolboys from their books,

but love from love,

toward school with heavy looks.

Hist! Romeo, hist!

O, for a falconer's voice,

to lure this tassel-gentle back again!

Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;

Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,

and make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,

with repetition of my Romeo.

It is my soul

that calls upon my name:

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,

like softest music to attending ears!

Romeo!

My nice.

What o'clock to-morrow shall I send to thee?

- By the hour of nine. - I will not fail.

'Tis twenty years till then.

I have forgot why I did call thee back.

Let me stand here till thou remember it.

I shall forget to have thee still stand there,

remembering how I love thy company.

And I'll still stand here, to have thee still forget,

forgetting any other home but this.

'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:

And yet no further than a wanton's bird;

Who lets it hop a little from his hand

like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,

and with a silk thread plucks it back again,

so loving-jealous of his liberty.

I would I were thy bird.

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.

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 close cell,

his help to crave,

my dear hap to tell.

[applause]

*

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies in plants,

herbs, stones,

and their true qualities:

For nought 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 sometimes by action dignified.

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, stays 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.

Good morrow, father!

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:

Or if not so, then here I hit it right,

our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

That last was true; the sweeter rest was mine.

God pardon sin!

Wast thou with Rosaline?

With Rosaline, my ghostly father, no;

I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.

Well, that's my good son:

but where hast thou been, then?

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.

Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;

Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

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 combined, save what thou must combine

by holy marriage:

when and where and how

we met, we woo'd we made exchange of vow,

I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,

that thou consent to marry us to-day.

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!

Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.

For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

I pray thee chide me not, her I love now

doth grace for grace and love for love allow;

the other did not so.

O, she knew well thy love did read by rote and 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.

O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste!

Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast!

[Mercutio] Where the devil should this Romeo be?

Came he not home to-night?

Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.

Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench,

that Rosaline.

Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,

hath sent a letter to his father's house.

A challenge, on my life.

Romeo will answer it.

Any man that can write may answer a letter.

Nay, he will answer the letter's master,

how he dares, being dared.

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?

Why, what is Tybalt?

More than prince of cats.

O, he is the courageous captain of compliments.

He fights as you sing prick-song,

keeps time, distance, and proportion;

rests me his minim rest, one, two,

and the third in your bosom:

the very butcher of a silk button,

a duelist,

a duelist;

a gentleman of the very first house,

of the first and second cause:

ah, the immortal passado!

The punto reverso!

- The-- hai! - The what?

Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!

You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.

Good morrow to you both.

What counterfeit did I give you?

The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

Pardon, good Mercutio, but my business was great;

and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

Nay, I'm the very pink of courtesy.

- Pink for flower. - Right.

Why, then, is my pump well flowered?

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.

O single-soled jest,

solely singular for the singleness.

Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

Switch and spurs, switch and spurs;

or I'll cry a match!

Why, now is not this better than groaning for love?

Now art thou sociable,

now art thou Romeo;

now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:

Stop there! Stop there!

[all groaning]

Ged ye good morrow, gentlemen.

God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.

[audience laugh]

Is it good den?

'Tis no less, I tell you,

for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.

Out upon you! What a man are you?

One, gentlewoman, that God himself hath made to mar.

Gentlemen, can any of you tell me

where I may find the young Romeo?

I can tell you;

but young Romeo will be older when you have found him

then he was when you sought him:

I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.

If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.

I will follow you.

Farewell, ancient lady; farewell--

Pray you, sir, a word:

And as I told you, my young lady bid me inquire you out;

what she bid me say,

I will keep to myself:

but first let me tell ye,

if ye should lead her in a fool's paradise,

as they say,

it were a very gross kind of behavior,

as they say:

for the gentlewoman is young;

and, therefore, if you should deal double with her,

truly it were an ill thing to be offered

to any gentlewoman, and...

...very weak dealing.

Nurse, commend me unto thy lady and mistress.

I protest unto thee--

Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:

Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.

What wilt thou tell her, nurse?

Thou dost not mark me.

I will tell her, sir, that you do protest;

which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.

Bid her devise some means

to come to shrift this afternoon;

And there she shall at Friar Lawrence's cell

be shrived and married.

Here is for thy pains.

No truly, sir; not a penny.

Go to; I say you shall.

This afternoon, sir?

Well, she shall be there.

Now... god in heaven bless thee.

Fare thee well!

*

[audience laugh]

The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;

In half an hour she promised to return.

Perchance she cannot meet him:

that's not so.

O, she is lame!

Love's heralds should be thoughts,

which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,

driving back shadows over louring hills:

Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,

and therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.

Now is the sun upon the highmost hill

of this day's journey,

and from nine till twelve is three long hours,

yet she is not come.

Had she affections and warm youthful blood,

she would be as swift in motion as a ball;

My words would bandy her to my sweet love, and his to me:

But old folks,

many feign as they were dead;

Unwieldy, slow,

heavy and pale as lead.

O God, she comes! O honey nurse, what news?

Hast thou met with him?

O Lord, why look'st thou sad?

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;

If good, thou shames the music of sweet news

by playing it to me with so sour a face.

I am a-weary,

give me leave awhile:

Fie, how my bones ache!

What a jaunt have I had!

I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:

Now, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.

Jesu, what haste? Can you not stay awhile?

[breathing heavily] So you not see that I am out of breath?

[audience laugh]

How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath

to say to me that thou art out of breath?

The excuse that thou dost make in this delay

is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.

Is thy news good, or bad? Answer to that;

Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:

Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?

Well, you have made a simple choice;

you know not how to choose a man:

Romeo! No, not he;

though his face be better than any man's,

yet his leg excels all men's;

and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,

though they be not to be talked on,

yet they are past compare:

he is not the flower of courtesy,

but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb.

Go thy ways, wench; serve God.

What, have you dined at home?

No, but all this did I know before.

What says he of our marriage? What of that?

Lord, how my head aches!

What a head have I!

It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.

My back...

...o' t' other side.

O, my back, my back!

Beshrew your heart for sending me about,

to catch my death with jaunting up and down!

I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.

Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse,

tell me, what says my love?

Your love says, like an honest gentleman,

and a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome,

and, I warrant, a virtuous--

Where is your mother?

Where is my mother! Why, she is within;

Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!

'Your love says, like an honest gentleman, where is your mother?'

O God's lady, dear! Are you so hot?

Marry, come up, I trow;

Is this the poultice for my aching bones?

Henceforward do your messages yourself.

Here's such a coil! Come, what says Romeo?

Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?

I have.

Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;

There stays a husband to make you a wife:

[screaming]

Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,

they'll be in scarlet straight at any news.

Hie you to church; I must another way,

to fetch a ladder, by the which your love

must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:

I am the drudge and toil in your delight,

but you shall bear the burden soon at night.

Go I to dinner: hie you to the cell.

Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell!

*

So smile the heavens upon this holy act,

that after hours with sorrow chide us not.

Amen, amen!

But come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail

the exchange of joy

that one short minute gives me in her sight:

Do thou but close our hands with holy words,

then love-devouring death do what he dare;

It is enough I may but call her mine.

These violent delights have violent ends

and in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

which as they kiss consume:

the sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness

and in the taste confounds the appetite:

Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;

too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Here comes the lady:

O, so light a foot will ne'er wear out

the everlasting flint:

A lover may bestride the gossamer

that idles on the wanton summer air,

and yet not fall; so light is vanity.

Good even to my ghostly confessor.

[audience laugh]

Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy

be heap'd like mine

and that thy skill be more to blazon it,

then sweeten with thy breath this neighbour air,

and let rich music's tongue unfold the imagined happiness

that both receive in either by this dear encounter.

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,

brags of his substance, not of ornament:

They are but beggars that can count their worth;

But my true love is grown to such excess

I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

Come, come with me, and we will make short work;

For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone

till holy church incorporate two in one.

*

[church bell rings]

*

i pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:

The day is hot, the Capulets abroad.

and if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;

For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

Thou art like one of these fellows

that when he enters the confines of a tavern

claps me his sword upon the table and says

"God send me no need of thee!"

and by the operation of the second cup

draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.

Am I like such a fellow?

Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood

as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody,

and as soon moody to be moved.

And what to?

Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly,

for one would kill the other.

And thou wilt tutor me from quarreling!

By my head, here come the Capulets.

By my heel, I care not.

Follow me close, for I will speak to them.

Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.

And but one word with one of us?

Couple it with something;

make it a word and a blow.

[audience laugh]

You shall find me apt enough to that, sir,

an you will give me occasion.

Could you not take some occasion without giving?

Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo--

Consort! What, dost that make us minstrels?

an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords:

here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance.

We talk here in the public haunt of men:

Either withdraw unto some private place,

or reason coldly of your grievances,

or else depart;

here all eyes gaze on us.

Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;

I'll budge for no man's pleasure, I.

Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.

But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:

Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;

Your worship in that sense may call him "man."

Romeo,

the love I bear thee can afford no better term than this--

Thou art a villain.

Tybalt, the reason I have to love thee

doth much excuse the appertaining rage

to such a greeting: villain am I none;

Therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.

Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries thou hast done me;

therefore turn and draw!

I do protest,

I never injured thee,

but love thee better than thou canst devise,

till thou shalt know the reason of my love:

And so, good Capulet--

which name I tender as dearly as mine own--

be satisfied.

O calm, dishonorable, vile submission!

Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

What wouldst thou have with me, huh?

Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives;

that I mean to make bold withal,

and as you shall use me hereafter,

drybeat the rest of the eight.

Will you pluck your sword from his pitcher by the ears?

Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.

[grunting]

Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

Come, sir.

Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.

Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!

Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath forbidden

bandying in Verona streets:

Hold, Tybalt!

Good Mercutio!

I am...

...hurt.

A plague o' both your houses.

I'm sped.

Is he gone, and hath nothing?

What, art thou hurt?

Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; Marry, 'tis enough.

Where's my page?

Go villain, fetch a surgeon.

Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

No, no, 'tis not so deep as a well,

nor so wide as a church-door;

but 'tis enough, 'twill serve:

ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

Why the devil came you between us?

I was hurt under your arm.

I thought all for the best.

Take me to some house, Benvolio, or I shall faint.

A plague o' both your houses!

They have made worms' meat of me:

I have it, and soundly too:

your houses!

This gentleman, the prince's near ally,

my very friend, hath got this mortal hurt

in my behalf;

my reputation stain'd with Tybalt's slander--

Tybalt, that an hour hath been my cousin!

O...

...sweet Juliet,

thy beauty hath made me effeminate

and in my temper soften'd valour's steel!

O Romeo, Romeo...

...brave Mercutio is dead!

That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,

which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

This day's black fate on more days doth depend;

This but begins the woe, others must end.

Here comes the furious Tybalt back again!

Alive in triumph! And Mercutio slain!

Away to heaven, respective lenity,

and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!

Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again,

that late thou gavest me;

for Mercutio's soul is but a little way above our heads,

staying for thine to keep him company:

Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.

Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,

shalt with him hence.

This shall determine that.

[grunting]

[crying out in pain]

Romeo, away, be gone!

The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.

Stand not amazed:

the prince will doom thee death if thou art taken:

Hence, be gone, away!

O, I am fortune's fool!

Why dost thou stay? [cries out]

Which way ran he that killed Mercutio?

Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?

There lies that Tybalt.

Up, sir, go with me:

I charge thee in the prince's name, away.

Where are the vile beginners of this fray?

O noble prince,

I can discover all the unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:

There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,

that slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.

Tybalt, my cousin!

O my brother's child!

Prince, as thou art true,

for blood of ours, shed blood of Montague!

Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?

Tybalt, here slain,

whom Romeo's hand did slay;

Romeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink

how nice the quarrel was,

and urged withal your high displeasure:

all this uttered

with gentle breath, calm look,

knees humbly bow'd,

could not take truce with the unruly spleen

of Tybalt deaf to peace!

He is a kinsman to the Montague;

Affection makes him false; he speaks not true.

I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;

Romeo slew Tybalt,

Romeo must not live!

Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio;

Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

Not Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend;

His fault concludes but what the law should end,

the life of Tybalt.

And for that offense immediately we do exile him hence:

I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,

my blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;

But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine

that you shall all repent the loss of mine:

I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;

Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:

Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,

else, when he's found,

that hour is his last.

Bear hence this body and attend our will:

Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

*

[church bell rings]

[woman moaning]

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

towards Phoebus' lodging:

such a wagoner as Phaethon would whip you to the west,

and bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

that runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo

leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.

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-brow'd night,

give me my Romeo;

and, when he 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 possess'd it, and, though I am sold,

not yet enjoy'd:

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.

O, here comes my nurse.

Now, nurse, what news? Why dost thou ring thy hands?

Ah, well-a-day! He's dead, he's dead, he's dead!

We are undone, lady, we are undone!

Alas the day! He's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!

Can heaven be so envious?

Romeo can, though heaven cannot:

O Romeo, Romeo!

Whoever would have thought it? Romeo!

What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?

This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.

Hath Romeo slain himself?

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

God save the mark-- here on his manly breast:

A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;

Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,

all in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.

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!

O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!

O courteous Tybalt! Honest gentleman!

That ever I should live to see thee dead!

What storm is this that blows so contrary?

Is Romeo slaughter'd, 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?

Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;

Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.

O God.

Did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

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

O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

Beautiful tyrant!

Fiend angelical!

Despised substance of divinest show!

Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,

a damned saint, an honourable villain!

Was ever book containing such vile matter

so fairly bound?

O that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace!

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

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

Give me some aqua vitae:

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

Shame come to Romeo!

Blister'd 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 crown'd

sole monarch of the universal earth.

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

Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?

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 kill'd 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 murder'd 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 "banished,"

that one word "banished,"

hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.

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?

Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse.

Wash they his wounds with tears:

mine shall be spent, when theirs are dry,

for Romeo's banishment.

Nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;

And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

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.

Find him!

Give this ring to my true knight,

and bid him come to take his last farewell.

*

Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:

Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,

and thou art wedded to calamity.

Father, what news?

What is the prince's doom?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,

that I yet know not?

Too familiar is my dear son with such sour company:

I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.

A gentler judgement vanish'd from his lips,

Not body's death,

but body's banishment.

Ha!

Banishment!

Be merciful, say "death;"

For exile hath more terror in his look,

much more than death: do not say "banishment."

Hence from Verona art thou banished:

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

There is no world without Verona walls,

but purgatory, torture, hell itself.

Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,

and world's exile is death:

then banished, is death mis-term'd:

calling death banishment, thou cutt'st my head off

with a golden axe,

and smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!

Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,

taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,

and turn'd that black word death to banishment:

This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.

'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 my seize on the 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 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,

but "banished" to kill me with?

"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,

to mangle me with that word "banished"?

Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.

O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

I'll give thee armour to keep off that word:

Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,

To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

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.

O, then I see that madmen have no ears.

How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?

Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

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 might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy hair,

and fall upon the ground, as I do now,

taking the measure of an unmade grave.

[knocking]

Arise; one knocks;

good Romeo,

hide thyself.

Who knocks so hard? Whence come you?

What's your will?

[nurse] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand;

I come from Lady Juliet! - Welcome, then.

O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,

where is my lady's lord, where is Romeo?

There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

O, he is even in my mistress' case,

just in her case! O woful sympathy!

Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,

blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.

Stand up...

...stand up; stand, and you be a man:

Spakest thou of Juliet?

How is it with her?

Doth she not think me an old murderer,

now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy

with blood removed but little from her own?

Where is she? And how doth she?

And what says my conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?

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.

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,

in what vile part of this anatomy

doth my name lodge?

Tell me, that I may sack the hateful mansion.

Hold thy desperate hand!

Art thou a man?

Thy form cries out thou art:

Thy wild acts denote the unreasonable fury of a beast:

Unseemly woman in a seeming man!

Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!

By my holy order, I thought thy disposition better temper'd.

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.

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 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:

A pack of blessings light up upon thy back;

Happiness courts thee in her best array;

Yet, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,

thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:

Take heed,

take heed,

for such die miserable.

O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night

to hear good counsel:

O, what learning is!

Go...

...get thee to thy love...

...as was decreed.

Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:

And 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.

My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.

Do so,

and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

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

Hie you, make haste,

for it grows very late.

How well my comfort is revived by this.

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 which chances here:

Give me thy hand;

'tis late:

farewell;

good night.

But a joy past joy calls out on me,

it were a grief, so brief to part with thee:

Farewell.

*

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 to-night:

I promise you, but for your company,

I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

These times of woe afford no time to woo.

Madam, good night:

Commend me to your daughter.

I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;

To-night she is mew'd up to her heaviness.

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 with my son Paris' love;

And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next--

But, soft! what day is this?

Monday, my lord.

Monday! Well, Wednesday is too soon.

O' Thursday let it be:

o' 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?

My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.

Well get you gone:

o' Thursday be it, then.

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 very late,

that we may call it early by and by.

Good night.

*

Wilt thou be gone?

It is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

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.

Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I--

It is some meteor that the sun exhales,

to be to thee this night a torch-bearer,

and light thee on thy way to Mantua:

Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.

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:

Come, death, and welcome!

Juliet wills it so.

How is't, my soul?

Let's talk; it is not day.

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:

O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.

More light and light;

more dark and dark our woes!

[nurse] Madam! Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:

The day is broke; be wary, look about.

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

Farewell...

...farewell!

One kiss, and I'll descend.

Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay, 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!

I will omit no opportunity

that may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

O think'st thou we shall ever meet again?

I doubt it not;

and all these woes shall serve

for sweet discourses in our time to come.

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.

And trust me, love,

in my eye so do you:

Dry sorrow drinks our blood.

Adieu.

Adieu.

O fortune,

fortune!

All men call thee fickle:

If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him

that is renown'd for faith?

Be fickle, fortune;

For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,

but send him back.

[Lady Capulet] Ho, daughter! Are you up?

Who is't that calls?

It is my lady mother.

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

What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?

Why, how now, Juliet.

Madam, I am not well.

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 grief shows still some want of wit.

Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend which you weep for.

Feeling so the loss, cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

Well, girl, thou weepiest not so much for his death,

as that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.

What villain madam?

That same villain, Romeo.

Villain and he be many miles asunder--

God pardon him! I do, with all my heart.

And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

That is, because the traitor murderer lives.

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

Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!

We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:

Then weep no more.

I'll send to one in Mantua,

where that same banish'd runagate doth live,

shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,

that he shall soon keep Tybalt company:

Then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

Indeed, I never shall be satisfied with Romeo,

till I behold him...

...dead.

Is my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd.

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 slaughter'd him!

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

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

And joy come well in such a needy time:

What are they, I beseech your ladyship.

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 look'd not for.

Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

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.

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!

Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,

and see how he will take it at your hands.

How now, wife! Have you deliver'd to her our decree?

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

I would the fool were married to her grave!

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 bridegroom? - 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.

How now, how now, chop-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 against Thursday next,

to go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,

or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

Out, you baggage!

Fie, fie! What, are you mad?

Good father, I beseech you on my knees,

hear me with patience but to speak a word.

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;

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:

God in heaven bless her!

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

And why, my lady wisdom?

Hold your tongue, good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

- I speak no treason. - O, Ged ye god-den.

- May not one speak? - Peace, you mumbling fool!

Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;

For here we need it not!

You are too hot.

God's bread! It makes me mad:

Day, night, hour, time, tide, work, play,

alone, in company, still my care hath been

to have her match'd:

and having now provided a gentleman of noble parentage,

of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly lined,

stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,

proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;

Then to have a wretched puling fool,

a whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,

to answer "I'll not wed; I cannot love,

I am too young; I pray you, pardon me."

But, as 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;

And you be not, hang, beg, starve,

die in the streets,

for, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee!

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.

talk not to me...

...for I'll not speak a word:

Do as thou wilt...

...for I have done with thee.

O God!

O nurse, 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 practice stratagems

upon so soft a subject as myself!

What say'st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?

Some comfort, 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 here and you no use of him.

Speakest thou from thy heart?

And from my soul too;

or else beshrew them both.

Amen!

What?

Well, thou hast comforted me marvelous much.

Go and tell my lady I am gone,

having displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,

to make confession and to be absolved.

Marry, I will...

...and this is wisely done.

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.

On Thursday, sir?

The time is very short.

My father Capulet will have it so;

And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

You say...

...you do not know the lady's mind:

Uneven is the course, I like it not.

Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,

and therefore little have I talk'd of love;

For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.

Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous

that she doth 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.

I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.

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

Happily met, my lady and my wife!

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

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

What must be shall be.

That's a certain text.

Come you to make confession to this father?

to answer that, I should confess to you.

Do not deny to him that you love me.

[chuckles]

I will confess to you that I love him.

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

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

being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

Poor soul, they face is much abused with tears.

The tears have got small victory by that;

For it was bad enough before their spite.

Thou wrong's it, more than tears, with that report.

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

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

Thy face is mine,

and thou hast slander'd it.

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?

My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.

My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

God shield I should disturb devotion!

Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:

Until then, adieu;

and keep this holy kiss.

O shut the door!

And when thou hast done so, come weep with me;

past hope, past cure, past help!

Ah, 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.

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,

and with this knife I'll help it presently.

God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;

And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,

shall be the label to another deed,

or my true heart with treacherous revolt

turn to another, this shall slay them both:

Be not so long to speak;

I long to die,

if what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

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,

which copest with death himself to scape from it:

And, if thou darest,

I'll give thee remedy.

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,

and I will do it without fear or doubt,

to live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.

Hold, then...

...go home,

be merry,

give consent to marry Paris:

Wednesday is to-morrow:

To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;

Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:

Take thou this vial,

being then in bed...

...and this distilled liquor drink thou off;

When presently through all thy veins shall run

a cold and drowsy humour,

for no pulse shall keep his native progress,

but surcease:

No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;

And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death

thou shalt continue two and forty hours,

and then... awake...

...as from a pleasant sleep.

Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes

to rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:

Then, as the manner of our country is,

in thy best robes uncover'd on the bier

thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault

where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.

In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,

shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,

and hither shall he come:

and he and I will watch thy waking,

and that very night shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.

And this shall free thee from this present shame;

If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,

abate thy valour in the acting it.

Give me, give me!

O, tell not me of fear!

Hold; get you gone,

be strong and prosperous in this resolve:

I'll send a friar with speed to Mantua,

with my letters to thy lord.

Love give me strength and strength shall help afford!

Farewell, dear father!

*

What...

...is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?

Ay, forsooth.

Well, he may chance to do some good on her:

A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

See where she comes from shrift with merry look.

How now, my headstrong!

Where have you been gadding?

Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin

of disobedient opposition to you and your behests,

and am enjoin'd by holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,

and beg your pardon:

Pardon,

I beseech you!

Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.

Send for the county; go tell him of this:

I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.

I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;

And gave him what becomed love I might,

not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.

Why, I am glad on't; this is well: stand up.

This is as it should be.

Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,

to help me sort such needful ornaments

as you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?

No, not till Thursday; there is time enough.

Go, nurse, go with her: we'll to church to-morrow.

We shall be short in our provision:

'Tis now near night.

Tush, I will stir about,

and all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:

Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;

I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;

I'll play the housewife...

...for this once.

What, ho!

They are all forth.

Well, I will walk myself to County Paris,

to prepare up him against to-morrow:

my heart is wondrous light,

since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.

*

[giggling]

Ay, those attires are best:

But, gentle nurse,

I pray thee, leave me to my self to-night.

What, are you busy, ho?

Need you my help?

No, madam;

we have cull'd such necessaries

as are behoveful for our state to-morrow:

So please you, let me now be left alone,

and let the nurse this night sit up with you;

For, I am sure, you have your hands full all,

in this so sudden business.

Good night:

Get thee to bed, and rest;

for thou hast need.

Farewell!

God knows when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,

that almost freezes up the heat of life:

I'll call them back again to comfort me:

Nurse!

What should she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.

Come, vial.

What if it be a poison, which the friar

subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,

lest in this marriage he should be dishonoured

because he married me before to Romeo?

I fear it is:

and yet, methinks, it should not,

How if, when I am laid into the tomb,

I wake before the time that Romeo come to redeem me?

There's a fearful point!

Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,

and there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

Or, if I live,

is it not very like, the horrible conceit of death and night,

together with the terror of the place--

As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,

where, for these many hundred years,

the bones of all my buried ancestors are packed:

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,

lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,

at some hours in the night spirits resort--

That living mortals, hearing them, run mad--

O, look! Methinks I see my cousin's ghost

seeking out Romeo!

Stay, Tybalt, stay!

Romeo...

Romeo...

Romeo, here's drink...

I drink to thee.

[Lady Capulet] Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, nurse.

[Capulet] Come, stir, stir, stir!

The second cock hath crow'd, the curfew-bell hath rung.

Good faith, 'tis day:

The county will be here with music straight,

for so he said he would: I hear him near.

Nurse! Wife!

What, ho! What, nurse, I say!

Go wake Juliet, go and trim her up;

I'll go and chat with Paris: Hie, make haste, make haste!

The bridegroom, he is come already:

Make haste, I say.

Mistress!

What, mistress! Juliet!

Why, lamb!

Why, lady!

Fie, you slug-a-bed!

Why, love, I say!

Madam!

Sweet-heart!

Why, bride!

What, not a word?

How sound is she asleep!

[sighs]

I must needs wake her.

Madam, madam, madam!

[laughs]

What, dress'd! And in your clothes!

And down again!

I must needs wake you;

Lady!

Lady!

Lady.

Alas!

Alas!

Help... help!

[crying] My lady's dead!

O, well-a-day, that ever I was born!

Some aqua vitae, ho!

My lord! My lady!

What noise is here?

- O lamentable day! - What is the matter?

Look, look! O heavy day!

[crying]

O me.

O me! My child, my only life,

revive, look up, or I will die with thee!

Help! Help! Call help!

For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.

She's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!

Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!

O lamentable day!

O woful time!

[nurse crying]

Death,

that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,

ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.

Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

Ready to go, but never to return.

O son! The night before thy wedding-day

hath Death lain with thy wife.

There she lies, flower as she was,

deflowered by him.

Death is my son-in-law,

Death is my heir;

My daughter he hath wedded:

I will die, and leave him all;

life, living, all is Death's.

Have I long thought to see this morning's face,

and doth it give me such a sight as this?

Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!

Peace, ho, for shame!

Confusion's cure lives not in these confusions.

Heaven and yourself had part in this fair maid;

now heaven hath all,

and all the better is it for the maid:

O, in this love, you love your child so ill,

that you run mad, seeing that she is well:

Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary

on this fair corse; and, as the custom is,

and in her best array

bear her to church:

Sir...

...go you in; and, madam, go with him;

And go, Sir Paris;

Every one prepare to follow this fair corse...

...unto her grave:

The heavens do lour upon you for some ill;

Move them no more

by crossing their high will.

*

If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,

My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:

My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;

And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit

lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead--

Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think--

and breathed such life with kisses in my lips,

that I revived, and was an emperor.

Ah me! How sweet is love itself possess'd,

when but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

News from Verona!-- How now, Balthasar!

Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?

How doth my lady? Is my father well?

How doth my Juliet?

That I ask again;

for nothing can be ill, if she be well.

Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:

Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,

and her immortal part with angels lives.

I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,

and presently took post to tell it you:

Pardon me for bringing these ill news,

Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Is it e'en so?

Then I defy you, stars!

Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,

and hire post-horses;

I will hence to-night.

I do beseech you, sir, have patience:

Your looks are pale and wild,

and do import some misadventure.

Tush, thou art deceived: Leave me,

and do the thing I bid thee do.

Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

No, my good lord.

No matter: get thee gone, and hire those horses;

I'll be with thee straight.

Well, Juliet,

I will lie with thee to-night.

Let's see for means:

O mischief, thou art swift

to enter in the thoughts of desperate men!

I do remember an apothecary--

And hereabouts he dwells--

I remember, this should be the house.

What, ho! Apothecary!

[man] Who calls so loud?

Come hither, man.

I see that thou art poor:

Hold, there is forty ducats:

let me have a dram of poison,

such soon-speeding gear

as will disperse itself through all the veins

that the life-weary taker may fall dead

and that the trunk may be discharged of breath

as violently as hasty powder fired

doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Such mortal drugs I have;

but Mantua's law is death to any he that utters them.

Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,

and fear'st to die?

Famine is in thy cheeks,

need and oppression starveth in thy eye,

contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;

The world is not thy friend nor the world's law;

The world affords no law to make thee rich;

Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

My poverty, but not my will, consents.

I pay thy poverty and not thy will.

Put this in any liquid thing you will,

and drink it off;

and, if you had the strength of twenty men,

it would dispatch you straight.

There is thy gold,

worse poison to men's souls,

doing more murders in this loathsome world,

than these poor compounds thou mayst not sell.

I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.

Farewell:

buy food...

...and get thyself in flesh.

Come, cordial and not poison,

go with me

to Juliet's grave;

for there must I use thee.

[man] Holy Franciscan friar!

Brother, ho!

This same should be the voice of Friar John.

Welcome from Mantua:

what says Romeo?

Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

Going to find a bare-foot brother out

one of our order, to associate me,

here in this city visiting the sick,

and finding him, the searchers of the town,

suspecting that we both were in a house

where the infectious pestilence did reign,

seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;

So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.

Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?

I could not send it-- here it is again--

nor get a messenger to bring it thee,

so fearful were they of infection.

Unhappy fortune!

The letter was not nice but full of charge

of dear import, and the neglecting it

may do much danger.

Friar John, go hence;

Get me an iron crow,

and bring it straight unto my cell.

Brother, I will go and bring it thee.

Now must I to the monument alone;

Within three hours will fair Juliet wake:

She will beshrew me much that Romeo

hath had no notice of these accidents;

But I will write again to Mantua,

keep her at my cell till Romeo come;

Poor living corse,

closed in a dead man's tomb!

Hold,

take this letter;

early in the morning see thou deliver it to my lord and father.

Give me the light:

upon thy life, I charge thee,

whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,

and do not interrupt me in my course.

Therefore hence, be gone:

But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry

in what I further shall intend to do,

by heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint

and strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:

The time and my intents are savage-wild,

more fierce and more inexorable far

than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

So shalt thou show me friendship.

Take thou that:

Live, and be prosperous:

and farewell, good fellow.

*

O my love! My wife!

Death...

...that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,

hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

Thou art not conquer'd;

Beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips...

...and in thy cheeks,

and death's pale flag is not advanced there.

Ah, dear Juliet...

Why art thou yet so fair?

Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous,

and that the lean abhorred monster

keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour?

For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;

And never from this palace of dim night depart again:

Here, here will I remain...

...with worms that are thy chamber-maids;

O, here will I set up my everlasting rest,

and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

from this world-wearied flesh.

Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace!

And, lips, O you, the doors of breath,

seal with a righteous kiss

a dateless bargain to engrossing death!

Come, bitter conduct...

...come, unsavoury guide!

Thou desperate pilot,

now at once run on the dashing rocks

thy sea-sick weary bark!

Here's to my love!

O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick.

Thus with a kiss...

...I die.

Romeo.

Romeo.

O, pale.

Ah, what an unkind hour

is guilty of this lamentable chance.

The lady stirs.

O comfortable friar!

Where is my lord?

I do remember well where I should be,

and there I am. Where is my Romeo?

I hear some noise.

Lady, come from that nest of death,

contagion, and unnatural sleep:

A greater power than we can contradict

hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.

Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;

Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;

[cries out]

Come, go, good Juliet!

I dare no longer stay!

Go, get thee hence, for I will not away!

What's here? A cup, closed in my true love's hand?

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:

O churl!

Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after?

I will kiss thy lips;

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,

to make die with a restorative.

Thy lips are warm.

[man] Lead, boy: which way?

Yea, noise?

Then I'll be brief.

O happy dagger!

This is thy sheath...

...there rust, and let me die.

[Prince] What misadventure is so early up,

that calls our person from our morning rest?

Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

I am the greatest, able to do least.

Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;

And she, there dead,

that Romeo's faithful wife:

I married them...

and their stol'n marriage-day Was Tybalt's dooms-day,

whose untimely death

banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,

for whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.

All this I know;

and, if aught in this miscarried by my fault,

then let my life be sacrificed,

some hour before his time,

unto the rigour of severest law.

Where be these enemies?

Capulet!

Montague!

See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.

O brother Montague, give me thy hand:

This is my daughter's jointure,

for no more can I demand.

But I can give thee more:

For I will raise her statue in pure gold;

That while Verona by that name is known,

There shall no figure at such rate be set

as that of true and faithful Juliet.

As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;

Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;

Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:

For never was a story of more woe

than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

*

[applause]

[fans screaming]

[indistinct chatter]