SENS
Shakespeare’s Narrative Sources: Italian Novellas and Their European Dissemination
Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet
Q2 Modernised
The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Newly corrected, augmented, and amended As it hath been sundry times publicly acted, by the right honourable the Lord Chamberlain his servants. London Printed by Thomas Creed, for Cuthbert Burby, and are to be sold at his shop near the Exchange. 1599. |
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The Prologue Chorus. CHORUS 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 misadventur’d piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked love, And the continuance of their parents’ rage, Which but their children’s end, naught 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. |
| CHORUS 1
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[1.1][i] Enter Sampson and Gregory, with swords and bucklers, of the house of Capulet. SAMPSON Gregory, on my word we’ll not carry coals. GREGORY No, for then we should be colliers. SAMPSON I mean, and we be in choler we’ll draw. GREGORY Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar. SAMPSON I strike quickly being moved. GREGORY But thou art not quickly moved to strike. SAMPSON A dog of the house of Montague moves me. GREGORY To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand: therefore if thou art moved thou run’st away. SAMPSON A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s. GREGORY That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall. SAMPSON ’Tis true, and therefore women being the weaker vessels are ever thrust to the wall; therefore I will push. Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall. GREGORY The quarrel is between our masters and us their men. SAMPSON ’Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads. GREGORY The heads of the maids? SAMPSON Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads. take it in what sense thou wilt. GREGORY They must take it in sense that feel it. SAMPSON Me they shall feel while I am able to stand, and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh. GREGORY ’Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been Poor John. Draw thy tool – here comes of the house of Montagues. | 1.a Sampson and Gregory (witty and bawdy punning).
| 1. The first brawl in the street.
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Enter two other Servingmen. SAMPSON My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will back thee. GREGORY How, turn thy back and run? SAMPSON Fear me not. GREGORY No, marry, I fear thee! SAMPSON Let us take the law of our sides: let them begin. GREGORY I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list. SAMPSON Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bear it. | 1.b Sampson and Gregory discuss how to start off a quarrel with the Montagues.
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ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? SAMPSON I do bite my thumb, sir. ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? SAMPSON Is the law of our side if I say “Ay”? GREGORY No. SAMPSON No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir. GREGORY Do you quarrel, sir? ABRAHAM Quarrel, sir? No, sir. SAMPSON But if you do, sir, I am for you; I serve as good a man as you. ABRAHAM No better. SAMPSON Well, sir. | 1.c Sampson, Gregory and Abraham start off a quarrel.
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Enter Benvolio. GREGORY Say ‘better’, here comes one of my master’s kinsmen. SAMPSON Yes, better, sir. ABRAHAM You lie. SAMPSON Draw if you be men. Gregory, remember thy washing blow. They fight. BENVOLIO Part fools! Put up your swords, you know not what you do. | 1.d Enter Benvolio. They fight. Benvolio tries to part them.
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Enter Tybalt. TYBALT What art thou drawn among these hartless hinds? Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death. BENVOLIO I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword, Or manage it to part these men with me. TYBALT What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward. | 1.e Enters Tybalt. He challenges Benvolio. They fight.
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Enter three of four Citizens with Clubs or partisans. OFFICER Clubs, bills, and partisans, strike, beat them down, Down with the Capulets, down with the Montagues! | 1.f Enter Citizens. They fight.
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Enter old Capulet in his gown, and his Wife. CAPULET What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho! [CAPULET’S] WIFE A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword? CAPULET My sword I say! Old Montague is come And flourishes his blade in spite of me. | 1.g Enter Capulet and his wife. They fight.
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Enter old Montague and his Wife. MONTAGUE Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not, let me go. [MONTAGUE’S] WIFE. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe. | 1.h Enter Montague. They fight.
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Enter Prince Escalus with his train. PRINCE. 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 mistempered weapons to the ground And hear the sentence of your moved Prince. | 2.a The Prince’s address to the rebellious subjects.
| 2. Prince Escalus arrives and rebukes the Capulets and the Montagues.
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Three civil brawls bred of an airy word, By thee, old Capulet and Montague, Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets, And made Verona’s ancient citizens Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments To wield old partisans, in hands as old, Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate. | 2.b Narrative of the past three civil brawls.
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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, To old Freetown, our common judgment place. Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. Exeunt. [all but Montague, Montague’s Wife, and Benvolio.] | 2.c Threat of death sentence. Capulet and Montague are summoned to Freetown (“the common judgement place”).
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MONTAGUE Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach? Speak, nephew, were you by when it began? | 3.a Montague enquires about who set off the quarrel.
| 3. Benvolio’s narration of the brawl.
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BENVOLIO Here were the servants of your adversary And yours, close fighting ere I did approach; I drew to part them; in the instant came The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared, Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears, He swung about his head and cut the winds, Who, nothing hurt withal, hissed him in scorn. While we were interchanging thrusts and blows, Came more and more, and fought on part and part, Till the Prince came, who parted either part. | 3.b Benvolio’s narration.
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[MONTAGUE’S] WIFE. O where is Romeo? Saw you him today? Right glad I am he was not at this fray. | 4.a Montague’s wife enquires about Romeo.
| 4. Benvolio’s and Montague’s presentation of Romeo’s recent sadness and solitariness.
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BENVOLIO Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun Peered forth the golden window of the east, A troubled mind drive me to walk abroad, Where underneath the grove of sycamore That westward rooteth from this city side, So early walking did I see your son. Towards him I made, but he was ware of me, And stole into the covert of the wood. I, measuring his affections by my own, Which then most sought where most might not be found, Being one too many by my weary self, Pursued my humour, not pursuing his, And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me. | 4.b Benvolio’s narration of his own seeing him near a sycamore tree early in the morning.
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MONTAGUE Many a morning hath he there been seen, With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew, Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs; But all so soon, as the all-cheering sun Should in the farthest east begin to draw The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed, 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. BENVOLIO My noble uncle, do you know the cause? MONTAGUE I neither know it nor can learn of him. BENVOLIO Have you importuned him by any means? MONTAGUE Both by myself and many other friends, But he his own affection’s counsellor, Is to himself – I will not say how true – But to himself so secret and so close, So far from sounding and discovery, As is the bud bit with an envious worm Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air Or dedicate his beauty to the same. Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow, We would as willingly give cure as know. | 4.c Montague’s narration of Romeo’s recent solitariness and sadness, and his own incapacity to unveil the cause.
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Enter Romeo. BENVOLIO See where he comes. So please you step aside, I’ll know his grievance or be much denied. MONTAGUE I would thou wert so happy by thy stay To hear true shrift. – Come, Madam, let’s away. Exeunt. | 4.d Benvolio is entrusted with the task of discovering the cause of Romeo’s sadness.
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BENVOLIO Good morrow, cousin. ROMEO Is the day so young? BENVOLIO But new struck nine. ROMEO Ay me, sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast? BENVOLIO It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours? ROMEO Not having that which, having, makes them short. | 5.a Romeo and Benvolio’s talk about how Romeo’s sadness expands time.
| 5. Benvolio and Romeo talk about Romeo’s own sadness due to unrequited love.
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BENVOLIO In love? ROMEO Out – BENVOLIO Of love? ROMEO Out of her favour where I am in love. BENVOLIO Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof. ROMEO Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should without eyes see pathways to his will. Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all: Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything of nothing first created; O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep that is not what it is. This love feel I that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh? BENVOLIO No coz, I rather weep. ROMEO Good heart, at what? BENVOLIO At thy good heart’s oppression. ROMEO Why, such is love’s transgression. Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs, Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes, Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet. Farewell my coz. BENVOLIO Soft, I will go along: And if you leave me so, you do me wrong. ROMEO Tut, I have lost myself, I am not here. This is not Romeo, he’s some other where. | 5.b Romeo’s description of unrequited love as an oxymoronic passion, whose pain is increased by Benvolio’s own feelings of compassion. Romeo’s avowal of having lost himself.
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BENVOLIO Tell me in sadness, who is that you love? ROMEO What, shall I groan and tell thee? BENVOLIO Groan? Why no; but sadly tell me who. ROMEO A sick man in sadness makes his will; A word ill-urged to one that is so ill. In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman. BENVOLIO I aimed so near when I supposed you loved. ROMEO A right good markman, and she’s fair I love. BENVOLIO A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit. ROMEO Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit, And in strong proof of chastity well armed, From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes, Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold. Oh, she is rich in beauty, only poor That when she dies, with beauty dies her store. BENVOLIO Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste? ROMEO She hath, and in that sparing make huge waste, For beauty starved with her severity Cuts beauty off from all posterity. She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, To merit bliss by making me despair. She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow Do I live dead, that live to tell it now. | 5.c Romeo’s description of the tormenting chastity of his beloved.
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BENVOLIO Be ruled by me, forget to think of her. ROMEO Oh, teach me how I should forget to think. BENVOLIO By giving liberty unto thine eyes: Examine other beauties. ROMEO ’Tis the way To call hers, exquisite, in question more. These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows, Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair. He that is strucken blind cannot forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost. Show me a mistress that is passing fair, What doth her beauty serve but as a note Where I may read who passed that passing fair? Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget. BENVOLIO I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt. Exeunt. | 5.d Benvolio’s advice to forget about his beloved by looking at other beauties.
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[1.2] Enter Capulet, County Paris, and the Clown.[ii] CAPULET But Montague is bound as well as I, In penalty alike, and ’tis not hard, I think, For men so old as we to keep the peace. PARIS Of honourable reckoning are you both, And pity ’tis you lived at odds so long. | 6.a Capulet and Paris talk about the sentence the Prince has emitted and his wish to keep the peace.
| 6. Capulet talks with Paris about Paris’s suit and Capulet invites him at the feast.
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But now, my lord, what say you to my suit? CAPULET But saying o’er what I have said before: My child is yet a stranger in the world, She hath not seen the change of fourteen years. Let two more summers wither in their pride Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride. PARIS Younger than she are happy mothers made. CAPULET And too soon marred are those so early made. Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she; She’s the hopeful lady of my earth. But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, My will to her consent is but a part; And she agreed, within her scope of choice Lies my consent, and fair according voice.
| 6.b Paris reminds Capulet of his suit. Capulet claims that his daughter is too young and underlines her liberty of choice.
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This night I hold an old accustomed feast, Whereto I have invited many a guest Such as I love; and you among the store, One more, most welcome, makes my number more. At my poor house look to behold this night Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light. Such comfort as do lusty young men feel When well-apparelled April on the heel Of limping winter treads, even such delight Among fresh fennel buds shall you this night Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see, And like her most, whose merit most shall be; Which, on more view of many, mine being one, May stand in number, though in reckoning none. Come, go with me. [To Ser.] Go, sirrah, trudge about Through fair Verona, find those persons out Whose names are written there, and to them say My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. [Exeunt Paris and Capulet.][iii] | 6.c Capulet invites Paris to the feast and urges him to compare his daughter to the other beauties. Capulet sends the serving-man out with order of invitation of the people listed on a paper he gives him.
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SERVINGMAN Find them out whose names are written. Here it is written that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil and the painter with his nets. But I am sent to find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ – I must to the learned – in good time. |
| 7. The serving-man can’t read the list of names.
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Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO. BENVOLIO Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning, One pain is lessened by another’s anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another’s languish. Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die. ROMEO Your plantain leaf is excellent for that. BENVOLIO For what, I pray thee? ROMEO For your broken shin. BENVOLIO Why Romeo, art thou mad? ROMEO Not mad, but bound more than a madman is; Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipped and tormented, and – | 8. Benvolio advises Romeo to cure one illness with another one.
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Good e’en, good fellow. SERVINGMAN God gi’goode’en. I pray, sir, can you read? ROMEO Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. SERVINGMAN Perhaps you have learned it without book. But I pray, can you read anything you see? ROMEO Ay, if I know the letters and the language. SERVINGMAN Ye say honestly, rest you merry. ROMEO Stay, fellow, I can read. He reads the letter. “Signor Martino and his wife and daughters, County Anselme and his beauteous sisters, The Lady widow of Vitruvio, Signor Placentio and his lovely nieces, Mercutio and his brother Valentine, Mine Uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters, My faire niece Rosaline, and Livia, Signor Valentio and his cousin Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.” A fair assembly. Whither should they come? SERVINGMAN Up. ROMEO Whither to supper? SERVINGMAN To our house. ROMEO Whose house? SERVINGMAN My master’s. ROMEO Indeed I should have asked thee that before. SERVINGMAN Now I’ll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet, and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry. [Exit.] |
| 9. Benvolio and Romeo meet Capulet’s serving man and are informed about the feast.
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BENVOLIO At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s, Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so loves, 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. ROMEO When the devout religion of mine eye Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire; And these who, often drowned, could never die, Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars. One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun. BENVOLIO Tut, you saw her fair none else being by, Herself poised with herself in either eye; But in that crystal scales let there be weighed Your lady’s love against some other maid That I will show you shining at this feast, And she shall scant show well that now seems best. ROMEO I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt.] |
| 10. Benvolio suggests that they go to the feast so that Romeo may compare Rosaline’s beauty with other beauties.
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[1.3] Enter Capulet’s Wife and Nurse. [CAPULET’S] WIFE Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me. NURSE Now by my maidenhead at twelve year old I bade her come. What, lamb! What, ladybird! God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet! | 11.a Capulet’s wife asks the Nurse to call for Juliet.
| 11. Capulet’s wife informs Juliet of Paris’ suit and asks her if she can love him.
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Enter Juliet. JULIET How now, who calls? NURSE Your mother. JULIET Madam, I am here. What is your will? [CAPULET’S] WIFE This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again, I have remembered me. Thou’s hear our counsel. Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age. NURSE Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. [CAPULET’S] WIFE She’s not fourteen – NURSE I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth, And yet to my teen be it spoken, I have but four, She’s not fourteen. How long is it now To Lammas-tide? [CAPULET’S] WIFE A fortnight and odd days. NURSE Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen. Susan and she – God rest all Christian souls – Were of an age. Well Susan is with God; She was too good for me. But as I said, On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen, That shall she, marry, I remember it well. ’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years, And she was weaned – I never shall forget it – Of all the days of the year upon that day; For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall. My lord and you were then at Mantua – Nay, I do bear a brain. But as I said, When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool, To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! “Shake”, quoth the dovehouse. ’Twas no need, I trow, To bid me trudge. And since that time it is eleven years, For then she could stand high-lone, nay, by th’rood, She could have run and waddled all about, For even the day before she broke her brow, And then my husband – God be with his soul, A was a merry man – took up the child. “Yea”, quoth he, “dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit, Wilt thou not Jule?” And by my holidam, The pretty wretch left crying and said “Ay”. To see now how a jest shall come about! I warrant, an I should live a thousand years, I never should forget it. “Wilt thou not, Jule?” quoth he, And, pretty fool, it stinted and said “Ay”. [CAPULET’S] WIFE[iv] Enough of this, I pray thee hold thy peace. NURSE Yes, Madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh To think it should leave crying and say “Ay”. And yet, I warrant, it had upon it brow A bump as big as a young cock’rel’s stone, A perilous knock, and it cried bitterly. “Yea”, quoth my husband, “fall’st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age, Wilt thou not, Jule?” It stinted and said “Ay”. JULIET And stint thou too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I. NURSE Peace I have done. God mark thee to his grace, Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed. And I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish. | 11.b Nurse’s bawdy talk on Juliet’s age.
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[CAPULET’S] WIFE[v] Marry, that “marry” is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet, How stands your dispositions to be married? JULIET It is an hour[vi] that I dream not of. NURSE An hour! Were not I thine only Nurse, I would say thou hadst sucked wisdom from thy teat. [CAPULET’S] WIFE[vii] 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. | 11.c Capulet’s wife broaches the issue of marriage and Paris’ proposal.
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NURSE A man, young lady, lady, such a man As all the world – why, he’s a man of wax. [CAPULET’S] WIFE[viii] Verona’s summer hath not such a flower. NURSE Nay, he’s a flower, in faith, a very flower. [CAPULET’S] WIFE[ix] 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. The fish lives in the sea, and ’tis much pride For fair without the fair within to hide. That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory That in gold clasps locks in the golden story; So shall you share all that he doth possess By having him, making yourself no less. NURSE No less? Nay, bigger. Women grow by men. | 11.d Capulet’s wife’s description of Paris’s qualities.
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[CAPULET’S] WIFE[x] Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love? JULIET I’ll look to like, if looking liking move. But no more deep will I endart mine eye Than your consent gives strength to make it fly. | 11.e Juliet is asked if she can love Paris.
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Enter Serving[man.] SERVINGMAN Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the Nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity I must hence to wait, I beseech you follow straight. [CAPULET’S] WIFE[xi] We follow thee. Juliet the County stays. NURSE Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. Exeunt. |
| 12. The serving-man announces the arrival of the guests.
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[1.4] Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other masquers, torchbearers. ROMEO What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without apology? BENVOLIO The date is out of such prolixity. We’ll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf, Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath, Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper. Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke After the prompter, for our entrance; But let them measure us by what they will, We’ll measure them a measure and be gone. | 13.a Romeo wonders what to say by way of introduction, and Benvolio replies that no self- presentation is necessary.
| 13. Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio talk before going to Capulet’s house.
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ROMEO Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling; Being but heavy I will bear the light. MERCUTIO Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. ROMEO 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. | 13.b Romeo asks for a torch to bear and claims that he’ll be standing aside.
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MERCUTIO You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings And soar with them above a common bound. ROMEO I am too sore empierced 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. [MERCUTIO][xii] And to sink in it should you burden love, Too great oppression for a tender thing. ROMEO Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn. MERCUTIO If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. | 13.c Mercutio teases Romeo on his love melancholy.
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Give me a case to put my visage in. A visor for a visor. What care I What curious eye doth quote deformities? Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.
| 13.d Mercutio asks for a visor.
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BENVOLIO Come, knock and enter, and no sooner in But every man betake him to his legs. | 13.e Benvolio urges them to get in.
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ROMEO A torch for me. Let wantons light of heart Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels, For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase: I’ll be a candle-holder and look on; The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done. MERCUTIO Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word. If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire Or – save your reverence – love, wherein thou stickest Up to the ears. | 13.f Romeo again asks for a torch and is teased by Mercutio.
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Come, we burn daylight, ho! ROMEO Nay, that’s not so. MERCUTIO I mean, sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day. Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits Five times in that ere once in our five wits. | 13.g Mercutio urges them to get in.
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ROMEO And we mean well in going to this masque, But ’tis no wit to go. MERCUTIO Why, may one ask? | 13.h Romeo shows reluctance to go.
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ROMEO I dreamt a dream tonight. MERCUTIO And so did I. ROMEO Well, what was yours? MERCUTIO That dreamers often lie. ROMEO In bed asleep while they do dream things true. | 13.i Romeo mentions a dream he’s had.
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MERCUTIO Oh, 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 forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomi Over men’s noses as they lie asleep. Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, Her traces of the smallest spider web, Her collars of 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 man.[xiii] Her chariot is an empty hazelnut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; On courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies 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 breath with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail, Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep; Then dreams he of another benefice. Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscados, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep, and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plaits the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once 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 – | 13.j Mercutio teases Romeo with his Queen Mab speech.
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ROMEO Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace, Thou talk’st of nothing. MERCUTIO 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 angered, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south. | 13.k Romeo stops Mercutio short; Mercutio comments on dreams.
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BENVOLIO This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves. Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
| 13.l Benvolio urges them to go.
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ROMEO I fear too early, for my mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night’s revels, and expire the term Of a despisèd life closed in my breast By some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage of my course Direct my suit. On lusty gentlemen. BENVOLIO Strike drum. | 13.m Romeo gives voice to his bad premonitions (life voyage metaphor).
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[1.5] They march about the stage, and Servingmen come forth with napkin. SERVINGMAN Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher? He scrape a trencher? 1 [SERVINGMAN] When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s hands, and they unwashed too, ’tis a foul thing. SERVINGMAN Away with the joint stools, remove the court cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane, and as thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone, and Nell, Anthony and Potpan. 2 [SERVINGMAN] Ay boy, ready. SERVINGMAN You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber. 3 [SERVINGMAN] We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly boys, be brisk awhile, and the longest liver take all. Exeunt. Enter all the guests and Gentlewomen to the Masquers. |
| 14. Servants prepare for the feast.
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1. CAPULET[xiv] Welcome, gentlemen. Ladies that have their toes Unplagued with corns will walk about with you. Ah, my mistresses, which of you all Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty, She I’ll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now? 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. ’Tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone. You are welcome, gentlemen. Come, musicians, play. Music plays and they dance. A hall, a hall, give room! And foot it girls. More light, you knaves, and turn the tables up, And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot. Ah sirrah, this unlooked-for sport comes well. | 15.a Capulet welcomes the guests.
| 15. Romeo and Juliet meet at the feast.
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Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet, For you and I are past our dancing days. How long is’t now since last yourself and I Were in a masque? 2. CAPULET By’r Lady, thirty years. 1. CAPULET What man, ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much, ’Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio, Come Pentecost as quickly as it will, Some five-and-twenty years, and then we masked. 2. CAPULET ’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir. His son is thirty. 1 CAPULET Will you tell me that? His son was but a ward two years ago. | 15.b Capulet talks with his cousin.
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ROMEO What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand Of yonder knight? SERVINGMAN I know not sir. ROMEO Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’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. | 15.c Romeo sees Juliet.
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TYBALT This, by his voice, should be a Montague. Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave Come hither covered 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. CAPULET Why, how now, kinsman, wherefore storm you so? TYBALT Uncle, this is a Montague our foe; A villain that is hither come in spite To scorn at our solemnity this night. CAPULET Young Romeo is it? TYBALT ’Tis he, that villain Romeo. CAPULET Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone. A bears him like a portly gentleman, And, to say truth, Verona brags of him To be a virtuous and well-governed youth. I would not for the wealth of all this 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, An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast. TYBALT It fits when such a villain is a guest. I’ll not endure him. CAPULET 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! You will set cock-a-hoop, you’ll be the man! TYBALT Why Uncle, ’tis a shame. CAPULET Go to, go to, You are a saucy boy. Is’t so indeed? This trick may chance to scathe you. I know what, You must contrary me – marry ’tis time – Well said my hearts – you are a princox, go, Be quiet, or – more light, more light – for shame, I’ll make you quiet, What! –Cheerly my hearts! TYBALT Patience perforce with wilful 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. Exit. | 15.d Tybalt recognises Romeo and quarrels with Capulet over him.
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ROMEO If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentler sin is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JULIET 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. ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. ROMEO O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake. ROMEO Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take. [He kisses her.] Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged. JULIET Then have my lips the sin that they have took. ROMEO Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. [They kiss.] JULIET You kiss by th’ book. | 15.e Romeo and Juliet meet (the shared sonnet and the first kiss).
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NURSE Madam your mother craves a word with you. ROMEO What is her mother? NURSE Marry, bachelor, Her mother is the lady of the house, And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous. I nursed her daughter that you talked withal. I tell you, he that can lay hold of her Shall have the chinks. ROMEO Is she a Capulet? O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt. | 15.f. The Nurse interrupts Romeo and Juliet. Romeo discovers who Juliet is.
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BENVOLIO Away, be gone, the sport is at the best. ROMEO Ay, so I fear, the more is my unrest. CAPULET Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone. We have a trifling foolish banquet towards. Is it e’en so? Why then, I thank you all. I thank you, honest gentlemen, good night. More torches here, come on then, let’s to bed. Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late. I’ll to my rest. | 15.g Benvolio urges his friends to go away and they say goodbye to Capulet.
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JULIET Come hither, Nurse. What is yon gentleman? NURSE The son and heir of old Tiberio. JULIET What’s he that now is going out of door? NURSE Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio. JULIET What’s he that follows here that would not dance? NURSE. I know not. JULIET Go ask his name. If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed. NURSE His name is Romeo, and a Montague, The only son of your great enemy. JULIET 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. NURSE What’s this? What’s this? JULIET A rhyme I learn even now Of one I danced withal. One calls within: “Juliet!” NURSE Anon, anon! Come let’s away, the strangers all are gone. Exeunt. | 15.h Juliet discovers who Romeo is.
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CHORUS Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie, And young affection gapes to be his heir; That fair for which love groaned for and would die, With tender Juliet matched is now not fair. Now Romeo is beloved and loves again, Alike bewitched by the charm of looks, But to his foe supposed he must complain, And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks. Being held a foe, he may not have access To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear, And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new beloved anywhere: But passion lends them power, time means, to meet, Temp’ring extremities with extreme sweet. |
| CHORUS 2
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[2.1] Enter Romeo alone. ROMEO Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out. | 16.a Romeo withdraws and remains in the orchard.
| 16. Romeo remains in the orchard while Benvolio and Mercutio look for him.
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Enter Benvolio with Mercutio. BENVOLIO Romeo, my cousin Romeo, Romeo! MERCUTIO He is wise And on my life hath stol’n him home to bed. BENVOLIO He ran this way and leapt this orchard wall. Call, good Mercutio. MERCUTIO Nay, I’ll conjure too. Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh, Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied; Cry but “Ay me” pronounce, but “love” and “dove”, Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, One nickname for her purblind son and heir, Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid. – He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not, The ape is dead, and I must conjure him. – 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. BENVOLIO And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him. MERCUTIO This cannot anger him. ’Twould anger him To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle Of some strange nature, letting it there stand Till she had laid it and conjured it down. That were some spite. My invocation Is fair and honest, in his mistress’ name I conjure only but to raise up him. BENVOLIO Come, he hath hid himself among these trees To be consorted with the humorous night. Blind is his love, and best befits the dark. MERCUTIO If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit As maids call medlars when they laugh alone. O Romeo, that she were, O that she were An open-arse, thou a pop’rin’ pear. Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle-bed; This field bed is too cold for me to sleep. Come, shall we go? BENVOLIO Go then, for ’tis in vain To seek him here that means not to be found. [Exeunt.][xv] | 16.b Benvolio and Mercutio look for Romeo and tease him (mock conjuration).
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[2.2] ROMEO He jests at scars that never felt a wound. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? 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. Oh, it is my love! Oh, that she knew she were! 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 eye in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing, and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek! JULIET Ay me. ROMEO She speaks. Oh 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 wond’ring 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. JULIET O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. ROMEO Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? JULIET ’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].[xvi] Oh, 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 called, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for thy name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself. | 17.a Romeo sees Juliet at the window and overhears her words.
| 17. The first balcony scene. Romeo and Juliet exchange vows of love and decide to married.
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ROMEO I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Romeo. | 17.b Romeo speaks to Juliet without presenting himself.
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JULIET What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, So stumblest on my counsel? ROMEO 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. JULIET My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words Of thy tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo and a Montague? ROMEO Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike. | 17.c Juliet recognizes him by his voice.
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JULIET How cam’st 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. ROMEO With love’s light wings did I o’erperch 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. JULIET If they do see thee, they will murder thee. ROMEO Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity. JULIET I would not for the world they saw thee here. ROMEO 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. JULIET By whose direction found’st thou out this place? ROMEO 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 washed with the farthest sea, I should adventure for such merchandise. | 17.d Juliet asks Romeo how he got there and urges him to go away, being enemy to her family; Romeo expresses his love.
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JULIET 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 tonight. 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 and 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 behaviour 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. ROMEO Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow, That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops – JULIET Oh, swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. ROMEO What shall I swear by? JULIET 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. ROMEO If my heart’s dear love – | 17.e Juliet is ashamed for her own outspokenness and asks for a proof of his love.
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JULIET Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight. 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. | 17.f Juliet is worried about the rashness of their love and wishes him good night.
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ROMEO Oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? JULIET What satisfaction canst thou have tonight? ROMEO Th’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine. JULIET I gave thee mine before thou didst request it, And yet I would it were to give again. ROMEO Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love? JULIET 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. | 17.g Romeo does not want to part and asks for satisfaction.
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I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu. – Anon, good Nurse! – Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again. ROMEO O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering sweet to be substantial. | 17.h Juliet is called in by the Nurse.
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JULIET Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed. If that thy bent of love be honourable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow, 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][xvii] Madam! JULIET I come, anon! – But if thou meanest not well, I do beseech thee – [NURSE][xviii] Madam! JULIET By and by, I come – To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief. Tomorrow will I send. ROMEO So thrive my soul – JULIET A thousand times good night. ROMEO 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. | 17.i Juliet asks Romeo to marry her and promises to send him somebody the following day. She is called in by the nurse.
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Enter Juliet again. JULIET 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’s name. ROMEO It is my soul that calls upon my name. How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears. JULIET Romeo! ROMEO My nyas?[xix] JULIET What o’clock tomorrow Shall I send to thee? ROMEO By the hour of nine. JULIET I will not fail. ’Tis twenty year till then. I have forgot why I did call thee back. ROMEO Let me stand here till thou remember it. JULIET I shall forget, to have thee still stand there, Remembering how I love thy company. ROMEO And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget, Forgetting any other home but this. JULIET ’Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone, And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird That lets it hop a little from his hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silken thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty. ROMEO I would I were thy bird. JULIET Sweet, so would I, Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow. | 17.j Juliet comes out again and they decide to get in touch by nine the following morning. They part.
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[ROMEO][xx] Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast. Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest. The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, Checking the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And [flecked darkness][xxi] like a drunkard reels From forth day’s path and Titan’s burning wheels. Hence will I to my ghostly friar’s close cell, His help to crave and my dear hap to tell. Exit. | 17.k Romeo goes away at dawn and comments on the rising sun on his way to the Friar’s cell.
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[2.3] Enter Friar alone with a basket. FRIAR[xxii] Now ere the sun advance his burning eye, The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry, I must upfill this osier cage of ours With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; And from her womb children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find, Many for many virtues excellent, None but for some, and yet all different. Oh, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities; For naught so vile, that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime by action dignified. Enter Romeo. Within the infant rind of this weak flower Poison hath residence and medicine power: For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings encamp them still In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will; And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. | 18.a Friar Laurence is returning to his cell with a basket full of herbs.
| 18. Romeo goes to the friar and asks him to marry them.
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ROMEO Good morrow father. FRIAR Benedicite! What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distempered head So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed. Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised youth with unstuffed brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign. Therefore thy earliness doth me assure Thou art uproused with some distemperature, Or if not so, then here I hit it right, Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight. ROMEO That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine. FRIAR God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline? ROMEO With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No, I have forgot that name and that name’s woe. FRIAR That’s my good son; but where hast thou been then? ROMEO I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine enemy, Where on a sudden one hath wounded me That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies Within thy help and holy physic lies. I bear no hatred, blessed man: for lo, My intercession likewise steads my foe. FRIAR Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift. Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. | 18.b Romeo salutes the Friar and the Friar asks him if he has been up all night, supposing with Rosaline.
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ROMEO Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set On the fair daughter of rich Capulet. As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine, And all combined, save what thou must combine By holy marriage. When and where and how, We met, we wooed, and made exchange of vow I’ll tell thee as we pass, but this I pray, That thou consent to marry us today. | 18.c Romeo avows his love for Juliet and asks him to marry them.
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FRIAR 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 washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! How much salt water thrown away in waste To season love, that of it doth not taste. The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears. Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit Of an old tear that is not washed off yet. If e’er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine, Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline. And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence then: Women may fall when there’s no strength in men. ROMEO Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline. FRIAR For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. ROMEO And bad’st me bury love. FRIAR Not in a grave, To lay one in another out to have. ROMEO I pray thee, chide me not. Her I love now Doth grace for grace and love for love allow. The other did not so. FRIAR Oh, she knew well Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell. | 18.d The friar rebukes him for being a young waverer.
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But come, young waverer, come, go with me, In one respect I’ll thy assistant be; For this alliance may so happy prove To turn your households’ rancour to pure love. ROMEO Oh, let us hence. I stand on sudden haste. FRIAR Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast. [Exeunt.] | 18.e The friar eventually offers to help him and favours this alliance. He rebukes them for their hurry.
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[2.4] Enter Benvolio and Mercutio. MERCUTIO Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight? BENVOLIO Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man. MERCUTIO Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, Torments him so that he will sure run mad. BENVOLIO Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father’s house. MERCUTIO A challenge, on my life. BENVOLIO Romeo will answer it. MERCUTIO Any man that can write may answer a letter. BENVOLIO Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how he dares, being dared. | 19.a Benvolio informs Mercutio that Tybalt has sent a challenge to Romeo.
| 19. Benvolio tells Mercutio about Tybalt’s challenge sent to Romeo; Romeo informs the Nurse about the plan for the secret marriage.
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MERCUTIO Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black eye, run through the ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow- boy’s butt-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt? [BENVOLIO][xxiii] Why, what is Tybalt? MERCUTIO More than Prince of Cats. Oh, he’s the courageous Captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance and proportion; he rests his minim rests one two, and the third in your bosom. The very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist, a gentleman of the very first house of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay! BENVOLIO The what? MERCUTIO The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting phantasies, these new tuners of accent! By Jesu ,a very good blade, a very tall man, a very good whore. Why is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardon- me’s, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench. O, their bones, their bones! | 19.b Mercutio mocks Romeo and describes Tybalt as the Prince of Cats.
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Enter ROMEO. BENVOLIO Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. MERCUTIO Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was a kitchen wench – marry, she had a better love to berhyme her – Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots: Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signor Romeo, bonjour: there’s a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night. ROMEO Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you? MERCUTIO The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive? ROMEO Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy. MERCUTIO That’s as much as to say such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. ROMEO Meaning to curtsy. MERCUTIO Thou hast most kindly hit it. ROMEO A most courteous exposition. MERCUTIO Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. ROMEO Pink for flower. MERCUTIO Right. ROMEO Why then is my pump well flowered. MERCUTIO Sure wit, follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing, solely singular. ROMEO O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness! MERCUTIO Come between us, good Benvolio. My wits faints. ROMEO Switch and spurs, switch and spurs, or I’ll cry a match. MERCUTIO Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done, for thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than I am sure I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose? ROMEO Thou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not there for the goose. MERCUTIO I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. ROMEO Nay, good goose, bite not. MERCUTIO Thy wit is very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce. ROMEO And is it not then well served into a sweet goose? MERCUTIO Oh, here’s a wit of cheveril that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad. ROMEO I stretch it out for that word ‘broad’, which, added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose. MERCUTIO Why, is not this better now 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; for this drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole. BENVOLIO Stop there, stop there. MERCUTIO Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair. BENVOLIO Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large. MERCUTIO Oh, thou art deceived; I would have made it short, for I was come to the whole depth of my tale and meant indeed to occupy the argument no longer. ROMEO Here’s goodly gear. | 19.c Romeo joins them and they start joking around.
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Enter Nurse and her man. A sail, a sail! MERCUTIO Two, two, a shirt and a smock. NURSE Peter. PETER Anon. NURSE My fan, Peter. MERCUTIO Good Peter, to hide her face, for her fan’s the fairer face. NURSE God ye good morrow, gentlemen. MERCUTIO God ye good den, fair gentlewoman. NURSE Is it good e’en? MERCUTIO ’Tis no less, I tell ye, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon. NURSE Out upon you! What a man are you? ROMEO One, gentlewoman, that God hath made, himself to mar. NURSE By my troth, it is well said. “For himself to mar” quoth a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo? ROMEO I can tell you, but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse. NURSE You say well. MERCUTIO Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’faith wisely, wisely. NURSE If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you. BENVOLIO She will indite him to some supper. MERCUTIO A bawd, a bawd, a bawd. So ho! ROMEO What hast thou found? MERCUTIO No hare, sir, unless a hare, sir, in a Lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent. An old hare hoar and an old hare hoar, Is very good meat in Lent. But a hare that is hoar is too much for a score When it hoars ere it be spent. Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to dinner thither. ROMEO I will follow you. MERCUTIO Farewell ancient lady, farewell lady, lady, lady. Exeunt. [Benvolio and Mercutio.] | 19.d The Nurse and Peter arrive and Mercutio teases her.
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NURSE I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his ropery? ROMEO A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month. NURSE An a speak anything against me, I’ll take him down, an a were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks; and if I cannot, I’ll find those that shall. Scurvy knave, I am none of his flirt-gills, I am none of his skains-mates. [to her man] And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure. PETER I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my weapon should quickly have been out. I warrant you, I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side. NURSE Now afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word. And, as I told you, my young lady bid me enquire 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 behaviour, 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. ROMEO Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress, I protest unto thee – NURSE Good heart, and i’faith I will tell her as much. Lord, lord, she will be a joyful woman. ROMEO What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me. NURSE I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer. ROMEO Bid her devise some means to come to shrift this afternoon, And there she shall at Friar Laurence’ cell Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains. NURSE No, truly, sir, not a penny. ROMEO Go to, I say you shall. NURSE This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there. ROMEO And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall, Within this hour my man shall be with thee And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair, Which to the high topgallant of my joy, Must be my convoy in the secret night. Farewell; be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains. Farewell; commend me to thy mistress. NURSE Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir. ROMEO What say’st thou my dear Nurse? NURSE Is your man secret? Did you ne’er here say “Two may keep counsel, putting one away”? ROMEO Warrant thee, my man’s as true as steel. NURSE Well sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! when ’twas a little prating thing – Oh, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, That would fain lay knife aboard, but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer man, but I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter? ROMEO Ay Nurse, what of that? Both with an “R”. NURSE Ah, mocker, that’s the dog’s name. “R” is for the – no, I know it begins with some other letter, and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it. ROMEO Commend me to thy lady. NURSE Ay, a thousand times. – Peter! PETER Anon. NURSE Before and apace. [Exeunt.][xxiv] | 19.e Romeo informs the Nurse about the plan for the secret marriage which will take place in the afternoon. Romeo offers the Nurse some money.
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[2.5] Enter Juliet. JULIET 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. Oh she is lame! Love’s heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glides then the sun’s beams, Driving back shadows over louring hills. Therefore do nimble-pinioned 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. | 20.a Juliet is anxious about the Nurse who has not come back yet (it is 12 a.m).
| 20. The Nurse informs Juliet about the plan for the secret marriage.
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Enter Nurse. [and Peter.] O God, she comes! – O honey Nurse, what news? Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away. NURSE. Peter stay at the gate. [Exit Peter.] | 20.b The Nurse arrives and tells Peter to stay at the gate.
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JULIET Now good sweet Nurse – O Lord, why lookest thou sad? Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily; If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news By playing it to me with so sour a face. NURSE I am aweary, give me leave a while. Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I! JULIET I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news. Nay come, I pray thee, speak, good good Nurse, speak. NURSE Jesu, what haste! Can you not stay awhile? Do you not see that I am out of breath? JULIET 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? NURSE Well, you have made a simple choice. You know not how to choose a man. Romeo? No, not he, though his face be better then 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? JULIET No, no. But all this did I know before. What says he of our marriage, what of that? NURSE 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, ah, my back, my back! Beshrew your heart for sending me about To catch my death with jauncing up and down. JULIET I’faith, I am sorry that thou art not well. Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me what says my love? NURSE 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? JULIET 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?” NURSE 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. JULIET Here’s such a coil. Come, what says Romeo? NURSE Have you got leave to go to shrift today? JULIET I have. NURSE Then high you hence to Friar Laurence’ cell, There stays a husband to make you a wife. 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’ll to dinner. Hie you to the cell. JULIET Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell. Exeunt. | 20.c The Nurse praises Romeo, postpones all answer, and eventually tells Juliet about the plan for the secret marriage, and Romeo’s getting into her room at night.
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[2.6] Enter Friar and Romeo. FRIAR So smile the heavens upon this holy act That after-hours with sorrow chide us not. ROMEO 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. FRIAR 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. | 21.a The friar and Romeo wait for Juliet and the friar shows preoccupation.
| 21 The secret marriage.
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Enter Juliet. Here comes the lady. Oh so light a foot Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint. A lover may bestride the gossamers That idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall, so light is vanity. JULIET Good even to my ghostly confessor. FRIAR Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both. JULIET As much to him, else is his thanks too much. ROMEO Ah Juliet, if the measure of thy joy Be heaped 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. JULIET 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. FRIAR 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. [Exeunt.] | 21.b Juliet arrives. The friar invites them to go with him for the celebration of the wedding.
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[3.1] Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, and men. BENVOLIO I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire. The day is hot, the Capels are abroad, And if we meet we shall not scape a brawl, For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring. MERCUTIO 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 him on the drawer when indeed there is no need. BENVOLIO Am I like such a fellow? MERCUTIO 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. BENVOLIO And what to? MERCUTIO Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou – why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard then thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With another for tying his new shoes with old ribbon? And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling? BENVOLIO And I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter. MERCUTIO The fee simple? O simple! | 22.a Knowing the Capulets are roaming the streets of Verona, Benvolio wants to retire. Mercutio refuses.
| 22. A new brawl erupts between Montagues and Capulets in Verona’s streets.
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Enter TYBALT, PETRUCHIO, and others. BENVOLIO By my head, here comes the Capulets. MERCUTIO By my heel I care not. TYBALT Follow me close, for I will speak to them. – Gentlemen, good e’en. A word with one of you. MERCUTIO And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow. TYBALT You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion. MERCUTIO Could you not take some occasion without giving? TYBALT Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo. MERCUTIO Consort? What, doest thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick; here’s that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort! BENVOLIO 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. MERCUTIO Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze. I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.
| 22.b Enter Tybalt, Petruchio, and others. Tybalt and Mercutio start quarrelling and Benvolio tries to drive them to some private place.
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Enter Romeo. TYBALT Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man. MERCUTIO 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’. TYBALT Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford No better term than this: thou art a villain. | 22.c Romeo arrives. Tybalt challenges him.
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ROMEO Tybalt, the reason that 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. TYBALT Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries That thou hast done me. Therefore turn and draw. ROMEO I do protest I never injured thee But love thee better then 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.
| 22.d Romeo refuses to fight and protests his love for Tybalt.
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MERCUTIO O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Alla stoccado carries it away. Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk? TYBALT What wouldst thou have with me? MERCUTIO 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 dry beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out. TYBALT I am for you. | 22.e Mercutio intervenes and fights with Tybalt.
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ROMEO Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up. MERCUTIO Come, sir, your “passado”. ROMEO Draw, Benvolio, beat down their weapons. Gentlemen, for shame forbear this outrage. Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath Forbid this bandying in Verona streets. Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio![xxv] | 23.a Romeo tries to stop the fight and Mercutio is mortally wounded by Tybalt.
| 23. Mercutio is killed by Tybalt
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Away, Tybalt.[xxvi] | 23.b Tybalt and the other Capulets flee.
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MERCUTIO I am hurt. A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped. Is he gone and hath nothing? BENVOLIO What, art thou hurt? MERCUTIO Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry ’tis enough. Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon. [Exit Page.] ROMEO Courage, man, the hurt cannot be much. MERCUTIO No ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm. ROMEO I thought all for the best. MERCUTIO Help me into 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! Exit. | 23.c Mercutio exits assisted by Benvolio (joking about his wound but eventually cursing the two households).
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ROMEO This gentleman, the Prince’s near ally, My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt In my behalf; my reputation stained 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 softened valor’s steel. | 23.d Romeo blames Juliet’s beauty for making him ‘effeminate’.
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BENVOLIO O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead. That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds, Which too untimely here did scorn the earth. ROMEO This day’s black fate on more days doth depend; This but begins the woe others must end. | 23.e Benvolio re-enters and announces Mercutio’s death.
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BENVOLIO Here comes the furious Tybalt back again. ROMEO He gone[xxvii] 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. TYBALT Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here, Shalt with him hence. ROMEO This shall determine that. They fight. Tybalt falls. | 24.a Romeo throws caution to the winds, assails Tybalt, they fight and he kills him.
| 24. Romeo kills Tybalt.
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BENVOLIO 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! ROMEO Oh, I am fortune’s fool! BENVOLIO Why dost thou stay? Exit Romeo. | 24.b Benvolio urges him to leave and Romeo flees away.
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CITIZEN Which way ran he that killed Mercutio? Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he? BENVOLIO There lies that Tybalt. CITIZEN Up sir, go with me. I charge thee in the Prince’s name obey. | 25.a Enter Citizens and start inquiring about Tybalt’s and Mercutio’s deaths.
| 25. Benvolio’s narration.
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Enter Prince, old Montague, Capulet, their Wives, and all. PRINCE Where are the vile beginners of this fray? BENVOLIO 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. [CAPULET’S] WIFE Tybalt, my cousin, O my brother’s child! O Prince, O cousin, husband, Oh, the blood is spilled Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true, For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague. O cousin, cousin! PRINCE Benvolio, who began this bloody fray? | 25.b Enter the Prince, old Montague and Capulet, and their wives. The Prince asks who started the fight while Lady Capulet grieves over Tybalt’s body (her nephew).
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BENVOLIO Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay. Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink How nice the quarrel was, and urged withal Your high displeasure. All this uttered With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bowed Could not take truce with the unruly spleen Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast, Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats Cold death aside and with the other sends It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud, “Hold, friends! Friends, part!” and swifter then his tongue, His agile arm beats down their fatal points, And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled; But by and by comes back to Romeo, Who had but newly entertained revenge, And to’t they go like lightning, for, ere I Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain, And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly. This is the truth, or let Benvolio die. | 25.c Benvolio’s narration of the fight.
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[CAPULET’S] WIFE He is a kinsman to the Montague; Affection makes him false; he speaks not true. Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, And all those twenty could but kill one life. I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give: Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live. PRINCE Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio. Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?
| 26.a Lady Capulet asks for a death sentence to be pronounced against Romeo.
| 26. The Prince’s verdict.
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[MONTAGUE][xxviii] Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend; His fault concludes but what the law should end, The life of Tybalt. | 26.b Old Montague defends his son.
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PRINCE And for that offence Immediately we do exile him hence. I have an interest in your hearts’ 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 is found, that hour is his last. Bear hence this body and attend our will, Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill. [Exeunt.][xxix] | 26.c The Prince sentences Romeo to exile.
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[3.2] Enter Juliet alone. JULIET Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a wagoner 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 grow 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 then new snow upon 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. Oh, 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. | 27.a Juliet eagerly waits for her wedding night with Romeo.
| 27. Juliet learns about Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s exile.
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Oh, here comes my nurse, Enter Nurse with cords. 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 Ay, ay, the cords. JULIET Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands? NURSE Ah weraday, 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, Whoever would have thought it? Romeo! | 27.b Enters the Nurse announcing someone’s death and Juliet understands it is Romeo’s.
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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 “I”, Or those eyes shut, that makes thee answer “Ay”, If he be slain say “Ay”, or if not, “No”. Brief sounds determine my weal or woe. | 27.c Juliet frantically begs the Nurse to stop tormenting her and confirm whether Romeo is dead and how.
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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 swounded at the sight.
| 27.d The Nurse says she saw the wound and fainted.
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JULIET Oh, 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. | 27.e Juliet wishes her heart to break and be dead.
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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][xxx] It did, it did, alas the day, it did. | 27.f The Nurse tells her that Tybalt is dead, killed by Romeo who has been therefore exiled.
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[JULIET][xxxi] O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical, Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show, Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st, A damned 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? Oh, that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace! | 27.g Juliet curses Romeo’s angelic looks hiding a fiendish nature.
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NURSE There’s no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae. These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo! | 27.h The Nurse also curses Romeo.
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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. Oh, 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? | 27.i Juliet rebukes the Nurse and repents the words she has just said against Romeo, whom she has just married.
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Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, That murdered me. I would forget it fain, But oh, 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. 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 banished”: to speak that word Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead. “Romeo is banished”. There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word’s death. No words can that woe sound. | 27.l Juliet muses over Romeo’s banishment and its consequences.
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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. | 27.m Juliet asks the Nurse about her parents and she answers they are crying over Tybalt’s dead body.
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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! | 27.n Since Romeo has been exiled, Juliet calls herself a ‘maiden-widow’ and wishes death were her spouse.
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NURSE 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. | 27.o The Nurse says she will find Romeo.
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JULIET O find him, give this ring to my true knight And bid him come to take his last farewell. [Exeunt.][xxxii] | 27.p Juliet gives her a ring for Romeo.
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[3.3] Enter Friar and Romeo. FRIAR Romeo, come forth, come forth thou fearful man. Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity. ROMEO Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, That I yet know not? FRIAR 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 A gentler judgment 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 Here 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 “banished”, Is death mistermed. Calling death “banished”, Thou cut’st my head off with a golden axe And smilest upon the stroke that murders me. FRIAR 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 sayest 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 “banished” to kill me? “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 professed, To mangle me with that word “banished”? FRIAR Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak. ROMEO Oh, thou wilt speak again of banishment. FRIAR I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word, Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy, To comfort thee though thou art banished. ROMEO 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. FRIAR Oh, then I see that mad men have no ears. ROMEO How should they when that wise men have no eyes. FRIAR 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 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. | 28.a Romeo learns from the Friar that the Prince banished him from Verona and plunges into the depths of despair.
| 28. Romeo goes to Friar Laurence’s cell and learns he has been exiled from Verona.
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Enter Nurse, and knock.[xxxiii] FRIAR Arise, one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself. ROMEO Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans, Mistlike enfold me from the search of eyes. They knock. FRIAR Hark, how they knock! – Who’s there? – Romeo, arise. Thou wilt be taken. – Stay a while – Stand up. Slud knock.[xxxiv] Run to my study. By and by, God’s will, What simpleness is this? I come, I come. Knock. Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What’s your will? Enter Nurse. NURSE Let me come in, and you shall know my errand. I come from Lady Juliet. FRIAR Welcome then. NURSE O holy Friar, Oh, tell me, holy Friar, Where’s my lady’s lord? Where’s Romeo? FRIAR There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk. NURSE Oh, he is even in my mistress’ case, Just in her case! O woeful sympathy, Piteous predicament! Even so lies she, Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering. – Stand up, stand up. Stand and you be a man. For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand. Why should you fall into so deep an O? ROMEO Nurse – NURSE Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all. ROMEO Spakest 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 Oh, 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. | 28.b Enters the Nurse bringing Juliet’s news: the girl is also hopelessly despairing and keeps crying in her room.
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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. Oh, 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. | 28.c Romeo threatens to kill himself.
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FRIAR 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 railest 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 shamest 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 slew’st 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 mishaved and sullen wench Thou pouts upon thy fortune and thy love. Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. | 28.d The Friar rebukes him.
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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.
| 28.e The Friar tells Romeo to pay one last visit to his wife and then leave for Mantua before dawn; he also says that in his absence he will try to favour his return.
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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. Oh, what learning is! My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come. ROM. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. | 28.f The Friar tells the Nurse to inform Juliet about Romeo’s visit.
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NURSE 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. | 28.g The Nurse gives Juliet’s ring to Romeo.
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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. | 28.h The Friar tells Romeo to go and leave Juliet’s house before dawn.
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[3.4] Enter old Capulet, his Wife and Paris. CAPULET Things have fallen 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[xxxv] I will, and know her mind early tomorrow. Tonight she’s mewed up to her heaviness. | 29.a Capulet tells Paris he could not speak to Juliet because of Tybalt’s death.
| 29. Capulet gives his daughter to Paris.
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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. Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon, A Thursday let it be. A 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. A 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 late That we may call it early by and by. Good night. Exeunt. | 29.b Capulet suddenly changes his mind and sets a date (the following Thursday) for her marriage with Paris, and begs his wife to inform the girl about his decision.
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[3.5] Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft. JULIET Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate 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 Yond 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 then 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; Oh, 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. | 30.a The two lovers amorously bicker over which bird is singing outside Juliet’s window (aubade).
| 30. Romeo and Juliet share their last farewell.
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Enter Madam and Nurse.[xxxvi] NURSE Madam. JULIET Nurse? NURSE Your lady mother is coming to your chamber. The day is broke, be wary, look about. | 30.b Enters the Nurse announcing Juliet’s mother is coming upstairs.
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JULIET Then, window, let day in, and let life out. ROMEO Farewell, farewell. One kiss and I’ll descend. JULIET 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. Oh, 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][xxxvii] 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 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. | 30.c Romeo leaves from Juliet’s window: the two lovers have an ominous feeling.
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Enter [Capulet’s Wife.][xxxviii] [CAPULET’S WIFE][xxxix] 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? [CAPULET’S WIFE][xl] Why, how now, Juliet? JULIET Madam, I am not well. [CAPULET’S WIFE][xli] 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][xlii] So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend Which you weep for. JULIET Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend. [CAPULET’S WIFE][xliii] 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][xliv] That same villain Romeo. JULIET 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. [CAPULET’S WIFE][xlv] 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][xlvi] 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. Oh, 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][xlvii] Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man. | 31.a Enters Lady Capulet and asks Juliet the reason for her protracted weeping. Juliet wishes she could revenge Tybalt’s death and her mother promises that she will send someone to Mantua in order to settle the matter.
| 31. Lady Capulet tells Juliet about her upcoming marriage to Paris.
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But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl. JULIET And joy comes well in such a needy time. What are they, beseech your ladyship? [CAPULET’S WIFE][xlviii] 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 expects not, nor I looked not for. JULIET Madam, in happy time. What day is that? [CAPULET’S WIFE][xlix] 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. | 31.b Lady Capulet tells Juliet that she has joyful tidings for her: she will be married to Paris on the following Thursday.
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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 then Paris. These are news indeed. | 31.c Juliet is upset, says that she will not be a happy bride, and appears to be especially disconcerted because Paris has not even courted her yet.
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[CAPULET’S WIFE][l] Here comes your father. Tell him so yourself, And see how he will take it at your hands. | 31.d Juliet’s mother is taken aback and tells her to talk to her father.
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Enter Capulet and Nurse. 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 showering? In one little body Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind; For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark 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][li] 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? | 32.a Enters Capulet. He learns from his wife about his daughter’s refusal.
| 32. Juliet confronts her father.
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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.
| 32.b Juliet confirms her refusal to get married to Paris.
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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][lii] Fie, fie, what, are you mad?
| 32.c Capulet gets incensed.
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JULIET 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 a 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. Out on her, hilding!
| 32.d Juliet begs her father to listen to her but he violently abuses her.
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NURSE God in heaven bless her! You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so. CAPULET[liii] And why, my lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue, Good Prudence, smatter with your gossips, go. NURSE I speak no treason. [CAPULET][liv] O, God ’i’ g e’en! [NURSE][lv] May not one speak? CAPULET[lvi] 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. | 32.e Capulet is deaf to his wife’s and the Nurse’s invitations to calm down.
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CAPULET[lvii] God’s bread, it makes me mad! Day, night, hour, tide, Alone, in company, still my care hath been To have her matched; and having now provided A gentleman of noble parentage, Of faire demesnes, youthful and nobly ligned, 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 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, 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. | 32.f Capulet tells Juliet that she can either obey or be cut off and disowned. He exits.
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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][lviii] Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. Exit. | 33.a Juliet wishes that her mother could help her, but Lady Capulet turns her down and exits.
| 33. Juliet turns for help to her mother and to the Nurse.
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JULIET 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. 0 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, Oh, 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. JULIET Speak’st thou from thy heart? NURSE And from my soul too, else beshrew them both. JULIET Amen. NURSE What? | 33.b Juliet then turns to the Nurse who advises her to marry Paris and forget about Romeo as if he were dead.
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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.] | 33.c Juliet pretends to appreciate the Nurse’s advice.
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JULIET Ancient damnation! Oh 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. | 33.d Juliet curses the Nurse for her ill advice as soon as she exits.
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I’ll to the friar to know his remedy, If all else fail, myself have power to die. Exit. | 33.e Juliet decides to go to Friar Laurence for help or, if he cannot help her either, kill herself. She exits.
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[4.1] Enter Friar and County Paris. FRIAR On Thursday, sir? The time is very short. PARIS My Father Capulet will have it so, And I am nothing slow to slack his haste. FRIAR You say you do not know the lady’s mind? Uneven is the course. I like it not. PARIS Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death, And therefore have I little talk of love, For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous That she do give her sorrow so much sway, And in his wisdom hastes our marriage To stop the inundation of her tears, Which, too much minded by herself alone, May be put from her by society. Now do you know the reason of this haste. FRIAR I would I knew not why it should be slowed. – Look sir, here comes the lady toward my cell. | 34.a Paris discusses his marriage with Friar Laurence. Paris justifies its being so sudden by referring to Juliet’s excessive mourning over Tybalt’s death.
| 34. Paris and Juliet meet at the Friar’s cell.
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Enter Juliet. PARIS Happily met my lady and my wife. JULIET That may be, sir, when I may be a wife. PARIS That “may be” must be, love, on Thursday next JULIET What must be shall be. FRIAR That’s a certain text. PARIS Come you to make confession to this Father? JULIET To answer that, I should confess to you. PARIS Do not deny to him that you love me. JULIET I will confess to you that I love him. PARIS So will ye, I am sure, that you love me. JULIET If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back, than to your face. PARIS Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears. JULIET The tears have got small victory by that For it was bad enough before their spite. PARIS Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report. JULIET That is no slander, sir, which is a truth, And what I spake, I spake it to my face. PARIS Thy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it. JULIET It may be so, for it is not mine own. – Are you at leisure, holy father, now, Or shall I come to you at evening mass? FRIAR My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now. – My Lord, we must entreat the time alone. PARIS God shield I should disturb devotion. – Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye. Till then adieu, and keep this holy kiss. Exit. | 34.b Enters Juliet. She tells Paris she has come for confession. Exits Paris.
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JULIET O shut the door, and when thou hast done so, Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help. FRIAR O Juliet, I already know thy grief; It strains me past the compass of my wits. I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this County. JULIET Tell me not, Friar, that thou hearest 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 joined my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands, And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s sealed, Shall be the label to another deed, Or my true heart with treacherous revolt Turn to another, this shall slay them both. Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time, Give me some present counsel, or behold, ’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that Which the commission of thy years and art Could to no issue of true honour bring. Be not so long to speak; I long to die If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy. | 35.a Juliet declares that she is ready to commit suicide rather than marrying Paris.
| 35. The Friar’s ‘fake death’ plan.
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FRIAR 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 then to marry County Paris Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, Then is it likely thou wilt undertake A thing like death to chide away this shame, That cop’st with death himself to scape from it; And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy. JULIET O bid me leap, rather then marry Paris, From of the battlements of any tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears, Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house, O’recovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls; Or bid me go into a new-made grave, And hide me with a dead man in his shroud – Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble – And I will do it without fear or doubt, To live an unstained wife to my sweet love. FRIAR Hold then, go home, be merry, give consent To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow. Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone; Let not the nurse lie with thee in thy chamber. Take thou this vial, being then in bed, And this distilling 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; The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade To wanny ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall Like death when he shuts up the day of life. Each part, deprived of supple government, Shall stiff and stark, and cold appear like death, And in this borrowed 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, uncovered on the bier Thou shall be borne to that same ancient vault Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie. In the meantime, 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. JULIET Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear! | 35.b Laurence tells her that there is still hope; he gives her a sleeping potion, and instructs her about the ‘fake death’ plan.
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FRIAR 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. JULIET Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford Farewell dear father. [Exeunt.][lix] | 35.c The Friar gives her the potion and tells her that he will send a friar to Mantua in order to inform Romeo about their plan.
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[4.2] Enter Father Capulet, Mother, Nurse, and Servingmen, two or three. CAPULET So many guests invite as here are writ. Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks. SERVINGMAN You shall have none ill sir, for I’ll try if they can lick their fingers. CAPULET How canst thou try them so? SERVINGMAN Marry sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers; therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me. CAPULET Go, be gone. We shall be much unfurnished for this time. | 36.a. Capulet discusses some details of the wedding feast with his servants.
| 36. Juliet feigns repentance in front of her father. The wedding is moved up to the following day.
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What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence? NURSE Ay, forsooth. CAPULET Well, he may chance to do some good on her. A peevish self-willed harlotry it is.
| 36.b Capulet is happy to hear that Juliet has gone to see Friar Laurence.
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Enter Juliet. NURSE See where she comes from shrift with merry look. CAPULET How now, my headstrong, where have you been gadding? JULIET Where I have learnt me to repent the sin Of disobedient opposition To you and your behests, and am enjoined By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here, To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you. Henceforward I am ever ruled by you. | 36.c Juliet comes back home and expresses her repentance to her father.
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CAPULET Send for the County; go tell him of this. I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning. JULIET I met the youthful lord at Laurence’ cell, And gave him what becomed love I might, Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty. CAPULET Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up. This is as ’t should be. Let me see the County; Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither. Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar, All our whole city is much bound to him. | 36.d Capulet is pleased by the news and orders that Paris be called for.
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JULIET Nurse, will you go with me into my closet To help me sort such needful ornaments, As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow? [CAPULET’S WIFE][lx] No, not till Thursday. There is time enough. | 36.e Juliet asks the Nurse to help her choose the ornaments for the wedding.
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[CAPULET][lxi] Go Nurse, go with her, we’ll to church tomorrow. Exeunt.
| 36.f Capulet decides to move up the wedding to the following day.
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[CAPULET’S] WIFE[lxii] We shall be short in our provision. ’Tis now near night. CAPULET[lxiii] 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 tonight. Let me alone. I’ll play the housewife for this once. – What, ho! –
| 36.g Capulet tells his wife that he will personally attend to the organization of the wedding feast.
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They are all forth. Well, I will walk myself To County Paris, to prepare up him Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed. [Exeunt.][lxiv] | 36.h Capulet says that he will personally inform Paris about the good news of Juliet’s consent.
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[4.3] Enter Juliet and Nurse. JULIET Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse, I pray thee leave me to myself tonight, For I have need of many orisons To move the heavens to smile upon my state, Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin. Enter [Capulet’s Wife.][lxv] [CAPULET’S WIFE][lxvi] What are you busy, ho? Need you my help? JULIET No, madam, we have culled such necessaries As are behooveful for our state tomorrow. 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. [CAPULET’S] WIFE. Good night. Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need. Exeunt. | 37.a Juliet has chosen her attire for the wedding and begs both the Nurse and her mother to leave her alone for the night.
| 37. Juliet drinks the Friar’s potion and is believed to be dead.
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JULIET 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.
| 37.b Juliet is scared and would call the Nurse back, yet Immediately changes her mind and resolves to carry on the plan alone.
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What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then tomorrow morning? No, no, this shall forbid it. Lie thou there. | 37.c Juliet is worried about the effectiveness of the potion and places a knife beside her.
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What if it be a poison which the Friar Subtly hath ministered 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 me thinks it should not, For he hath still been tried a holy man.
| 37.d Juliet briefly calls into doubt the honourableness of the Friar’s intentions.
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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, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, 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 this 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 – Alack, alack, is it not like that I, So early waking, what with loathsome smells, And shrikes like mandrakes torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad – Oh if I wake, shall I not be distraught, Environed with all these hideous fears, And madly play with my forefathers’ joints, And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud, And in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone, As with a club, dash out my desperate brains? | 37.e Juliet fears to die anyway, either suffocated or terrified by the place she will find herself in.
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O look! Methinks I see my cousin’s ghost, Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay! | 37.f She thinks she sees Tybalt’s ghost.
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Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink. I drink to thee. | 37.g Juliet eventually drinks the potion and faints.
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[4.4] Enter [Capulet’s Wife][lxvii] and Nurse. [CAPULET’S WIFE][lxviii] Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, Nurse. NURSE They call for dates and quinces in the pastry. Enter old Capulet. CAPULET Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crowed. The curfew bell hath rung; ’tis three a clock. Look to the baked meats, good Angelica, Spare not for cost. NURSE Go, you cotquean, go, Get you to bed. Faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow For this night’s watching. CAPULET No not a whit. What, I have watched ere now All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick. [CAPULET’S WIFE][lxix] Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time, But I will watch you from such watching now. Exit Lady and Nurse. | 38.a Lady Capulet and the Nurse bicker with Old Capulet over who will be in charge of the feast. Exit the Lady and the Nurse.
| 38. Capulet’s house is animated by the upcoming celebration.
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CAPULET A jealous hood, a jealous hood. Enter three or four with spits and logs and baskets. Now fellow, What is there? [1 SERVINGMAN][lxx] Things for the cook, sir, but I know not what. CAPULET Make haste, make haste. Sirrah, fetch drier logs! Call Peter. [Exit. 1 Ser.] He will show thee where they are. [2 SERVINGMAN] [lxxi] I have a head sir, that will find out logs And never trouble Peter for the matter. CAPULET Mass, and well said. A merry whoreson, ha! Thou shalt be loggerhead. Good faith, ’tis day. Play music | 38.b Capulet gives instructions to the servingmen and urges them to be quick.
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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! Enter Nurse. Go waken 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. | 38.c Music is being played and Capulet calls for the Nurse. He tells her to wake Juliet up and help her get ready, as the bridegroom has arrived.
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[4.5] NURSE Mistress, what, mistress! Juliet!– Fast, I warrant her, she. – Why lamb, why lady. Fie, you slugabed! Why, love, I say, Madam, sweet heart, why, bride! What, not a word? – You take your pennyworths now. Sleep for a week, for the next night, I warrant, The County Paris hath set up his rest That you shall rest but little. – God forgive me, Marry, and amen. How sound is she asleep! I needs must wake her. – Madam, madam, madam! Ay, let the County take you in your bed; He’ll fright you up i’faith. – Will it not be? What, dressed, and in your clothes, and down again? I must needs wake you. Lady, lady, lady!
| 39.a The Nurse goes into Juliet’s room and starts to call her to wake her up.
| 39. Juliet is found (apparently) dead in her bed.
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Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead. – Oh, weraday that ever I was born! Some aqua-vitae, ho! – My Lord! my lady! | 39.b The Nurse realizes that Juliet is dead and calls on Lady Capulet.
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[CAPULET’S] WIFE[lxxii] What noise is here? NURSE. O lamentable day. [CAPULET’S] WIFE[lxxiii] What is the matter? NURSE Look, look! O heavy day! [CAPULET’S WIFE][lxxiv] O me, O me, my child, my only life! Revive, look up, or I will die with thee. Help, help! Call help!
| 39.c Enters Lady Capulet and when she realizes that Juliet is dead despairs.
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Enter [Capulet.][lxxv] [CAPULET][lxxvi] For shame, bring Juliet forth. Her Lord is come. NURSE She’s dead, deceased. She’s dead, alack the day! [CAPULET’S WIFE][lxxvii] Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead. | 39.d Enters Capulet and is told that Juliet is dead.
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[CAPULET][lxxviii] Ha, let me see her. Out, alas she’s cold. Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff. Life and these lips have long been separated. Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. | 39.e Capulet sees for himself that Juliet is dead.
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NURSE O lamentable day! [CAPULET’S WIFE][lxxix] O woeful time! [CAPULET][lxxx] Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail, Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.
| 39.f They all start wailing.
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Enter Friar and the County. FRIAR Come, is the bride ready to go to church? [CAPULET][lxxxi] 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. | 39.g Enter Laurence and Paris: Capulet tells them about Juliet’s death (death as lover motif).
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PARIS Have I thought long to see this morning’s face, And doth it give me such a sight as this? [CAPULET’S WIFE][lxxxii] Accursed, unhappy, wretched hateful day! Most miserable hour that e’er time saw In lasting labour of his pilgrimage! But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, But one thing to rejoice and solace in, And cruel death hath catched it from my sight! NURSE O woe, O woeful, woeful, woeful day! Most lamentable day, most woeful day That ever, ever I did yet behold! O day, O day, O day, O hateful day, Never was seen so black a day as this! O woeful day, O woeful day! PARIS Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain! Most detestable death, by thee beguiled, By cruel, cruel, thee quite overthrown! O love, O life, not life, but love in death! [CAPULET][lxxxiii] Despised, distressed, hated, martyred, killed! Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now To murder, murder our solemnity? O child, O child, my soul and not my child! Dead art thou, alack, my child is dead, And with my child my joys are buried | 39.h Lady Capulet, Nurse, Paris and Juliet’s father mourn over the girl’s body.
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FRIAR 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. Your part in her you could not keep from death, But heaven keeps his part in eternal life. The most you sought was her promotion, For ’twas your heaven she should be advanced; And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself? Oh, in this love you love your child so ill That you run mad, seeing that she is well. She’s not well married that lives married long, But she’s best married that dies married young. Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary On this fair corpse, and, as the custom is, And in her best array, bear her to Church; For though fond nature bids us all lament, Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment. | 39.i Friar Laurence tries to comfort them saying that Juliet is now in heaven.
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[CAPULET+[lxxxiv] All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral: Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast, Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change, Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse, And all things change them to the contrary. FRIAR Sir, go you in, and madam, go with him, And go, Sir Paris. Everyone prepare To follow this fair corpse unto her grave. The heavens do lour upon you for some ill; Move them no more by crossing their high will. Exeunt. Manent [Musici.][lxxxv] | 39.j The marriage solemnity has been turned into funeral pomp.
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MUSICIANS[lxxxvi] Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone. NURSE Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up, For well you know, this is a pitiful case. [Exit Nurse.] | 40.a Some musicians enter and ask the Nurse whether they can leave. The Nurse sends them away and leaves.
| 40. Enter some musicians (comic interlude).
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FIDDLER. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended. Enter Will Kemp. PETER. Musicians, O musicians, “Hearts ease”, “Hearts ease”. Oh, an you will have me live, play “Hearts ease”. FIDDLER Why “Hearts ease”? PETER O musicians, because my heart itself plays “My heart is full”. Oh, play me some merry dump to comfort me. MINSTREL. Not a dump, we. ’Tis no time to play now. PETER You will not then? MINSTREL No. PETER I will then give it you soundly. MINSTREL What will you give us? PETER No money, on my faith, but the gleek. I will give you the minstrel. MINSTREL Then will I give you the serving-creature. PETER Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets; I’ll re you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me? MINSTREL And you re us and fa us, you note us. 2 MUSICIAN Pray you, put up your dagger and put out your wit. PETER Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men. “When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound – Why “silver sound”? Why “music with her silver sound”? What say you, Simon Catling? MINSTREL Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound. PETER. Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck? 2 MUSICIAN I say “silver sound” because musicians sound for silver. PETER Prates too. What say you, James Soundpost? 3 MUSICIAN Faith, I know not what to say. PETER Oh, I cry you mercy, you are the singer. I will say for you. It is “music with her silver sound” because musicians have no gold for sounding: “Then music with her silver sound With speedy help doth lend redress.” MINSTREL What a pestilent knave is this same! 2 MUSICIAN Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [Exeunt.] | 40.b The musicians bicker with Peter.
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[5.1] Enter Romeo. ROMEO 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 unaccustomed 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 possessed When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy! | 41.a Romeo’s dream: he was dead and was revived by Juliet’s kiss.
| 41. Romeo learns about Juliet’s death and decides to go back to Verona.
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Enter Romeo’s man [Balthasar.] News from Verona! How now, Balthasar, Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar? How doth my Lady? Is my Father well? How fares my Juliet? That I ask again, For nothing can be ill if she be well. [BALTHASAR][lxxxvii] Then she is well and nothing can be ill. Her body sleeps in Capels’ 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. Oh, pardon me for bringing these ill news, Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
| 41.b Balthasar arrives bringing news about Juliet’s death. He tells Romeo that she has been buried in the family tomb.
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ROMEO Is it e’en so? Then I deny you, stars! – Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper, And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight. [BALTHASAR][lxxxviii] I do beseech you sir, have patience. Your looks are pale and wild and do import Some misadventure. ROMEO Tush, thou art deceived. Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. | 41.c Romeo decides to return to Verona immediately. He asks for ink and paper and post horses.
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Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar? [BALTHASAR][lxxxix] No, my good Lord. ROMEO No matter. Get thee gone, And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight. Exit. | 41.d Romeo asks Balthasar whether he carries any messages from Friar Laurence.
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Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight. Let’s see for means. O mischief, thou art swift To enter in the thoughts of desperate men. | 41.e Romeo resolves to lie with Juliet that night.
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I do remember an apothecary, And hereabouts a dwells, which late I noted In tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples. Meager were his looks; Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuffed, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses Were thinly scattered to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said, “An if a man did need a poison now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.” Oh, this same thought did but forerun my need, And this same needy man must sell it me. | 41.f Romeo remembers where a poor apothecary lives (description of his shop).
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As I remember, this should be the house. Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut. – What ho, apothecary! APOTHECARY Who calls so loud? ROMEO 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. | 41.g Romeo goes to the apothecary’s shop and asks for some deadly poison.
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APOTHECARY Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law Is death to any he that utters them.
| 41.h The apothecary says that the sale of poison is prohibited by Mantua’s laws.
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ROMEO Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness, And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, 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. APOTHECARY My poverty but not my will consents. ROMEO I pay thy poverty and not thy will. | 41.i Convinced by Romeo’s money and his own neediness, he sells Romeo the poison.
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APOTHECARY 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.
| 41.j The apothecary tells Romeo about the power of the poison.
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ROMEO There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world Then these poor compounds that thou mayest not sell. I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none. Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh. | 41.k Romeo says that gold is a stronger poison.
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Come Cordial and not poison, go with me To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee. Exeunt. | 41.l The poison will be for him as a cordial. He will drink it at Juliet’s tomb.
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[5.2] Enter Friar John to Friar Laurence. JOHN Holy Franciscan friar brother, ho! Enter Laurence. LAURENCE 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. | 42.a Friar Laurence asks Friar John about news from Romeo.
| 42. Friar John has failed to deliver the letter to Romeo.
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JOHN Going to find a barefoot 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, Sealed up the doors, and would not let us forth, So that my speed to Mantua there was stayed.
| 42.b Friar John tells Laurence that he has been detained in a house because of the plague.
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LAURENCE Who bare my letter then to Romeo? JOHN I could not send it – here it is again – Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, So fearful were they of infection.
| 42.c John still carries the letter on him, as he could not deliver it.
| |
LAURENCE Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood, 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. JOHN. Brother I’ll go and bring it thee. Exit. | 42.d Very worried, Friar Laurence orders John to bring him an iron crow at his cell.
| |
LAURENCE Now must I to the monument alone. Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake. She will beshrew me much that Romeo Hath had no notice of these accidents;
| 42.e Laurence decides to go to the Capulet monument alone: Juliet will be awake in three hours.
| |
But I will write again to Mantua, And keep her at my cell till Romeo come – Poor living corpse, closed in a dead man’s tomb. Exit. | 42.f The Friar also plans to write another letter to Romeo and to keep Juliet in his cell while waiting for him.
| |
[5.3] Enter Paris and his Page. PARIS Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof. Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Under yond yew trees lay thee all along, Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground. So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread, Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves, But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me As signal that thou hearest something approach. Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go. PAGE I am almost afraid to stand alone, Here in the churchyard, yet I will adventure. | 43.a Paris arrives with his page at the Capulet monument; Paris tells his page to keep watch and warn him of any noise.
| 43. Romeo kills Paris at the Capulet tomb.
|
PARIS Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew – O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones! – Which with sweet water nightly I will dew, Or wanting that, with tears distilled by moans. The obsequies that I for thee will keep Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep. | 43.b Paris strews flowers over the tomb.
| |
Whistle Boy. The boy gives warning something doth approach. What cursed foot wanders this way tonight To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite? What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile. | 43.c Paris’ page whistles to signal that someone is coming; Paris hides himself.
| |
Enter Romeo and [Balthasar.][xc] ROMEO Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron. 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 hearest or seest, stand all aloof And do not interrupt me in my course. Why I descend into this bed of death Is partly to behold my lady’s face, But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger A precious ring, a ring that I must use In dear employment. Therefore hence, begone. But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry In what I farther 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 Then empty tigers or the roaring sea. [BALTHASAR] I will be gone, sir, and not trouble ye. ROMEO So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that. Live and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow. | 43.d Romeo and his man (Balthasar) arrive at the tomb; Romeo instructs him and them dismisses him.
| |
[BALTHASAR] For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout, His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. | 43.e Balthasar does not leave, but hides himself.
| |
ROMEO Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth, Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, And in despite I’ll cram thee with more food. | 43.f Romeo opens the tomb.
| |
PARIS This is that banished haughty Montague That murdered my love’s cousin, with which grief It is supposed the fair creature died, And here is come to do some villainous shame To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him. Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague! Can vengeance be pursued further than death? Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee. Obey and go with me, for thou must die. | 43.g Paris sees Romeo, recognizes him and tries to apprehnd him.
| |
ROMEO I must indeed, and therefore came I hither. Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man. Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone; Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth, Put not another sin upon my head By urging me to fury. Oh, begone, By heaven, I love thee better then myself, For I come hither armed against myself. Stay not, begone; live, and hereafter say A madman’s mercy bid thee run away. | 43.h Romeo begs him to leave for his own good.
| |
PARIS I do defy thy [conjuration][xci], And apprehend thee for a felon here. ROMEO Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy! | 43.i Paris refuses to leave and Romeo and Paris fight.
| |
[PAGE] O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch. | 43.j Paris’s page calls the watch.
| |
PARIS Oh, I am slain. If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. | 43.k Paris is wounded and, before dying, begs Romeo to be buried with Juliet.
| |
ROMEO In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face. Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris! What said my man when my betossed soul Did not attend him as we rode? I think He told me Paris should have married Juliet. Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, To think it was so? Oh, give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book. I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave. | 44.a Romeo looks at the man he has just killed, realizes that it is Paris, and vows to grant him his last will.
| 44. Romeo enters the monument, sees Juliet, drinks the poison and dies.
|
A grave? O no! A lantern, slaughtered youth, For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light. Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred. How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry which their keepers call A light’ning before death. Oh, how may I Call this a light’ning? O my Love, my wife! Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty Thou art not conquered, beauty’s ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
| 44.b Romeo enters the monument, sees Juliet, and wonders at her still incorrupt beauty.
| |
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? Oh, what more favour can I do to thee Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin. | 44.c Romeo sees Tybalt’s body and asks for forgiveness.
| |
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 chambermaids. Oh, here Will I set up my everlasting rest And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. | 44.d Romeo wishes to be with Juliet to snatch her away from Death’s embrace.
| |
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! | 44.e Romeo’s farewell to Juliet.
| |
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide, Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark. Here’s to my love. O true apothecary, Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. | 44.f Romeo, drinks the poison, kisses Juliet and dies.
| |
Enter Friar with lantern, crow, and spade. FRIAR Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight Have my old feet stumbled at graves. Who’s there? [BALTHASAR] Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
| 45.a Friar Laurence gets to the monument and meets Balthasar.
| 45. Juliet wakes up in the tomb.
|
FRIAR Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern, It burneth in the Capels’ monument. [BALTHASAR] It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master, One that you love. FRIAR. Who is it? [BALTHASAR] Romeo. FRIAR How long hath he been there? [BALTHASAR] Full half an hour. | 45.b Balthasar tells the Friar that Romeo is also there.
| |
FRIAR Go with me to the Vault. | 45.c The Friar wants Balthasar to go with him.
| |
[BALTHASAR] I dare not, sir. My Master knows not but I am gone hence, And fearfully did menace me with death If I did stay to look on his intents. | 45.d Balthasar will not disobey Romeo’s orders.
| |
FRIAR Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me. Oh, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing. | 45.e The Friar says that he will go alone, even though he starts to fear some adversity at hand.
| |
[BALTHASAR] As I did sleep under this yew tree here I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him. | 45.f Balthasar, who has fallen asleep under a nearby tree, says that he dreamt about a fight.
| |
FRIAR LAURENCE Romeo! Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains The stony entrance of the sepulchre? What mean these masterless and gory swords To lie discoloured by this place of peace? Romeo! Oh pale! Who else? What, Paris too? And steeped in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
| 45.g The Friar goes alone and sees blood at the entrance of the monument. He finds Romeo’s and Paris’ dead bodies.
| |
The Lady stirs. JULIET O comfortable Friar, where is my Lord? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
| 45.h Juliet wakes up and asks for Romeo.
| |
FRIAR I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep. A greater power then we can contradict Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away, Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead, And Paris, too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee Among a sisterhood of holy nuns. Stay not to question, for the watch is coming. Come, go good Juliet. I dare no longer stay. Exit. | 45.i The Friar hears some noise and begs Juliet to go with him: he will hide her in a convent. He then leaves.
| |
JULIET 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 me die with a restorative. Thy lips are warm.
| 46.a Juliet refuses the Friar’s offer to follow him to a convent, stays with Romeo and kisses him.
| 46. Juliet commits suicide.
|
Enter Boy and Watch. [CHIEF] WATCH. Lead, boy. Which way? | 46.b Enters the chief watchman with Paris’ page.
| |
JULIET Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger This is thy sheath. There rust and let me die. | 46.c Juliet stabs herself and dies.
| |
[PAGE][xcii] This is the place, there where the torch doth burn. [CHIEF] WATCH The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard. Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach. Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain, And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead, Who here hath lain this two days buried. Go tell the Prince. Run to the Capulets, Raise up the Montagues. Some others search. We see the ground whereon these woes do lie, But the true ground of all these piteous woes We cannot without circumstance descry. | 47.a The watchman starts the investigation.
| 47. Everybody (Guards, Citizens, the Prince, the Capulets and old Montague) gets at the tomb.
|
Enter Romeo’s man. [2] WATCH Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard. CHIEF WATCH Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither. Enter Friar [Laurence] and another Watchman. 3 WATCH Here is a Friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps. We took this mattock and this spade from him As he was coming from this churchyard’s side. CHIEF WATCH A great suspicion. Stay the friar too. | 47.b Balthasar and the Friar are apprehended.
| |
Enter the Prince. PRINCE What misadventure is so early up That calls our person from our morning rest? Enter [Capulet and his Wife].[xciii] CAPULET What should it be that is so shrieked abroad? CAPULET’S WIFE Oh, the people in the street cry “Romeo”, Some “Juliet”, and some “Paris”, and all run With open outcry toward our monument. | 47.c Waked by the shrieks and the general racket, the Prince, Capulet and Lady Capulet arrive at the tomb.
| |
PRINCE What fear is this which startles in your ears? [CHIEF] WATCHMAN Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain, And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before, Warm and new killed. PRINCE Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes. [CHIEF] WATCHMAN Here is a Friar, and slaughtered Romeo’s man, With instruments upon them fit to open These dead men’s tombs. | 47.d The Prince asks what happened and the chief watchman describes what and whom he has found at the monument.
| |
Enter Capulet and his Wife.[xciv] CAPULET O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds! This dagger hath mista’en, for, lo, his house Is empty on the back of Montague, And it mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom. CAPULET’S WIFE O me, this sight of death, is as a bell That warns my old age to a sepulchre. | 47.e Capulet and Lady Capulet see their daughter dead and covered in blood.
| |
Enter Montague. PRINCE Come Montague, for thou art early up To see thy son and heir, now early down. MONTAGUE Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight. Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath. What further woe conspires against mine age? | 47.f Montague enters announcing his wife’s death.
| |
PRINCE Look, and thou shalt see. MONTAGUE O thou untaught! What manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave? | 47.g Montague sees his dead son.
| |
PRINCE Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, Till we can clear these ambiguities And know their spring, their head, their true descent, And then will I be general of your woes And lead you even to death. Meantime, forbear, And let mischance be slave to patience. Bring forth the parties of suspicion. | 48.a The Prince wants to investigate what happened and summons the suspects.
| 48. The final recapitulation.
|
FRIAR I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place Doth make against me of this direful murder; And here I stand both to impeach and purge Myself condemned and myself excused. | 48.b The Friar comes forth and speaks for himself.
| |
PRINCE Then say at once what thou dost know in this. FRIAR I will be brief, for my short date of breath Is not so long as is a tedious tale. Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet, And she, there dead, that’s Romeo’s faithful wife. I married them, and their stol’n marriage day Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death Banished the new-made bridegroom from this city, For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined. You, to remove that siege of grief from her, Betrothed and would have married her perforce To County Paris. Then comes she to me, And with wild looks bid me devise some means To rid her from this second marriage, Or in my Cell there would she kill herself. Then gave I her – so tutored by my art – A sleeping potion, which so took effect As I intended, for it wrought on her The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night To help to take her from her borrowed grave, Being the time the potion’s force should cease. But he which bore my letter, Friar John, Was stayed by accident, and yesternight Returned my letter back. Then all alone At the prefixed hour of her waking Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault, Meaning to keep her closely at my cell Till I conveniently could send to Romeo. But when I came, some minute ere the time Of her awakening, here untimely lay The noble Paris and true Romeo dead. She wakes, and I entreated her come forth And bear this work of heaven with patience. But then a noise did scare me from the tomb, And she, too desperate, would not go with me, But, as it seems, did violence on herself. All this I know, and to the marriage Her Nurse is privy; and if ought in this Miscarried by my fault, let my old life Be sacrificed some hour before his time Unto the rigor of severest law. | 48.c At the Prince’s request, Laurence recapitulates the events.
| |
PRINCE We still have known thee for a holy man. Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this? | 48.d The Prince believes the Friar and asks Balthasar to give his version.
| |
BALTHASAR I brought my master news of Juliet’s death, And then in post he came from Mantua To this same place, to this same monument. | 48.e Balthasar tells about Rome’s return from Mantua after he informed him about Juliet’s death.
| |
This letter he early bid me give his father, And threatened me with death, going in the vault, If I departed not, and left him there. PRINCE Give me the letter; I will look on it. | 48.f Balthasar gives the Prince the letter Romeo wrote to his father.
| |
Where is the County’s page that raised the watch? Sirrah, what made your master in this place? [PAGE][xcv] He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave, And bid me stand aloof, and so I did. Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb, And by and by my master drew on him, And then I ran away to call the Watch. | 48.g Asked by the Prince, Paris’ page gives his own version of what has just happened at the tomb.
| |
PRINCE This letter doth make good the Friar’s words, Their course of love, the tidings of her death; And here he writes that he did buy a poison Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithall, Came to this vault to die and lie with Juliet. | 48.h Romeo’s letter, read by the Prince, confirms the testimonials.
| |
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. | 49.a The Prince admonishes both families and considers the young people’s deaths as God’s punishment.
| 49. The final reconciliation between the feuding families.
|
And I, for winking at your discords too Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished. | 49.b The Prince also blames himself for having been too indulgent.
| |
CAPULET O brother Montague, give me thy hand. This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more Can I demand.
| 49.c Capulet shakes Montague’s hand and reconciles with him. This is his daughter’s jointure.
| |
MONTAGUE But I can give thee more, For I will raise her statue in pure gold, That whiles Verona by that name is known There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet. | 49.d Montague promises to raise a golden statue of Juliet to eternize her and Verona’s name.
| |
CAPULET As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie, Poor sacrifices of our enmity. | 49.e Capulet declares that he will do the same for Romeo.
| |
PRINCE 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 pardoned, and some punished; For never was a story of more woe Then this of Juliet and her Romeo. FINIS | 49.f The Prince invites all to leave and talk about these sad events.
|
[i] Acts and scenes added.
[ii] In the role of a servingman.
[iii] Exit. Q2]
[iv] Old La. Q2]
[v] Old La. Q2]
[vi] honor Q1] houre Q2/Q3/Q4/F]
[vii] Old La. Q2]
[viii] Old La. Q2]
[ix] Old La. Q2]
[x] Old La. Q2]
[xi] Mo. Q2]
[xii] Erroneously assigned to Horatio.
[xiii] Possible error in Q2, where Q1’s reading “maid” is more consistent with “the folklore belief that idle maids
grow worms in their fingers” (René Weis, ad loc.: 2012. Romeo and Juliet, The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series.
London: Bloomsbury).
[xiv] 1 and 2 identify Old Capulet and Capulet’s Cousin.
[xv] Exit. Q2]
[xvi] The original ll-41-3: misplace the sequence “Nor arm nor face, oh be some other name / Belonging to a man.
/ What’s in a name that which we call a rose”.
[xvii] No SH.
[xviii] No SH.
[xix] Neece (niess = nyas).
[xx] 186 is erroneously assigned to Iu in Q2, while the SH Ro is added at 187.
[xxi] darkness flecked Q2]. These lines are replicated, with a few differences, at the beginning of the following
scene, where they are assigned to the Friar. This constitutes a famous crux which is often solved by assigning them
Romeo. See note below.
[xxii] “The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning / Checking the Eastern cloud with streaks of light: / And
fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels, / For forth day’s path, and Titan’s burning wheels:” the lines duplicate
1.5.188-91 (cf. Silvia Bigliazzi. 2012. “Romeo and Juliet: una croce testuale fra Q2 e Q1.” Memoria di Shakespeare
8: 203-28).
[xxiii] Erroneously assigned to Ro.
[xxiv] Exit. Q2]
[xxv] Mercutio is hurt at this point; see corresponding SD in Q1: Tybalt under Romeo’s arm thrusts Mercutio in
and flies.
[xxvi] No speech heading; line usually assigned to a follower or to Petruchio.
[xxvii] Alive Q1] He gan Q2] He gon Q3/Q4/F]
[xxviii] Erroneously assigned to Capu.
[xxix] Exit. Q2]
[xxx] Wrongly assigned to Juliet.
[xxxi] Wrongly assigned to Nurse.
[xxxii] Exit. Q2]
[xxxiii] Q2 mentions twice the Nurse’s entry: here and a few lines below.
[xxxiv] “Slud” is present only in Q2 and Q3. Conjectures have been offered on the meaning of this word as an obsolete variant of ’Sblood
(the earliest recorded entry in OED is however 1606). See Hunter and Lichtenfels ad loc. (eds. 2009. Romeo and Juliet. Farnham:
Ashgate, and: http://romeoandjulietedition.com/): “On other occasions in Q2 the Nurse’s interjections have no speech prefix (see
2.2.149 and 151), or are rendered as an SD as at 3.5.37; see also the Page at 5.3.71. It seems reasonable to conjecture that ’Slud is an
interjection with no SP to the Nurse, and is rendered as part of an SD”. The whole series of SDs in these lines varies in the Quarto
editions prior to F as well as in F: Nurse knockes Q1] Enter Nurse, and knockes Q2/Q3] Nurse knocks Q4] Enter Nurse, and knockes
F]; She knockes again Q1] They knocke Q2/Q3] Knocke Q4] Knocke F]; Slud knocke Q2/Q3] Knocke again Q4] Knocke F]; Nurse
knocks Q2/Q3] Nurse knocks Q4] Knocke F]; Knocke Q2/Q3/Q4/F]; Enter Nurse Q2/Q3/Q4/F].
[xxxv] La. Q2]
[xxxvi] Q2 signals Lady Capulet’s entry twice, here and at 64. Unless this SD is rectified, we should assume that she enters a different part
of the stage or at a different stage level (cfr. e.g. John Cranford Adams. 1956. “Shakespeare’s Use of the Upper Stage in Romeo and
Juliet, III.v.” Shakespeare Quarterly. 7 (2): 145-52).
[xxxvii] Lines erroneously assigned to Ro.
[xxxviii] Mother. Q2]
[xxxix] La. Q2]
[xl] La. Q2]
[xli] La. Q2]
[xlii] La. Q2]
[xliii] La. Q2]
[xliv] La. Q2]
[xlv] La. Q2]
[xlvi] La. Q2]
[xlvii] Mo. Q2]
[xlviii] M. Q2]
[xlix] M. Q2]
[l] M. Q2]
[li] La. Q2]
[lii] La. Q2]
[liii] Fa. Q2]
[liv] “Father” in place of SH.
[lv] No SH.
[lvi] Fa. Q2]
[lvii] Fa. Q2]
[lviii] Mo. Q2]
[lix] Exit. Q2]
[lx] Mo. Q2]
[lxi] Fa. Q2]
[lxii] Mo. Q2]
[lxiii] Fa. Q2]
[lxiv] Exit. Q2]
[lxv] Mother. Q2]
[lxvi] Mo. Q2]
[lxvii] Lady of the house Q2]
[lxviii] La. Q2]
[lxix] La. Q2]
[lxx] Fel. Q2]
[lxxi] Fel. Q2]
[lxxii] Mo. Q2]
[lxxiii] Mo. Q2]
[lxxiv] Mo. Q2]
[lxxv] father Q2]
[lxxvi] Fa. Q2]
[lxxvii] M. Q2]
[lxxviii] Fa. Q2]
[lxxix] Mo. Q2]
[lxxx] Fa. Q2]
[lxxxi] Fa. Q2]
[lxxxii] Mo. Q2]
[lxxxiii] Fa. Q2]
[lxxxiv] Fa. Q2]
[lxxxv] Exeunt manet Q2]; Exeunt manent Musici Q4]. This suggests that the musicians are already on stage.
[lxxxvi] Peter names only three musicians, alluding in all cases to string instruments in line with the presence of a Fiddler: Simon Catling
(Minstrel), Hugh Rebeck (2 Musician), James Soundpost (3 Musician). Mention of a Fiddler could suggest a fourth musician or a
different name for one the other three musicians.
[lxxxvii] Man Q2]
[lxxxviii] Man Q2]
[lxxxix] Man Q2]
[xc] Erroneously Q2 has the name Peter (Pe.) in the SD and in the following speech headings (also retained in Q3 and F), while Q1 and
Q4 have the correct Balthasar.
[xci] commiration Q2] conjuration Q1]; “commiration” is a nonce word and has sometimes been read as ‘commination’ as an alternative
to the Q1 reading ‘conjuration’, with the meaning of solemn entreaty.
[xcii] Boy: i.e. Paris’ page.
[xciii] Capels Q2]
[xciv] This SD apparently duplicates the previous one, as Capulet and his Wife are already on stage at this point, although they see the
bodies only now. Q4 and F have only this second SD with reference to Capulet and his Wife’s first entry. Q1 suggests a shorter stage
business.
[xcv] Boy.
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