Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" (advanced)

O life! not life, but love in death Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!

How long is it now To Lammastide?

So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves) But thou shalt hear it.

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.

Ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverse! the hay.

Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?

I have an interest in your hate's proceeding, My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding; But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine That you shall all repent the loss of mine.

How hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, To mangle me with that word 'banished'?

Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.

Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane and, as thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.

See, there she lies, Flower as she was, deflowered by him.

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!

What say you, Simon Catling? 1.

You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!

Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.

Give me some aqua vitae.

Meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, 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.

This is that very Mab That plats 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.

Cap. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!

A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death!

Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers; Torchbearers.

What, lamb! what ladybird!

This is that very Mab That plats 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.

In one little body Thou counterfeit'st 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.

My life were better ended by their hate Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

Say thou but 'I,' And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.

I am aweary, give me leave awhile.

What, dares the slave Come hither, cover'd with an antic face, To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?

Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.

So smile the heavens upon this holy act That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!

God's will, What simpleness is this.-

The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite.

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 atomies Athwart 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's web; Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry 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 Pri...

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.

A glooming peace this morning with it brings.

Beshrew your heart for sending me about To catch my death with jauncing up and down!

Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears, Or shut me nightly in a charnel house, O'ercover'd 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 l...

Therefore thy earliness doth me assure Thou art uprous'd with some distemp'rature; Or if not so, then here I hit it right- Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

But come, young waverer, come go with me.

Ben. An 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.

What mean these masterless and gory swords To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?

Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless skulls?

Jul. 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.

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.

Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath prais'd him with above compare So many thousand times?

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.

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.

Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers; Torchbearers.

This trick may chance to scathe you.

There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

Capulet, Montage, See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!

Holy Saint Francis!

Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans, Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.

He fights as you sing pricksong-keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom! the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist! a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause.

This is that very Mab That plats 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 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 therewithal Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.

Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads.

Ben. Alas that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

But come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight.

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 pack'd; Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies fest'ring 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 shrieks like mandrakes torn ou...

Take thou this vial, being then in bed, And this distilled liquor drink thou off; When presently through all thy veins shall run A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse Shall keep his native progress, but surcease; No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest; The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall Like death when he shuts up the day of life; Each part, depriv'd of supple government, Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death; And ...

Mer. 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.

Day, night, late, early, At home, abroad, alone, in company, Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been To have her match'd; and having now provided A gentleman of princely parentage, Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd, Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts, Proportion'd 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'!

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 Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid!

Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.

Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, Doting like me, and like me banished, Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.

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.

Enter two other Servingmen [Abram and Balthasar].

Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name.

I'll to my truckle-bed; This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.

Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears, Or shut me nightly in a charnel house, O'ercover'd 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 l...

Par. I do defy thy, conjuration And apprehend thee for a felon here.

You take your pennyworths now!

Rom. 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 despised life, clos'd in my breast, By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.

Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide!

Bal. [aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout.

He fights as you sing pricksong-keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom! the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist! a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause.

This is my daughter's jointure, for no more Can I demand.

Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent He walks by them and sings.

Buy food and get thyself in flesh.

Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time, Give me some present counsel; or, behold, 'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the empire, arbitrating that Which the commission of thy years and art Could to no issue of true honour bring.

Romeo, doff thy name; And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself.

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

Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd!

'When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound'-
Why 'silver sound'?

Rom. Alas that love, whose view is muffled still, Should without eyes see pathways to his will!

Jul. Ay, those attires are best; but, gentle nurse, I pray thee leave me to myself to-night; 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.

Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.

Thou shalt be loggerhead.

Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes- these new tuners of accent!

Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.

In the instant came The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd; Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears, He swung about his head and cut the winds, Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn.

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.'

Mon. I would thou wert so happy by thy stay To hear true shrift.

So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves) But thou shalt hear it.

Thy form cries out thou art; Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote The unreasonable fury of a beast.

I am not for this ambling.

Ben. Alas that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Rom. What less than doomsday is the Prince's doom?

He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher! 2.

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's by action dignified.

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 vow'd 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 get afire by thine own ignorance, And thou dismemb'red with thine own defence.

O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh.

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities; For naught so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears, Or shut me nightly in a charnel house, O'ercover'd 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 l...

Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!

Lord, how my head aches!

Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench (marry, she had a better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, This be a gray eye or so, but not to the purpose.

Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears, Or shut me nightly in a charnel house, O'ercover'd 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 l...

O deadly sin!

I will carry no crotchets.

More light, you knaves! and turn the tables up, And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.

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!

For this drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd 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.

And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl, For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death, And therefore have I little talk'd of love; For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.

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 atomies Athwart 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's web; Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry 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 w...

I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.

Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same? 2.

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?

'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters; County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio and His lovely nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline and Livia; Signior Valentio and His cousin Tybalt; Lucio and the lively Helena.'

Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.

Cap. Tush, I will stir about, And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.

Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, I must up-fill this osier cage of ours With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.

Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, Doting like me, and like me banished, Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

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.

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!

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

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Away to heaven respective lenity, And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!

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 atomies Athwart 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's web; Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry 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 w...

Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!

I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault And presently took post to tell it you.

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.

Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!

Enter Romeo, and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock, and a crow of iron.

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.

I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place Doth make against me, of this direful murther; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned and myself excus'd.

Look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.

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.

Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave?

Sirrah, fetch drier logs.

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?

Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave?

O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air.

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!

Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane and, as thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.

[To Servant, giving him a paper] 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 [Capulet and Paris].

Smatter with your gossips, go!

Shall I believe That unsubstantial Death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

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 atomies Athwart 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's web; Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry 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 Pri...

A visor for a visor!

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!

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.

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

Jul. Yond light is not daylight; I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhales To be to thee this night a torchbearer And light thee on the way to Mantua.

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.

Rom. O single-sold jest, solely singular for the singleness!

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them To make me die with a restorative.

It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.

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.

Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, Have thrice disturb'd 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, Cank'red with peace, to part your cank'red hate.

Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter, with another for tying his new shoes with an old riband?

Shall I believe That unsubstantial Death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

I would not for the wealth of all this town Here in my house do him disparagement.

In one respect I'll thy assistant be; For this alliance may so happy prove To turn your households' rancour to pure love.

Meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, 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.

'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio, Come Pentecost as quickly as it will, Some five-and-twenty years, and then we mask'd. 2.

Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thine 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.

Marry, bachelor, Her mother is the lady of the house.

O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop To help me after?

Cap. When the sun sets the air doth drizzle dew, But for the sunset of my brother's son It rains downright.

'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; And she was wean'd (I never shall forget it), Of all the days of the year, upon that day; For I had then laid wormwood to my dug, Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.

For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool!

Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed; Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.

O, she knew well Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.

[To Servant, giving him a paper] 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 [Capulet and Paris].

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 atomies Athwart 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's web; Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry 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 w...

We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd 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.

Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night; Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench (marry, she had a better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, This be a gray eye or so, but not to the purpose.

Rom. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.

Prince, as thou art true, For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

A lover may bestride the gossamer That idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

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.

Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white wench's black eye; shot 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?

Mer. 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 wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the North And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.

For this drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

That I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter,
dry-beat the rest of the eight.

Some say the lark and loathed toad chang'd eyes; O, now I would they had chang'd voices too, Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day!

Mer. O, here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad!

This is that very Mab That plats 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.

What mean these masterless and gory swords To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?

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 obscur'd 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.

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 look'd not for.

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!

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.

Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!

Your looks are pale and wild and do import Some misadventure.

Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool!

I promise you, but for your company, I would have been abed an hour ago.

That were some spite; my invocation Is fair and honest: in his mistress' name, I conjure only but to raise up him.

She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

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 look'd not for.

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 obscur'd 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.

Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, I must up-fill this osier cage of ours With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.

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.'

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!

Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it.

Rom. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.

Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica; Spare not for cost.

The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night, Check'ring the Eastern clouds with streaks of light; And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels.

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 atomies Athwart 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's web; Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry 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 w...

But he that hath the steerage of my course Direct my sail!

I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsir, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench?

Come, I'll dispose of thee Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.

Such a wagoner As Phaeton would whip you to the West And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!

All this I know, and to the marriage Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this Miscarried by my fault, let my old life Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time, Unto the rigour of severest law.

Mon. 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.

Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both, And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long.

Let me peruse this face.

Is this the poultice for my aching bones?

Give me some aqua vitae.

The second cock hath crow'd, The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.

Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell; There stays a husband to make you a wife.

They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.