Romeo and Juliet
PROLOGUE | ||
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 | 5 | |
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; | ||
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows | ||
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife. | ||
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, | ||
And the continuance of their parents’ rage, | 10 | |
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove, | ||
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; | ||
The which if you with patient ears attend, | ||
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. | ||
ACT I SCENE I | Verona. A public place. | |
Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY, of the house of Capulet, armed with swords and bucklers | ||
SAMPSON | Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals. | |
GREGORY | No, for then we should be colliers. | |
SAMPSON | I mean, an we be in choler, we’ll draw. | |
GREGORY | Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar. | |
SAMPSON | I strike quickly, being moved. | 5 |
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 runn’st away. | ||
SAMPSON | A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will | 10 |
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 | True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, | |
are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push | 15 | |
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 cruel with the | 20 | |
maids, and 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. | 25 |
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 | ||
two of the house of the Montagues. | 30 | |
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. | 35 |
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 a disgrace to them, if they bear it. | ||
Enter ABRAHAM and BALTHASAR | ||
ABRAHAM | Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? | 40 |
SAMPSON | I do bite my thumb, sir. | |
ABRAHAM | Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? | |
SAMPSON | Aside to GREGORY Is the law of our side, if I say | |
ay? | ||
GREGORY | No. | 45 |
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 | If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you. | 50 |
ABRAHAM | No better. | |
SAMPSON | Well, sir. | |
GREGORY | Say ‘better:’ here comes one of my master’s kinsmen. | |
SAMPSON | Yes, better, sir. | |
ABRAHAM | You lie. | 55 |
SAMPSON | Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow. | |
They fight | ||
Enter BENVOLIO | ||
BENVOLIO | Part, fools! | |
Put up your swords; you know not what you do. | ||
Beats down their swords | ||
Enter TYBALT | ||
TYBALT | What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? | |
Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death. | 60 | |
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! | 65 | |
They fight | ||
Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray; then enter Citizens, with clubs | ||
First Citizen | Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down! | |
Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues! | ||
Enter CAPULET in his gown, and LADY CAPULET | ||
CAPULET | What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho! | |
LADY CAPULET | A crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword? | |
CAPULET | My sword, I say! Old Montague is come, | 70 |
And flourishes his blade in spite of me. | ||
Enter MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE | ||
MONTAGUE | Thou villain Capulet,–Hold me not, let me go. | |
LADY MONTAGUE | Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe. | |
Enter PRINCE, with Attendants | ||
PRINCE | Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, | |
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,– | 75 | |
Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts, | ||
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage | ||
With purple fountains issuing from your veins, | ||
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands | ||
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground, | 80 | |
And hear the sentence of your moved prince. | ||
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, | ||
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, | ||
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets, | ||
And made Verona’s ancient citizens | 85 | |
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, | ||
To wield old partisans, in hands as old, | ||
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate: | ||
If ever you disturb our streets again, | ||
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. | 90 | |
For this time, all the rest depart away: | ||
You Capulet; shall go along with me: | ||
And, Montague, come you this afternoon, | ||
To know our further pleasure in this case, | ||
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place. | 95 | |
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. | ||
Exeunt all but MONTAGUE, LADY MONTAGUE, and BENVOLIO | ||
MONTAGUE | Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach? | |
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began? | ||
BENVOLIO | Here were the servants of your adversary, | |
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach: | 100 | |
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 hiss’d him in scorn: | 105 | |
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. | ||
LADY MONTAGUE | O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day? | |
Right glad I am he was not at this fray. | 110 | |
BENVOLIO | Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun | |
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east, | ||
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad; | ||
Where, underneath the grove of sycamore | ||
That westward rooteth from the city’s side, | 115 | |
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, | ||
That most are busied when they’re most alone, | 120 | |
Pursued my humour not pursuing his, | ||
And gladly shunn’d who gladly fled from me. | ||
MONTAGUE | Many a morning hath he there been seen, | |
With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew. | ||
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs; | 125 | |
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun | ||
Should in the furthest east begin to draw | ||
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed, | ||
Away from the light steals home my heavy son, | ||
And private in his chamber pens himself, | 130 | |
Shuts up his windows, locks far 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? | 135 |
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 affections’ counsellor, | ||
Is to himself–I will not say how true– | 140 | |
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 sun. | 145 | |
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow. | ||
We would as willingly give cure as know. | ||
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, | 150 |
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away. | ||
Exeunt MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE | ||
BENVOLIO | Good-morrow, cousin. | |
ROMEO | Is the day so young? | |
BENVOLIO | But new struck nine. | |
ROMEO | Ay me! sad hours seem long. | 155 |
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. | |
BENVOLIO | In love? | |
ROMEO | Out– | 160 |
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, | 165 |
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! | 170 | |
O any thing, of nothing first create! | ||
O heavy lightness! serious vanity! | ||
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms! | ||
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, | ||
sick health! | 175 | |
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? | 180 |
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 prest | ||
With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown | 185 | |
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. | ||
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; | ||
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; | ||
Being vex’d a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears: | ||
What is it else? a madness most discreet, | 190 | |
A choking gall and a preserving sweet. | ||
Farewell, my coz. | ||
BENVOLIO | Soft! I will go along; | |
An if you leave me so, you do me wrong. | ||
ROMEO | Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here; | 195 |
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where. | ||
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. | 200 | |
ROMEO | Bid a sick man in sadness make his will: | |
Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill! | ||
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman. | ||
BENVOLIO | I aim’d so near, when I supposed you loved. | |
ROMEO | A right good mark-man! And she’s fair I love. | 205 |
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 arm’d, | ||
From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharm’d. | 210 | |
She will not stay the siege of loving terms, | ||
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes, | ||
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold: | ||
O, she is rich in beauty, only poor, | ||
That when she dies with beauty dies her store. | 215 | |
BENVOLIO | Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste? | |
ROMEO | She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste, | |
For beauty starved with her severity | ||
Cuts beauty off from all posterity. | ||
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, | 220 | |
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. | ||
BENVOLIO | Be ruled by me, forget to think of her. | |
ROMEO | O, teach me how I should forget to think. | 225 |
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 | 230 | |
Being black put us in mind they hide the fair; | ||
He that is strucken blind cannot forget | ||
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost: | ||
Show me a mistress that is passing fair, | ||
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note | 235 | |
Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair? | ||
Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget. | ||
BENVOLIO | I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt. | |
Exeunt |
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 2