Romeo and Juliet
ACT I SCENE III | A room in Capulet’s house. | |
[Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse] | ||
LADY CAPULET | 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, lady-bird! | ||
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet! | ||
[Enter JULIET] | ||
JULIET | How now! who calls? | |
Nurse | Your mother. | |
JULIET | Madam, I am here. | |
What is your will? | ||
LADY CAPULET | This is the matter:–Nurse, give leave awhile, | |
We must talk in secret:–nurse, come back again; | 10 | |
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel. | ||
Thou know’st my daughter’s of a pretty age. | ||
Nurse | Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. | |
LADY CAPULET | She’s not fourteen. | |
Nurse | I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,– | |
And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four– | ||
She is not fourteen. How long is it now | ||
To Lammas-tide? | ||
LADY CAPULET | A fortnight and odd days. | |
Nurse | Even or odd, of all days in the year, | 20 |
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 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, | 30 | |
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall; | ||
My lord and you were then at Mantua:– | ||
Nay, I do bear a brain:–but, as I said, | ||
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple | ||
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool, | ||
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! | ||
Shake quoth the dove-house: ’twas no need, I trow, | ||
To bid me trudge: | ||
And since that time it is eleven years; | ||
For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, | 40 | |
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 holidame, | ||
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, | 50 | |
I never should forget it: ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he; | ||
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said ‘Ay.’ | ||
LADY CAPULET | 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 its brow | ||
A bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone; | ||
A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly: | ||
‘Yea,’ quoth my husband,’fall’st upon thy face? | ||
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age; | 60 | |
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: | ||
An I might live to see thee married once, | ||
I have my wish. | ||
LADY CAPULET | Marry, that ‘marry’ is the very theme | |
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet, | ||
How stands your disposition to be married? | ||
JULIET | It is an honour that I dream not of. | 70 |
Nurse | An honour! were not I thine only nurse, | |
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat. | ||
LADY CAPULET | 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. | ||
Nurse | A man, young lady! lady, such a man | |
As all the world–why, he’s a man of wax. | 80 | |
LADY CAPULET | Verona’s summer hath not such a flower. | |
Nurse | Nay, he’s a flower; in faith, a very flower. | |
LADY CAPULET | 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. | 90 | |
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. | |
LADY CAPULET | Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love? | 100 |
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. | ||
[Enter a Servant] | ||
Servant | Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you | |
called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in | ||
the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must | ||
hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight. | ||
LADY CAPULET | We follow thee. | |
[Exit Servant] | ||
Juliet, the county stays. | ||
Nurse | Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. | 110 |
[Exeunt] |
Next: Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4