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