Romeo and Juliet
ACT II SCENE V | Capulet’s orchard. | |
[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. | ||
O, she is lame! love’s heralds should be thoughts, | ||
Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams, | ||
Driving back shadows over louring hills: | ||
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d 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 | 10 | |
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. | ||
O God, she comes! | ||
[Enter Nurse and PETER] | ||
O honey nurse, what news? | ||
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away. | ||
Nurse | Peter, stay at the gate. | |
[Exit PETER] | ||
JULIET | Now, good sweet nurse,–O Lord, why look’st thou sad? | 21 |
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 a-weary, give me leave awhile: | |
Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had! | ||
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? | 30 | |
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 than 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, | 43 | |
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,–O, my back, my back! | 50 | |
Beshrew your heart for sending me about, | ||
To catch my death with jaunting 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, | 60 | |
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 to-day? | |
JULIET | I have. | |
Nurse | Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’ cell; | |
There stays a husband to make you a wife: | ||
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks, | 70 | |
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] |
Next: Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6