I pray you,
tell my
lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear,
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris.-These are news indeed!

La. Cap. Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,

And see how he will take it at your hands.

Enter CAPULET and Nurse.

Cap. When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;1 But for the sunset of my brother's son,

It rains downright.

How now, a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering? 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.-How now, wife?
Have you delivered to her our decree?

La. Cap. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.

I would the fool were married to her grave!

Cap. Soft, take me with you, take me with you, wife. How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks? Is she not proud? doth she not count her blessed, Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought

So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom? Jul. Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have ;

Proud can I never be of what I hate ;

But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.

2

Cap. How now! how now, chop-logic! What is

this?

1 Thus the quarto 1597. The quarto 1599, and the folio, read, "the earth doth drizzle dew," which is philosophically true; and so, perhaps, the Poet wrote.

2 Capulet, as Steevens observes, uses this as a nickname. The hyphen

Proud, and, I thank you,--and, I thank you not;-
And yet not proud.-Mistress minion, you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But settle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,
To go with Paris to Saint Peter's church,

Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage! You tallow-face!

La. Cap.

Fie, fie! what, are you mad? Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees, Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient

wretch!

I tell thee what,―get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.

Speak not, reply not, do not answer me ;

My fingers itch.-Wife, we scarce thought us blessed,
That God had sent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her.
Out on her, hilding!'

Nurse.

God in heaven bless her !—

You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
Cap. And why, my lady wisdom?

tongue,

Hold your

Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Nurse. I speak no treason.

Cap.

Nurse. May not one speak?

Cap.

O, God ye good den!

Peace, you mumbling fool!

You are too hot.

Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,

For here we need it not.

La. Cap.

Cap. God's bread! it makes me mad. Day, night,

late, early,

is wanting in the old copy. "Choplogyk is he that whan his mayster rebuketh his servaunt for his defawtes, he will give him xx wordes for one, or elles he will bydde the devylles paternoster in scylence.”—The xxiiii Orders of Knaves, blk. 1.

1 Base woman.

At home, abroad, alone, in company,
Waking, or sleeping, still my care hath been
To have her matched; and having now provided
A gentleman of princely parentage,

Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly trained,
Stuffed, (as they say,) with honorable parts,
Proportioned as one's heart could 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 ;—
But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me;
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise;
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i' the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine, shall never do thee good.
Trust to't; bethink you, I'll not be forsworn.
Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make my bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
La. Cap. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word;
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
[Exit.
Jul. O God!-0 nurse! how shall this be
this be pre-

vented?

My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
How shall that faith return again to earth,

[Exit.

Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth ?-Comfort me, counsel me.--
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself!-

What say'st thou hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, nurse.

Nurse.

'Faith, here 'tis. Romeo

Is banished; and all the world to nothing,

That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the county.
O, he's a lovely gentleman!

Romeo's a dishclout to him; an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green,1 so quick, so fair an eye,
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first; or if it did not,
Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
As living here, and you no use of him.
Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart?
Nurse.

Or else beshrew them both.

Jul.

Nurse.

From my soul too;

Amen!

To what?

Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,

Having displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession, and to be absolved.

Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

Jul. Ancient damnation!

[Exit.

O most wicked fiend!

Is it more sin-to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times ?-Go, counsellor;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.-
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy;

If all else fail, myself have power to die.

[Exit.

1 In The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakspeare, we find :

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS.

Fri. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.
Par. My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste.'

Fri. You say you do not know the lady's mind :
Uneven is the course; I like it not.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
And therefore have I little talked of love;

For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous,
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway;
And, in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.

Now do you know the reason of this haste.

Fri. I would I knew not why it should be slowed.2

Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

Enter JULIET.

[Aside

Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife!
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Par. That may-be, must be, love, on Thursday

next.

Jul. What must be, shall be.

Fri.

That's a certain text.

Par. Come you to make confession to this father?

1 The meaning of Paris is, there is nothing of slowness in me, to induce me to slacken or abate his haste; but the words the Poet has given him import the reverse. The first edition reads,

"And I am nothing slack to slow his haste."

2 To slow and to foreslow were anciently in common use as verbs.