Page images
PDF
EPUB

Nurse. Madam!

Jul. Nurse?

Enter Nurse.

Nurse. Your lady mother's coming to your

chamber:

The day is broke; be wary, look about.

[Exit Nurse. Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out. Rom. Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll de[ROMEO descends.

scend.

Jul. Art thou gone so? my love! my lord! my
friend!

I must hear from thee every day i'the hour,
For in a minute there are many days:
O! by this count I shall be much in years,
Ere I again behold my Romeo.

Rom. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
Jul. Ŏ, think'st thou, we shall ever meet again ?
Rom. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.

Jul. O God! I have an ill-divining soul; Methinks, I see thee, now thou art below, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb: Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale. Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you: Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu! adieu! Erit ROMEO.

Jul. O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle: If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;

That is renown'd for faith?] This Romeo, so renown'd for faith, was but the day before dying for love of another woman: yet this is natural. Romeo was the darling object of Juliet's love, and Romeo was, of course, to have every excellence.

For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.

La. Cap. [Within.] Ho, daughter! are you up?
Jul. Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?"

Enter Lady CAPULET.

La. Cap. Why, how now, Juliet?

Jul.

Madam, I am not well. La. Cap. Evermore weeping for your cousin's

death?

What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?

An if thou could'st, thou could'st not make him live; Therefore, have done: Some grief shows much of

love;

But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
La. Cap. So shall you fell the loss, but not the

Which

Jul.

friend

you weep for.

Feeling so the loss,

I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

La. Cap. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,

As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.
Jul. What villain, madam?

La. Cap.

That same villain, Romeo. Jul. Villain and he are many miles asunder. God pardon him! I do, with all my heart; And yet no man, like he, doth grieve my heart. La. Cap. That is, because the traitor murderer lives.

procures her hither?] Procures for brings.

Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my

hands.

'Would, none but I might venge my cousin's death! La. Cap. We will have vengeance for it, fear

thou not:

Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,——
Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,-
That shall bestow on him so sure a draught,
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company :
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.
Jul. Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him-dead-
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd:-
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it;
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet.-O, how my heart abhors
To hear him nam'd,-and cannot come to him.—
To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt
Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!

La. Cap. Find thou the means, and I'll find such

a man.

But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

Jul. And joy comes well in such a needful time; What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

La. Cap. Well, well, thou hast a careful father,
child;

One, who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,

That thou expect'st not, nor I look'd not for.

8

Jul. Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

7 Ay, madam, from, &c.] Juliet's equivocations are rather too artful for a mind disturbed by the loss of a new lover. JOHNSON. in happy time,] A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected, when the hearer was not quite so well pleased as the speaker.

La. Cap. Marry, my child, early next Thursday

morn,

The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
The county Paris, at St. Peter's church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
Jul. Now, by St. Peter's church, and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo.
pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,

I

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; But for the sunset of brother's son,

It rains downright.

my

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?

9 The county Paris,] Paris, though in one place called Earl, is most commonly stiled the Countie in this play. Shakspeare seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian Comte to our Count perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is said to have taken his plot; and in which Paris is first stiled a young Earle, and afterwards Counte, Countee, County; according to the unsettled orthography of the time.

Have you deliver'd 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 bless'd, 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.
Cap. How now! how now, chop-logick! What
is this?

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. Fye, fye! 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 bless'd,
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!

[blocks in formation]

2

« PreviousContinue »