Complete Plays, The Read online

  Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?

  Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet

  In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.

  Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;

  Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,

  And usest none in that true use indeed

  Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:

  Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,

  Digressing from the valour of a man;

  Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,

  Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;

  Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,

  Misshapen in the conduct of them both,

  Like powder in a skitless soldier’s flask,

  Is set afire by thine own ignorance,

  And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.

  What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,

  For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;

  There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,

  But thou slew’st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:

  The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend

  And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:

  A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;

  Happiness courts thee in her best array;

  But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,

  Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love:

  Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

  Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,

  Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:

  But look thou stay not till the watch be set,

  For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;

  Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time

  To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,

  Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back

  With twenty hundred thousand times more joy

  Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.

  Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;

  And bid her hasten all the house to bed,

  Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:

  Romeo is coming.

  Nurse

  O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night

  To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!

  My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

  Romeo

  Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

  Nurse

  Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:

  Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

  Exit

  Romeo

  How well my comfort is revived by this!

  Friar Laurence

  Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:

  Either be gone before the watch be set,

  Or by the break of day disguised from hence:

  Sojourn in Mantua; I’ll find out your man,

  And he shall signify from time to time

  Every good hap to you that chances here:

  Give me thy hand; ’tis late: farewell; good night.

  Romeo

  But that a joy past joy calls out on me,

  It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.

  Exeunt

  SCENE IV. A ROOM IN CAPULET’S HOUSE.

  Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, and Paris

  Capulet

  Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily,

  That we have had no time to move our daughter:

  Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,

  And so did I:— Well, we were born to die.

  ’Tis very late, she’ll not come down to-night:

  I promise you, but for your company,

  I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

  Paris

  These times of woe afford no time to woo.

  Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter.

  Lady Capulet

  I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;

  To-night she is mew’d up to her heaviness.

  Capulet

  Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender

  Of my child’s love: I think she will be ruled

  In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.

  Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;

  Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love;

  And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next —

  But, soft! what day is this?

  Paris

  Monday, my lord,

  Capulet

  Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,

  O’ Thursday let it be: o’ Thursday, tell her,

  She shall be married to this noble earl.

  Will you be ready? do you like this haste?

  We’ll keep no great ado,— a friend or two;

  For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,

  It may be thought we held him carelessly,

  Being our kinsman, if we revel much:

  Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,

  And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

  Paris

  My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.

  Capulet

  Well get you gone: o’ Thursday be it, then.

  Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,

  Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.

  Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!

  Afore me! it is so very very late,

  That we may call it early by and by.

  Good night.

  Exeunt

  SCENE V. CAPULET’S ORCHARD.

  Enter Romeo and Juliet above, at the window

  Juliet

  Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:

  It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

  That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;

  Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:

  Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

  Romeo

  It was the lark, the herald of the morn,

  No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks

  Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:

  Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day

  Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

  I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

  Juliet

  Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:

  It is some meteor that the sun exhales,

  To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,

  And light thee on thy way to Mantua:

  Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone.

  Romeo

  Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death;

  I am content, so thou wilt have it so.

  I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,

  ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow;

  Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat

  The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:

  I have more care to stay than will to go:

  Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.

  How is’t, my soul? let’s talk; it is not day.

  Juliet

  It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!

  It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

  Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.

  Some say the lark makes sweet division;

  This doth not so, for she divideth us:

  Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,

  O, now I would they had changed voices too!

  Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,

  Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day,

  O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.

  Romeo

  More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!

  Enter Nurse, to the chamber

  Nurse

 
Madam!

  Juliet

  Nurse?

  Nurse

  Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:

  The day is broke; be wary, look about.

  Exit

  Juliet

  Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

  Romeo

  Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I’ll descend.

  He goeth down

  Juliet

  Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!

  I must hear from thee every day in 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!

  Romeo

  Farewell!

  I will omit no opportunity

  That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

  Juliet

  O think’st thou we shall ever meet again?

  Romeo

  I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve

  For sweet discourses in our time to come.

  Juliet

  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.

  Romeo

  And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:

  Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

  Exit

  Juliet

  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;

  For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,

  But send him back.

  Lady Capulet

  [Within] Ho, daughter! are you up?

  Juliet

  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

  Lady Capulet

  Why, how now, Juliet!

  Juliet

  Madam, I am not well.

  Lady Capulet

  Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?

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

  An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;

  Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;

  But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

  Juliet

  Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

  Lady Capulet

  So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend

  Which you weep for.

  Juliet

  Feeling so the loss,

  Cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

  Lady Capulet

  Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death,

  As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

  Juliet

  What villain madam?

  Lady Capulet

  That same villain, Romeo.

  Juliet

  [Aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.—

  God Pardon him! I do, with all my heart;

  And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

  Lady Capulet

  That is, because the traitor murderer lives.

  Juliet

  Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands:

  Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!

  Lady Capulet

  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,

  Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram,

  That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:

  And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

  Juliet

  Indeed, I never shall be satisfied

  With Romeo, till I behold him — dead —

  Is my poor heart 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 named, and cannot come to him.

  To wreak the love I bore my cousin

  Upon his body that slaughter’d him!

  Lady Capulet

  Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.

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

  Juliet

  And joy comes well in such a needy time:

  What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

  Lady Capulet

  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.

  Juliet

  Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

  Lady Capulet

  Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,

  The gallant, young and noble gentleman,

  The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,

  Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

  Juliet

  Now, by Saint 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.

  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!

  Lady Capulet

  Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,

  And see how he will take it at your hands.

  Enter Capulet and Nurse

  Capulet

  When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;

  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 deliver’d to her our decree?

  Lady Capulet

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

  I would the fool were married to her grave!

  Capulet

  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 blest,

  Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought

  So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

  Juliet

  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.

  Capulet

  How now, how now, chop-logic! 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 fettle 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!

  Lady Capulet

  Fie, fie! what, are you mad?

  Juliet

  Good father, I beseech you on my knees,

  Hear
me with patience but to speak a word.

  Capulet

  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 blest

  That God had lent 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.

  Capulet

  And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,

  Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

  Nurse

  I speak no treason.

  Capulet

  O, God ye god-den.

  Nurse

  May not one speak?

  Capulet

  Peace, you mumbling fool!

  Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl;

  For here we need it not.

  Lady Capulet

  You are too hot.

  Capulet

  God’s bread! it makes me mad:

  Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,

  Alone, in company, still my care hath been

  To have her match’d: and having now provided

  A gentleman of noble parentage,

  Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train’d,

  Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,

  Proportion’d as one’s thought would 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, as 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;

  And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in 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.

  Exit

  Juliet

  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 the bridal bed

  In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

  Lady Capulet

  Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word:

  Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

  Exit

  Juliet

  O God!— O nurse, how shall this be prevented?

  My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;

  How shall that faith return again to earth,