More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not; he is banished:
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
They are free men, but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But ’banished’ to kill me?–’banished’?
O friar, the damned use that word in hell;
Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
To mangle me with that word ’banished’?
FRIAR LAURENCE Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.
ROMEO O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAURENCE I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word:
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
ROMEO Yet ’banished’? Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
FRIAR LAURENCE O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
ROMEO How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
FRIAR LAURENCE Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
Knocking within
FRIAR LAURENCE Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.
ROMEO Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,
Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.
Knocking
FRIAR LAURENCE Hark, how they knock! Who’s there? Romeo, arise;
Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;
Knocking
Run to my study. By and by! God’s will,
What simpleness is this! I come, I come!
Knocking
Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what’s your will?
Nurse [Within]
Let me come in, and you shall know
my errand;
I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAURENCE Welcome, then.
Enter Nurse
Nurse O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?
FRIAR LAURENCE There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
Nurse O, he is even in my mistress’ case,
Just in her case! O woful sympathy!
Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
ROMEO Nurse!
Nurse Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death’s the end of all.
ROMEO Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?
Doth she not think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
With blood removed but little from her own?
Where is she? and how doth she? and what says
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?
Nurse O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
ROMEO As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her; as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
Drawing his sword
FRIAR LAURENCE Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And stay thy lady too that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
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 4
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.