Herself poised with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’d
Your lady’s love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now shows best.
ROMEO I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
Exeunt
Scene 3
A room in Capulet’s house.
Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse
LADY CAPULET Nurse, where’s my daughter? call her forth to me.
Nurse Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!
Enter JULIET
JULIET How now! who calls?
Nurse Your mother.
JULIET Madam, I am here.
What is your will?
LADY CAPULET This is the matter:–Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret:–nurse, come back again;
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel.
Thou know’st my daughter’s of a pretty age.
Nurse Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
LADY CAPULET She’s not fourteen.
Nurse I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,–
And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four–
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
LADY CAPULET A fortnight and odd days.
Nurse Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she–God rest all Christian souls!–
Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me: but, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean’d,–I never shall forget it,–
Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
My lord and you were then at Mantua:–
Nay, I do bear a brain:–but, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
Shake quoth the dove-house: ’twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge:
And since that time it is eleven years;
For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before, she broke her brow:
And then my husband–God be with his soul!
A’ was a merry man–took up the child:
’Yea,’ quoth he, ’dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying and said ’Ay.’
To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it: ’Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said ’Ay.’
LADY CAPULET Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
Nurse Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,
To think it should leave crying and say ’Ay.’
And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
A bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone;
A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:
’Yea,’ quoth my husband, ’fall’st upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted and said ’Ay.’
JULIET And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
Nurse Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.
LADY CAPULET Marry, that ’marry’ is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.
LADY CAPULET Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
Nurse A man, young lady! lady, such a man
As all the world–why, he’s a man of wax.
LADY CAPULET Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse Nay, he’s a flower; in faith, a very flower.
LADY CAPULET What say you? can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen;
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content
And what obscured in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea, and ’tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide:
That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
Nurse No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.
LADY CAPULET Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?
JULIET I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Enter a Servant
Servant Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you
called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in
the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must
hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.
LADY CAPULET We follow thee.
Exit Servant
Juliet, the county stays.
Nurse Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
Exeunt
Scene 4
A street.
Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others
ROMEO What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without a apology?
BENVOLIO The date is out of such prolixity:
We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance:
But let them measure us by what they will;
We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.
ROMEO Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
MERCUTIO Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
ROMEO Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
MERCUTIO You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
ROMEO I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
MERCUTIO And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
ROMEO Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
MERCUTIO If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in:
A visor for a visor! what care I
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.
BENVOLIO Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,
But every man betake him to his legs.
ROMEO A torch for me: let wantons light of heart
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels,
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase;
I’ll be a candle-holder, and look on.
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.
MERCUTIO Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word:
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire
Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick’st
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!
ROMEO Nay, that’s not so.
MERCUTIO I mean, sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.
ROMEO And we mean well in going to this mask;
But ’tis no wit to go.
MERCUTIO Why, may one ask?
ROMEO I dream’d a dream to-night.
MERCUTIO And so did I.
ROMEO Well, what was yours?
MERCUTIO That dreamers often lie.
ROMEO In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
MERCUTIO O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies