La. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.[182]
Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old,[183][184]
I bade her come. What, lamb! what, lady-bird!—[183][185]
God forbid!—Where's this girl? What, Juliet![183]
Enter Juliet.
Jul. How now! who calls?[186] 5
Jul. Madam, I am here. What is your will?[186][187]
La. Cap. This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile,[182][188]
We must talk in secret:—nurse, come back again;[188]
I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.[188][189] 10
Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.[188][190]
Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
La. Cap. She's not fourteen.[182]
Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,—[191][192]
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,—[191][193]
She is not fourteen. How long is it now[191][194] 15
To Lammas-tide?[191]
Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,[195][197]
Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.[195]
Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls!—[195]
Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;[195] 20
She was too good for me:—but, as I said,[195]
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;[195]
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.[195][198]
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;[195]
And she was wean'd,—I never shall forget it—[195] 25
Of all the days of the year, upon that day:[195][199]
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,[195]
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;[195][196]
My lord and you were then at Mantua:—[195]
Nay, I do bear a brain:—but, as I said,[195] 30
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple[195]
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool,[195]
To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug![195][200]
Shake, quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,[195]
To bid me trudge.[195] 35
And since that time it is eleven years;[195][201]
For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by the rood,[195][202]
She could have run and waddled all about;[195]
For even the day before, she broke her brow:[195]
And then my husband,—God be with his soul![195][203] 40
A' was a merry man—took up the child:[195]
'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?[195]
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;[195]
Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,[195][204]
The pretty wretch left crying, and said 'Ay.'[195] 45
To see now how a jest shall come about![195]
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,[195][205]
I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;[195][206]
And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said 'Ay.'[195]
La. Cap. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.[207] 50
Nurse. Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,[208]
To think it should leave crying, and say 'Ay:'[208]
And yet, I warrant, it had upon it brow[208][209]
A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;[208]
A perilous knock; and it cried bitterly:[208][210] 55
'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face?[208]
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;[208]
Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted, and said 'Ay.'[208][211]
Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.[212]
Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace![213][214]60
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:[213][215]
An I might live to see thee married once,[213][216]
I have my wish.[213]
La. Cap. Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme[207][217]
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,[218] 65
How stands your disposition to be married?[219]
Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.[220][221]
La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger than you[207] 70
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,[225]
Are made already mothers. By my count,[226]
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. 75
Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man[227]
As all the world—why, he's a man of wax.[227][228]
La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.[207]
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gentleman?[207][229]80
This night you shall behold him at our feast:[229]
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,[229][230]
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;[229]
Examine every married lineament,[229][231]
And see how one another lends content;[229] 85
And what obscured in this fair volume lies[229]
Find written in the margent of his eyes.[229]
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,[229]
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:[229]
The fish lives in the sea; and 'tis much pride[229][232] 90
For fair without the fair within to hide:[229][233]
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,[229][234]
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story:[229]
So shall you share all that he doth possess,[229]
By having him making yourself no less.[229] 95
Nurse. No less! nay, bigger: women grow by men.[229][235]
La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?[207]
Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye[236]
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.[237] 100
Enter a Servingman.
Serv. 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.
La. Cap. We follow thee. [Exit Servingman.] Juliet,[238]
the county stays.[239][240] 105
Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.[239]
[Exeunt.
Scene IV. A street.
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers,
and Torch-bearers.[241]
Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?[242]
Or shall we on without apology?
Ben. The date is out of such prolixity:[243]
We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath, 5
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;[244]
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke[245][246]
After the prompter, for our entrance:[245][247]
But, let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure, and be gone. 10
Rom. Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.[248]
Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.[249]
Rom. Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead[250] 15
So stakes me to the ground, I cannot move.
Mer. You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,[251]
And soar with them above a common bound.[251]
Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft[251][252]
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,[251][253] 20
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:[251]
Under love's heavy burthen do I sink.[251][254]
Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burthen love;[251][255]
Too great oppression for a tender thing.[251]
Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,[251] 25
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.[251][256]
Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love;[251]
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.[251][257]
Give me a case to put my visage in:[258]
A visor for a visor! what care I[259] 30
What curious eye doth quote deformities?[260]
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.
Ben. Come, knock and enter, and no sooner in[261]
But every man betake him to his legs.[261][262]
Rom. A torch for me: let wantons light of heart 35
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.[263]
The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.[264][265]
Mer. Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:[264] 40
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire[264][266]
Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st[264][267]
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho.[264][268]
Rom. Nay, that's not so.[264]
Mer. I mean, sir, in delay[264][269]
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.[264][270] 45
Take our good meaning, for our judgement sits[264][271]
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.[264][272]
Rom. And we mean well, in going to this mask;[264]
But 'tis no wit to go.[264]
Mer. Why, may one ask?
Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.
Mer. And so did I. 50
Rom. Well, what was yours?
Mer. That dreamers often lie.
Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.[273]
Mer. O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.[274]
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes[275]
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone[274][276] 55
On the fore-finger of an alderman,[274]
Drawn with a team of little atomies[274][277]
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:[274][278]
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;[274][279]
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;[274] 60
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;[274][280]
Her collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;[274][281]
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;[274][282]
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,[274][283]
Not half so big as a round little worm[274] 65
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid:[274][284]
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,[274][285]
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,[274][285]
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.[274][285][286]
And in this state she gallops night by night[274] 70
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;[274]
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;[274][287]
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;[274][288]
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,[274][289]
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,[274] 75
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:[274][290]
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,[274][291]
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;[274][292]
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail[274][293][294]
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,[274][295] 80
Then he dreams of another benefice:[274][296]
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,[274][293]
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,[274]
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,[274]
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon[274][297] 85
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,[274][298]
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two,[274]
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab[274]
That plats the manes of horses in the night[274]
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,[274][299] 90
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes:[274][300]
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she—
Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace![301] 95
Thou talk'st of nothing.
Mer. True, I talk of dreams;
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes[302] 100
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.[303]
Ben. This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves;
Supper is done, and we shall come too late. 105
Rom. I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,[304]
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels, and expire the term
Of a despised life closed in my breast,[305] 110
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,[306][307]
Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.[307][308]
Ben. Strike, drum.[309] [Exeunt.
Scene V. A hall in Capulet's house.[310]
Musicians waiting. Enter Servingmen, with napkins.[311]