My house and welcome on their pleasures stay. [Exeunt Capulet and Paris.

Serv. Find them out, whose names are written here? It is written-that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons, whose names are here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned:-In good time.

Enter Benvolio and Romeo.

Ben. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,

One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish. Take thou some new infection to thy eye,

And the rank poison of the old will die.

Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that. Ben. For what, I pray thee?

Rom.

For your broken shin. Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a mad

man is:

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,

Whipp'd, and tormented, and-Good-e'en, good

fellow.

Serv. God gi' good e'en.-I pray, sir, can you

read?

Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. Serv. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book. But I pray, can you read any thing you see? Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language. Serv. Ye say honestly; Rest you merry! Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.

[Reads.

Signior Martino, and his wife, and daughters, County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and

his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine: Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daugh ters; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena.

A fair assembly; [Gives back the note.] Whither should they come?

Serv. Up.

Rom. Whither?

Serv. To supper; to our house.

Rom. Whose house?

Serv. My master's.

Rom. Indeed, I should have asked you that be

fore.

you

be not

Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking: My master is the great rich Capulet; and if of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry.

Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st;
With all the admired beauties of Verona :
Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires!
And these,-who, often drown'd, could never die,-
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.
Ben. Tut! you saw her fair none else being by,
Herself pois'd2 with herself in either
eye :

But in those 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 scant3 show well, that now shows best.

(1) We still say in cant language-to crack a bottle.

(2) Weighed.

(3) Scarce, hardly.

Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt. SCENE III.—A room in Capulet's house. Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

La. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.

Nurse. Now, by my maiden-head, at twelve year old,

I bade her come.-What, lamb! what, lady

bird!

God forbid !-where's this girl?-what, Juliet!

Enter Juliet.

Jul. How now, who calls?

Nurse.

Jul.

What is your will?

Your mother.

Madam, I am here.

La. Cap. This is the matter :-Nurse, give leave a while,

We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again; I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our counsel. Thou know'st, my daughter's of a pretty age.

Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. La. Cap. She's not fourteen.

Nurse.

I'll lay fourteen of my teeth And yet, to my teen1 be it spoken, I have but four,— She is not fourteen: How long is it now

To Lammas-tide?

La. Cap.

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;

(1) To my sorrow.

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 :1-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,2
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 holy-dam,3
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,4 and said—Ay.
La. Cap. 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 cockrel's stone;

A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly.

(1) i. e. I have a perfect remembrance or recollection.

(2) The cross.

(3) Holy dame, i. e. the blessed Virgin.
(4) It stopped crying.

Yea, quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com'st to age,
Wilt thou not, Jule? it stinted, and said-Ay.
Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say
Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee tc
his grace !!

Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.

La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very theme I came to talk of :-Tell me, daughter Juliet, How stands your disposition to be married!

Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of. Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only nurse, I'd say, thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat. La. Cap. 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.2

La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gen-
tleman?

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 obscur'd in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margin of his eyes.3

(1) Favour.

(2) Well made, as if he had been modelled in wax. (3) The comments on ancient books were al ways printed in the margin.