Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek,
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke. But farewell compliment!
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say "Ay;"
And I will take thy word: yet, if thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false: at lovers' perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs. O, gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:
Or, if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;
And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,
My true love's passion: therefore pardon me;
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.

Rom. Lady, by yonder blesséd moon I swear. That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,— Jul. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant

Rom.

If my heart's dear love

Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,

I have no joy of this contract to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say "It lightens." Sweet, good
night!

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart, as that within my breast!

Rom. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night? Rom. The exchange of thy love's faithful vow

The more I have, for both are infinite.

[Nurse calls within. I hear some noise within: dear love, adieu!— Anon, good nurse!-Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again. [Exit. Rom. O blesséd, blesséd night! I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

Re-enter JULIET, above.

Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night, indeed.

If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite:
And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
Nurse [within]. Madam!

Jul. I come anon.-But if thou mean'st not well,

Re-enter JULIET, above.

Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist!-O, for a falconer's voice,

To lure this tassel-gentle back again!
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
Else would I tear the cave where echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than
mine

With repetition of my Romeo's name.

Rom. It is my soul that calls upon my name: How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night; Like softest music to attending ears! Jul. Romeo!

Shall I send to thee?
Rom.
Jul. I will not fail; 'tis twenty years till then.

I have forgot why I did call thee back.

Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it. Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there, Remembering how I love thy company.

SCENE III.-FRIAR LAWRENCE's Cell.

Enter FRIAR LAWRENCE, with a basket.

Fri. The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,

Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;

And fleckéd darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night's dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours,
With baleful weeds, and precious-juicéd flowers.
The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb:
And from her womb, children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find;
Many for many virtues excellent,

None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give;

Nor aught so good, but, strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometime 's by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence, and med'cine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each

part;

Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposéd Kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs,―grace and rude will;
And, where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Enter ROMEO.

Rom. Good morrow, father!
Fri.
Benedicite!

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?—
Young son, it argues a distempered head,
So soon to bid good-morrow to thy bed:
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruiséd youth with unstuffed brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth
reign:

Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right-
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

Rom. That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

Fri. God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline? Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; I have forgot that name, and that name 's woe. Fri. That's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?

Rom. I'll tell thee ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine enemy; Where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me, That's by me wounded: both our remedies Within thy help and holy physic lies. I bear no hatred, blesséd man; for lo, My intercession likewise steads my foe.

Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift:

Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. Rom. Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is set

On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how,
We met, we wooed, and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass: but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us this day.
Fri. Holy Saint Francis! what a change is
here!

Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? young men's love, then, lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria! what a deal of brine
Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear, that is not washed off yet:
If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline:
And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence,
then-

"Women may fall, when there's no strength in men."

Rom. Thou chid'dst me oft for loving Rosaline.
Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Rom. And bad'st me bury love.
Not in a grave

Fri.

To lay one in, another out to have.

Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she whom I

Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
Hath sent a letter to his father's house.
Mer. A challenge, on my life.
Ben. Romeo will answer it.

Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter.

Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared.

Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabbed with a white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a love-song; the very pin

of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's buttshaft-and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?

Mer. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song; keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest-one, two, and the third in your bosom : the very butcher of a silk button; a duellist, a duellist: a gentleman of the very first house; of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hay!

Ben. The what?

Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! "By Jesu, a very good blade!"-"A very tall man!" -"A very good whore."-Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardonnez-mois, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O, their bons, their bons!

Enter ROMEO.

Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring :O, flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!-Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen-wench ;— marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her: Dido, a dowdy; Cleopatra, a gipsy; Helen and Hero, hildings and harlots; Thisbé, a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose.-Signior Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.

Rom. Good-morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

Mer. The slip, sir, the slip: can you not conceive?

Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in such a case as mine, a man may strain courtesy.

Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. Rom. Meaning, to courtesy.

Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.
Rom. A most courteous exposition.
Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
Rom. Pink for flower.
Mer. Right.

Rom. Why, then is my pump well-flowered. Mer. Well said. Follow me this jest now, till thou hast worn out thy pump; that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing, solely singular.

Rom. O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!

Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits fail.

Rom. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.

Mer. Nay, if thy wits run the wildgoose-chace, I have done; for thou hast more of the wildgoose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?

Rom. Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the goose.

Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not.

Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.

Rom. And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?

Mer. O, here's a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad!

Rom. I stretch it out for that word "broad:" which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.

Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

Ben. Stop there; stop there.

Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale, against the hair.

Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.

Mer. O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short: for I was come to the whole depth of my tale: and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.

Rom. Here's goodly geer!

Enter Nurse and PETER.

Mer. A sail, a sail, a sail!
Ben. Two, two; a shirt and a smock.
Nurse. Peter!

Peter. Anon?

Nurse. My fan, Peter.

Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face.

Nurse God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
Mer. God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.
Nurse. Is it good den?

Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell you; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon. Nurse. Out upon you, what a man are you! Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made himself to mar.