Complete Plays, The (16 page)

First Servant

Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher? he scrape a trencher!

Second Servant

When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s hands and they unwashed too, ’tis a foul thing.

First Servant

Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell. Antony, and Potpan!

Second Servant

Ay, boy, ready.

First Servant

You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber.

Second Servant

We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.

Enter Capulet, with Juliet and others of his house, meeting the Guests and Maskers

Capulet

Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes
Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you.
Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all
Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty,
She, I’ll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
That I have worn a visor and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,
Such as would please: ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone:
You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.
A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.

Music plays, and they dance

More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah, sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;
For you and I are past our dancing days:
How long is’t now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?

Second Capulet

 
By’r lady, thirty years.

Capulet

What, man! ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much:
’Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,
Come pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d.

Second Capulet

’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir;
His son is thirty.

Capulet

 
Will you tell me that?
His son was but a ward two years ago.

Romeo

[To a Servingman]
 
What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand Of yonder knight?

Servant

I know not, sir.

Romeo

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

Tybalt

This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.

Capulet

Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?

Tybalt

Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,
A villain that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.

Capulet

Young Romeo is it?

Tybalt

’Tis he, that villain Romeo.

Capulet

Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;
He bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth:
I would not for the wealth of all the town
Here in my house do him disparagement:
Therefore be patient, take no note of him:
It is my will, the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
And ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

Tybalt

It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him.

Capulet

He shall be endured:
What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;
Am I the master here, or you? go to.
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop! you’ll be the man!

Tybalt

Why, uncle, ’tis a shame.

Capulet

Go to, go to;
You are a saucy boy: is’t so, indeed?
This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:
You must contrary me! marry, ’tis time.
Well said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or — More light, more light! For shame!
I’ll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!

Tybalt

Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall
Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.

Exit

Romeo

[To Juliet]
 
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

Romeo

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Juliet

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

Romeo

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

Romeo

Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

Juliet

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo

Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.

Juliet

You kiss by the book.

Nurse

Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

Romeo

What is her mother?

Nurse

Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
I nursed her daughter, that you talk’d withal;
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.

Romeo

Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! my life is my foe’s debt.

Benvolio

Away, begone; the sport is at the best.

Romeo

Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.

Capulet

Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
Is it e’en so? why, then, I thank you all
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
More torches here! Come on then, let’s to bed.
Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:
I’ll to my rest.

Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse

Juliet

Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?

Nurse

The son and heir of old Tiberio.

Juliet

What’s he that now is going out of door?

Nurse

Marry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.

Juliet

What’s he that follows there, that would not dance?

Nurse

I know not.

Juliet

Go ask his name: if he be married.
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

Nurse

His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
The only son of your great enemy.

Juliet

My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

Nurse

What’s this? what’s this?

Juliet

A rhyme I learn’d even now
Of one I danced withal.

One calls within ‘Juliet.’

Nurse

Anon, anon!
Come, let’s away; the strangers all are gone.

Exeunt

A
CT
II

P
ROLOGUE

Enter Chorus

Chorus

Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groan’d for and would die,
With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is beloved and loves again,
Alike betwitched by the charm of looks,
But to his foe supposed he must complain,
And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new-beloved any where:
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

Exit

S
CENE
I. A
LANE
BY
THE
WALL
OF
C
APULET
’
S
ORCHARD
.

Enter Romeo

Romeo

Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it

Enter Benvolio and Mercutio

Benvolio

Romeo! my cousin Romeo!

Mercutio

He is wise;
And, on my lie, hath stol’n him home to bed.

Benvolio

He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.

Mercutio

Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but ‘Ay me!’ pronounce but ‘love’ and ‘dove;’
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us!

Benvolio

And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

Mercutio

This cannot anger him: ’twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it and conjured it down;
That were some spite: my invocation
Is fair and honest, and in his mistres s’ name
I conjure only but to raise up him.

Benvolio

Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,
To be consorted with the humorous night:
Blind is his love and best befits the dark.

Mercutio

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!
Romeo, good night: I’ll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
Come, shall we go?

Benvolio

 
Go, then; for ’tis in vain
To seek him here that means not to be found.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. C
APULET
’
S
ORCHARD
.

Enter Romeo

Romeo

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

Juliet appears above at a window

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Juliet

Ay me!

Romeo

She speaks:
O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo

[Aside]
 
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet

’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.