Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare (e novels to read online .TXT) 📗

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 obscur'd 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 everything 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 IV. 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 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: [Putting on a mask.]
A visard for a visard! 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 dreamt 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
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, -
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
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, -

Romeo.
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace,
Thou talk'st of nothing.

Mercutio.
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
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

Benvolio.
This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

Romeo.
I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail! - On, lusty gentlemen!

Benvolio.
Strike, drum.

[Exeunt.]


Scene V. A Hall in Capulet's House.

[Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.]

1 Servant.
Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away?
he shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!

2 Servant.
When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's
hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.

1 Servant.
Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look
to the plate: - good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as
thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell. -
Antony! and Potpan!

2 Servant.
Ay, boy, ready.

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

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

[They retire behind.]

[Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests the Maskers.]

Capulet.
Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have their toes
Unplagu'd 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 you now?
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
That I have worn a visard; 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?

2 Capulet.
By'r Lady, thirty years.

Capulet.
What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much:
'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,
Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five-and-twenty years; and then we mask'd.

2 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.
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 Ethiop'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;