ROMEO AND JULIET

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

(PAGINA 2)

ROMEO AND JULIET



ACT I





SCENE II A street.



[Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant]

CAPULET But Montague is bound as well as I,

In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,

For men so old as we to keep the peace.

PARIS Of honourable reckoning are you both;

And pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.

But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?

CAPULET But saying o'er what I have said before:

My child is yet a stranger in the world;

She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,

Let two more summers wither in their pride,

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS Younger than she are happy mothers made.

CAPULET And too soon marr'd are those so early made.

The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,

She is the hopeful lady of my earth:

But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,

My will to her consent is but a part;

An she agree, within her scope of choice

Lies my consent and fair according voice.

This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,

Whereto I have invited many a guest,

Such as I love; and you, among the store,

One more, most welcome, makes my number more.

At my poor house look to behold this night

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:

Such comfort as do lusty young men feel

When well-apparell'd April on the heel

Of limping winter treads, even such delight

Among fresh female buds shall you this night

Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,

And like her most whose merit most shall be:

Which on more view, of many mine being one

May stand in number, though in reckoning none,

Come, go with me.

[To Servant, giving a paper]

Go, sirrah, trudge about

Through fair Verona; find those persons out

Whose names are written there, and to them say,

My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

[Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS]

Servant 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]

BENVOLIO 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.

ROMEO Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.

BENVOLIO For what, I pray thee?

ROMEO For your broken shin.

BENVOLIO Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

ROMEO Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,

Whipp'd and tormented and--God-den, good fellow.

Servant God gi' god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?

ROMEO Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

Servant Perhaps you have learned it without book: but, I

pray, can you read any thing you see?

ROMEO Ay, if I know the letters and the language.

Servant Ye say honestly: rest you merry!

ROMEO Stay, fellow; I can read.

[Reads]

'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;

County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady

widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely

nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine

uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece

Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin

Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.' A fair

assembly: whither should they come?

Servant Up.

ROMEO Whither?

Servant To supper; to our house.

ROMEO Whose house?

Servant My master's.

ROMEO Indeed, I should have ask'd you that before.

Servant Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the

great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house

of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.

Rest you merry!

[Exit]

BENVOLIO At this same ancient feast of Capulet's

Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,

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.

ROMEO 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.

BENVOLIO Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,

Herself poised with herself in either eye:

But in that 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 scant show well that now shows best.

ROMEO I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,

But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.

[Exeunt]







ROMEO AND JULIET



ACT I





SCENE III A room in Capulet's house.



[Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse]

LADY CAPULET Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.

Nurse Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,

I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!

God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!

[Enter JULIET]

JULIET How now! who calls?

Nurse Your mother.

JULIET Madam, I am here.

What is your will?

LADY CAPULET This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,

We must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;

I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.

Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.

Nurse Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

LADY CAPULET She's not fourteen.

Nurse I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--

And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--

She is not fourteen. How long is it now

To Lammas-tide?

LADY CAPULET 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;

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:--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,

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 holidame,

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 and said 'Ay.'

LADY CAPULET 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 cockerel's stone;

A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:

'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?

Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;

Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'

JULIET And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.

Nurse Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!

Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:

An I might live to see thee married once,

I have my wish.

LADY CAPULET Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme

I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,

How stands your disposition 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 obscured 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 every thing 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]







ROMEO AND JULIET



ACT I





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 a 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:

A visor for a visor! 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 dream'd 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 wagon-spokes made of long spiders' 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 wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,

Not 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 elflocks 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 closed 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]

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