SCENE II.

Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.

Love goes toward love, as school-boys from their

But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. [Retiring.

Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice, To lure this tercel-gentle back again! Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud; Else would I tear the cave where echo lies, And make her airy voice 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!

At what o'clock to-morrow

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.

Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget, Forgetting any other home but this.

Jul. 'Tis almost morning, I would have thee

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.

I hear some noise within: dear love, adieu!Anon, good nurse! - Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again.

Rom. O blessed blessed 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,

I do beseech thee,

Nurse. [Within.] Madam.
Jul.

To cease thy strife, and leave me to my grief: To-morrow will I send.

Rom.

So thrive my soul,

Jul. A thousand times good night!

Enter Friar LAURENCE, with a basket.

Fri. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frown-
ing night,
Checquering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And flecked 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-juiced 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 strain'd 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 medicine power:

For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each

Rom. Good morrow, father!
Fri.

Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?-
Young son, it argues a distemper'd 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 unbruised youth, with unstuff'd brain,
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore, thy earliness doth me assure,
Thou art up-rous'd 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! wert 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, blessed 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 combin'd, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how,
We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us to-day.

Fri. Holy Saint Francis! what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom 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 wash'd 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 wash'd off yet.
If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline:

And art thou chang'd? pronounce this sentence, then

Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.
Rom. Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rosaline.
Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Rom. And bad'st me bury love.
Fri.

Not in a grave,

To lay one in, another out to have.

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

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; run thorough 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!

pardonnez-mo

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 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; Thisbe, 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, for my wits fail.

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

Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase I have done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose 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 any thing, 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 abroad-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 driveling 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 would'st 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!

Ben. Two, two; a shirt, and a smock.
Nurse. Peter, pr'ythee give me my fan.
Mer. Pr'ythee, do, good Peter, to hide her face;

for her fan's the fairer of the two.

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 for himself to mar.

Nurse. By my troth, it is well said ;-for himself to mar, quoth'a?-Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?

Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you have found him, than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.

Nurse. You say well.

Mer. Yea! is the worst well? very well took, i'faith; wisely, wisely.

Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.

Ben. She will indite him to some supper.
Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!
Rom. What hast thou found?

Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.

An old hare hoar, and an old hare hoar,

Is very good meat in lent:

But a hare that is hoar, is too much for a score, When it hoars ere it be spent.

Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll to dinner thither.

Rom. I will follow you.

Mer. Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady. [Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO. Nurse. Marry, farewell!-I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?

Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk; and will speak more in a minute, than he will stand to in a month.

Nurse. An 'a speak any thing against me, I'll take him down, an 'a were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirtgills; I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by, too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure ?

Pet. I saw no man use you at his pleasure; if I had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.

Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave!-Pray you, sir, a word; and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out: what she bid me say, I will keep to myself; but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say, for the gentlewoman is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly, it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.

Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto thee,

Nurse. Good heart! and, i' faith, I will tell her as much. Lord, lord! she will be a joyful woman. Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me.

Nurse. I will tell her, sir,-that you do protest; which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.

Rom. Bid her devise some means to come to shrift This afternoon;

And there she shall at friar Laurence' cell
Be shriv'd, and married. Here is for thy pains.
Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny.
Rom. Go to, I say, you shall.

Nurse. This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be