Romeo and Juliet (13 page)

Black and portentous must this humor° prove
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

Benvolio.
My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

Montague.
I neither know it nor can learn of him.

Benvolio.
Have you importuned him by any means?

Montague.
Both by myself and many other friends;
But he, his own affections’ counselor,
Is to himself—I will not say how true—
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding° and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious° worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure as know.

Benvolio.
See, where he comes. So please you step
aside;
I’ll know his grievance, or be much denied.

Montague.
I would thou wert so happy° by thy stay
To hear true shrift.° Come, madam, let’s away.

Exeunt
[
Montague and Wife
].

Benvolio.
Good morrow,° cousin.

Romeo.
Is the day so young?

Benvolio.
But new struck nine.

Romeo.
Ay me! Sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?

Benvolio.
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s
hours?

Romeo.
Not having that which having makes them
short.

Benvolio.
In love?

Romeo.
Out—

Benvolio.
Of love?

Romeo.
Out of her favor where I am in love.

Benvolio.
Alas that love, so gentle in his view,°
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Romeo.
Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,°
Should without eyes see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.°
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything, of nothing first created!°
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?

Benvolio.
No, coz,° I rather weep.

Romeo.
Good heart, at what?

Benvolio.
At thy good heart’s oppression.

Romeo.
Why, such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest°
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,°
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.

Benvolio.
Soft!° I will go along.
And if° you leave me so, you do me wrong.

Romeo.
Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here;
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.

Benvolio.
Tell me in sadness,° who is that you love?

Romeo.
What, shall I groan and tell thee?

Benvolio.
Groan? Why, no;
But sadly° tell me who.

Romeo.
Bid a sick man in sadness° make his will.
Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

Benvolio.
I aimed so near when I supposed you loved.

Romeo.
A right good markman. And she’s fair I love.

Benvolio.
A right fair mark,° fair coz, is soonest hit.

Romeo.
Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit,°
And, in strong proof° of chastity well armed,
From Love’s weak childish bow she lives un-
charmed.
She will not stay° the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide° th’ encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor
That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.°

Benvolio.
Then she hath sworn that she will still° live
chaste?

Romeo.
She hath, and in that sparing make huge
waste;
For beauty, starved with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss° by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

Benvolio.
Be ruled by me; forget to think of her.

Romeo.
O, teach me how I should forget to think!

Benvolio.
By giving liberty unto thine eyes.
Examine other beauties.

Romeo.
’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question° more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
Being black puts us in mind they hide the fair.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair:
What doth her beauty serve but as a note°
Where I may read who passed that passing fair?
Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.

Benvolio.
I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.°

Enter Capulet, County Paris, and the Clown,
[
his 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 honorable 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 marred are those so early
made.
Earth hath swallowèd 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.
And she agreed,° within her scope of choice°
Lies my consent and fair according° voice.
This night I hold an old accustomed° 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-appareled April on the heel
Of limping Winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh fennel° 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 reck’ning none.°
Come, go with me. [
To Servant, giving him 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.°

Exit
[
with 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!°

Benvolio.
Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s
burning;
One pain is less’ned 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 plantain 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 madman is;
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipped and tormented and—God-den,° good fel-
low.

Servant.
God gi’ go-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 anything 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.
He reads the letter.
“Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselm and his beauteous sisters;
The lady widow of Vitruvio;
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? To supper?

Servant.
To our house.

Romeo.
Whose house?

Servant.
My master’s.

Romeo.
Indeed I should have asked 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 loves;
With all the admirèd 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 drowned, 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.