Part 5

FRIAR LAWRENCE. Hold thy desperate hand. Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art. Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote The unreasonable fury of a beast. Unseemly woman in a seeming man, And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both! Thou hast amaz’d me. By my holy order, I thought thy disposition better temper’d. Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself? And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives, By doing damned hate upon thyself? Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth? Since birth, and heaven and earth, all three do meet In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose. Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit, Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all, And usest none in that true use indeed Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, Digressing from the valour of a man; Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury, Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish; Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, Misshapen in the conduct of them both, Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask, Is set afire by thine own ignorance, And thou dismember’d with thine own defence. What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive, For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead. There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee, But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy. The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend, And turns it to exile; there art thou happy. A pack of blessings light upon thy back; Happiness courts thee in her best array; But like a misshaped and sullen wench, Thou putt’st up thy Fortune and thy love. Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed, Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her. But look thou stay not till the watch be set, For then thou canst not pass to Mantua; Where thou shalt live till we can find a time To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends, Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back With twenty hundred thousand times more joy Than thou went’st forth in lamentation. Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady, And bid her hasten all the house to bed, Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto. Romeo is coming.

NURSE. O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night To hear good counsel. O, what learning is! My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

ROMEO. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

NURSE. Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir. Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

[_Exit._]

ROMEO. How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE. Go hence, good night, and here stands all your state: Either be gone before the watch be set, Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence. Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man, And he shall signify from time to time Every good hap to you that chances here. Give me thy hand; ’tis late; farewell; good night.

ROMEO. But that a joy past joy calls out on me, It were a grief so brief to part with thee. Farewell.

[_Exeunt._]

## SCENE IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.

Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and Paris.

CAPULET. Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily That we have had no time to move our daughter. Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly, And so did I. Well, we were born to die. ’Tis very late; she’ll not come down tonight. I promise you, but for your company, I would have been abed an hour ago.

PARIS. These times of woe afford no tune to woo. Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.

LADY CAPULET. I will, and know her mind early tomorrow; Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.

CAPULET. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender Of my child’s love. I think she will be rul’d In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not. Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed, Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love, And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next, But, soft, what day is this?

PARIS. Monday, my lord.

CAPULET. Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon, A Thursday let it be; a Thursday, tell her, She shall be married to this noble earl. Will you be ready? Do you like this haste? We’ll keep no great ado,—a friend or two, For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late, It may be thought we held him carelessly, Being our kinsman, if we revel much. Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends, And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

PARIS. My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.

CAPULET. Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then. Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed, Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day. Farewell, my lord.—Light to my chamber, ho! Afore me, it is so very very late that we May call it early by and by. Good night.

[_Exeunt._]

## SCENE V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.

Enter Romeo and Juliet.

JULIET. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET. Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhales To be to thee this night a torchbearer And light thee on thy way to Mantua. Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.

ROMEO. Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death, I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow. Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads. I have more care to stay than will to go. Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so. How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.

JULIET. It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away. It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us. Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes. O, now I would they had chang’d voices too, Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day. O now be gone, more light and light it grows.

ROMEO. More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.

Enter Nurse.

NURSE. Madam.

JULIET. Nurse?

NURSE. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber. The day is broke, be wary, look about.

[_Exit._]

JULIET. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

ROMEO. Farewell, farewell, one kiss, and I’ll descend.

[_Descends._]

JULIET. Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay husband, friend, I must hear from thee every day in the hour, For in a minute there are many days. O, by this count I shall be much in years Ere I again behold my Romeo.

ROMEO. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

JULIET. O thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?

ROMEO. I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve For sweet discourses in our time to come.

JULIET. O God! I have an ill-divining soul! Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

ROMEO. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.

[_Exit below._]

JULIET. O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle, If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune; For then, I hope thou wilt not keep him long But send him back.

LADY CAPULET. [_Within._] Ho, daughter, are you up?

JULIET. Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother? Is she not down so late, or up so early? What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?

Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET. Why, how now, Juliet?

JULIET. Madam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULET. Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death? What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears? And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live. Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JULIET. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

LADY CAPULET. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend Which you weep for.

JULIET. Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LADY CAPULET. Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

JULIET. What villain, madam?

LADY CAPULET. That same villain Romeo.

JULIET. Villain and he be many miles asunder. God pardon him. I do, with all my heart. And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULET. That is because the traitor murderer lives.

JULIET. Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands. Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.

LADY CAPULET. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not. Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua, Where that same banish’d runagate doth live, Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram That he shall soon keep Tybalt company: And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.

JULIET. Indeed I never shall be satisfied With Romeo till I behold him—dead— Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d. Madam, if you could find out but a man To bear a poison, I would temper it, That Romeo should upon receipt thereof, Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him, To wreak the love I bore my cousin Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.

LADY CAPULET. Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man. But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

JULIET. And joy comes well in such a needy time. What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

LADY CAPULET. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child; One who to put thee from thy heaviness, Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.

JULIET. Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

LADY CAPULET. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn The gallant, young, and noble gentleman, The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church, Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JULIET. Now by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too, He shall not make me there a joyful bride. I wonder at this haste, that I must wed Ere he that should be husband comes to woo. I pray you tell my lord and father, madam, I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.

LADY CAPULET. Here comes your father, tell him so yourself, And see how he will take it at your hands.

Enter Capulet and Nurse.

CAPULET. When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew; But for the sunset of my brother’s son It rains downright. How now? A conduit, girl? What, still in tears? Evermore showering? In one little body Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind. For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, Sailing in this salt flood, the winds, thy sighs, Who raging with thy tears and they with them, Without a sudden calm will overset Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife? Have you deliver’d to her our decree?

LADY CAPULET. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave.

CAPULET. Soft. Take me with you, take me with you, wife. How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks? Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest, Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

JULIET. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have. Proud can I never be of what I hate; But thankful even for hate that is meant love.

CAPULET. How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this? Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not; And yet not proud. Mistress minion you, Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds, But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church, Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage! You tallow-face!

LADY CAPULET. Fie, fie! What, are you mad?

JULIET. Good father, I beseech you on my knees, Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

CAPULET. Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch! I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday, Or never after look me in the face. Speak not, reply not, do not answer me. My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest That God had lent us but this only child; But now I see this one is one too much, And that we have a curse in having her. Out on her, hilding.

NURSE. God in heaven bless her. You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

CAPULET. And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue, Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

NURSE. I speak no treason.

CAPULET. O God ye good-en!

NURSE. May not one speak?

CAPULET. Peace, you mumbling fool! Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl, For here we need it not.

LADY CAPULET. You are too hot.

CAPULET. God’s bread, it makes me mad! Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play, Alone, in company, still my care hath been To have her match’d, and having now provided A gentleman of noble parentage, Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied, Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts, Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man, And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender, To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love, I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’ But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you. Graze where you will, you shall not house with me. Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest. Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise. And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend; And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee, Nor what is mine shall never do thee good. Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.

[_Exit._]

JULIET. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, That sees into the bottom of my grief? O sweet my mother, cast me not away, Delay this marriage for a month, a week, Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

LADY CAPULET. Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

[_Exit._]

JULIET. O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented? My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven. How shall that faith return again to earth, Unless that husband send it me from heaven By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me. Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems Upon so soft a subject as myself. What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, Nurse.

NURSE. Faith, here it is. Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you. Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth. Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, I think it best you married with the County. O, he’s a lovely gentleman. Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart, I think you are happy in this second match, For it excels your first: or if it did not, Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were, As living here and you no use of him.

JULIET. Speakest thou from thy heart?

NURSE. And from my soul too, Or else beshrew them both.

JULIET. Amen.

NURSE. What?

JULIET. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much. Go in, and tell my lady I am gone, Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell, To make confession and to be absolv’d.

NURSE. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

[_Exit._]

JULIET. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath prais’d him with above compare So many thousand times? Go, counsellor. Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy. If all else fail, myself have power to die.

[_Exit._]

## ACT IV

## SCENE I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.

FRIAR LAWRENCE. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

PARIS. My father Capulet will have it so; And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE. You say you do not know the lady’s mind. Uneven is the course; I like it not.

PARIS. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death, And therefore have I little talk’d of love; For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous That she do give her sorrow so much sway; And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage, To stop the inundation of her tears, Which, too much minded by herself alone, May be put from her by society. Now do you know the reason of this haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE. [_Aside._] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.— Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.

Enter Juliet.

PARIS. Happily met, my lady and my wife!

JULIET. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

PARIS. That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.

JULIET. What must be shall be.

FRIAR LAWRENCE. That’s a certain text.

PARIS. Come you to make confession to this father?

JULIET. To answer that, I should confess to you.

PARIS. Do not deny to him that you love me.

JULIET. I will confess to you that I love him.

PARIS. So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

JULIET. If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back than to your face.

PARIS. Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears.

JULIET. The tears have got small victory by that; For it was bad enough before their spite.

PARIS. Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.

JULIET. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth, And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

PARIS. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.

JULIET. It may be so, for it is not mine own. Are you at leisure, holy father, now, Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

FRIAR LAWRENCE. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.— My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

PARIS. God shield I should disturb devotion!— Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye, Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

[_Exit._]

JULIET. O shut the door, and when thou hast done so, Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!

FRIAR LAWRENCE. O Juliet, I already know thy grief; It strains me past the compass of my wits. I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this County.

JULIET. Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this, Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it. If in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help, Do thou but call my resolution wise, And with this knife I’ll help it presently. God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands; And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d, Shall be the label to another deed, Or my true heart with treacherous revolt Turn to another, this shall slay them both. Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time, Give me some present counsel, or behold ’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the empire, arbitrating that Which the commission of thy years and art Could to no issue of true honour bring. Be not so long to speak. I long to die, If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

FRIAR LAWRENCE. Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope, Which craves as desperate an execution As that is desperate which we would prevent. If, rather than to marry County Paris Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, Then is it likely thou wilt undertake A thing like death to chide away this shame, That cop’st with death himself to scape from it. And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

JULIET. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears; Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house, O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls. Or bid me go into a new-made grave, And hide me with a dead man in his shroud; Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble, And I will do it without fear or doubt, To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.