The more a psychologist--a born, an unavoidable psychologist and soul-diviner--turns his attention to the more select cases and individuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by sympathy: he NEEDS sternness and cheerfulness more than any other man. For the corruption, the ruination of higher men, of the more unusually constituted souls, is in fact, the rule: it is dreadful to have such a rule always before one's eyes. The manifold torment of the psychologist who has discovered this ruination, who discovers once, and then discovers ALMOST repeatedly throughout all history, this universal inner "desperateness" of higher men, this eternal "too late!" in every sense--may perhaps one day be the cause of his turning with bitterness against his own lot, and of his making an attempt at self-destruction--of his "going to ruin" himself. One may perceive in almost every psychologist a tell-tale inclination for delightful intercourse with commonplace and well-ordered men; the fact is thereby disclosed that he always requires healing, that he needs a sort of flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and incisiveness--from what his "business"--has laid upon his conscience. The fear of his memory is peculiar to him. He is easily silenced by the judgment of others; he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour, admire, love, and glorify, where he has PERCEIVED--or he even conceals his silence by expressly assenting to some plausible opinion. Perhaps the paradox of his situation becomes so dreadful that, precisely where he has learnt GREAT SYMPATHY, together with great CONTEMPT, the multitude, the educated, and the visionaries, have on their part learnt great reverence--reverence for "great men" and marvelous animals, for the sake of whom one blesses and honours the fatherland, the earth, the dignity of mankind, and one's own self, to whom one points the young, and in view of whom one educates them. And who knows but in all great instances hitherto just the same happened: that the multitude worshipped a God, and that the "God" was only a poor sacrificial animal! SUCCESS has always been the greatest liar--and the "work" itself is a success; the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer, are disguised in their creations until they are unrecognizable; the "work" of the artist, of the philosopher, only invents him who has created it, is REPUTED to have created it; the "great men," as they are reverenced, are poor little fictions composed afterwards; in the world of historical values spurious coinage PREVAILS. Those great poets, for example, such as Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not venture to mention much greater names, but I have them in my mind), as they now appear, and were perhaps obliged to be: men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous, and childish, light-minded and impulsive in their trust and distrust; with souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed; often taking revenge with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking forgetfulness in their soaring from a too true memory, often lost in the mud and almost in love with it, until they become like the Will-o'-the-Wisps around the swamps, and PRETEND TO BE stars--the people then call them idealists,--often struggling with protracted disgust, with an ever-reappearing phantom of disbelief, which makes them cold, and obliges them to languish for GLORIA and devour "faith as it is" out of the hands of intoxicated adulators:--what a TORMENT these great artists are and the so-called higher men in general, to him who has once found them out! It is thus conceivable that it is just from woman--who is clairvoyant in the world of suffering, and also unfortunately eager to help and save to an extent far beyond her powers--that THEY have learnt so readily those outbreaks of boundless devoted SYMPATHY, which the multitude, above all the reverent multitude, do not understand, and overwhelm with prying and self-gratifying interpretations. This sympathizing invariably deceives itself as to its power; woman would like to believe that love can do EVERYTHING--it is the SUPERSTITION peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor, helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love is--he finds that it rather DESTROYS than saves!--It is possible that under the holy fable and travesty of the life of Jesus there is hidden one of the most painful cases of the martyrdom of KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LOVE: the martyrdom of the most innocent and most craving heart, that never had enough of any human love, that DEMANDED love, that demanded inexorably and frantically to be loved and nothing else, with terrible outbursts against those who refused him their love; the story of a poor soul insatiated and insatiable in love, that had to invent hell to send thither those who WOULD NOT love him--and that at last, enlightened about human love, had to invent a God who is entire love, entire CAPACITY for love--who takes pity on human love, because it is so paltry, so ignorant! He who has such sentiments, he who has such KNOWLEDGE about love--SEEKS for death!--But why should one deal with such painful matters? Provided, of course, that one is not obliged to do so.


The intellectual haughtiness and loathing of every man who has suffered deeply--it almost determines the order of rank HOW deeply men can suffer--the chilling certainty, with which he is thoroughly imbued and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he KNOWS MORE than the shrewdest and wisest can ever know, that he has been familiar with, and "at home" in, many distant, dreadful worlds of which "YOU know nothing"!--this silent intellectual haughtiness of the sufferer, this pride of the elect of knowledge, of the "initiated," of the almost sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from contact with officious and sympathizing hands, and in general from all that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble: it separates.--One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism, along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste, which takes suffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that is sorrowful and profound. They are "gay men" who make use of gaiety, because they are misunderstood on account of it--they WISH to be misunderstood. There are "scientific minds" who make use of science, because it gives a gay appearance, and because scientificness leads to the conclusion that a person is superficial--they WISH to mislead to a false conclusion. There are free insolent minds which would fain conceal and deny that they are broken, proud, incurable hearts (the cynicism of Hamlet--the case of Galiani); and occasionally folly itself is the mask of an unfortunate OVER-ASSURED knowledge.--From which it follows that it is the part of a more refined humanity to have reverence "for the mask," and not to make use of psychology and curiosity in the wrong place.


That which separates two men most profoundly is a different sense and grade of purity. What does it matter about all their honesty and reciprocal usefulness, what does it matter about all their mutual good-will: the fact still remains--they "cannot smell each other!" The highest instinct for purity places him who is affected with it in the most extraordinary and dangerous isolation, as a saint: for it is just holiness--the highest spiritualization of the instinct in question. Any kind of cognizance of an indescribable excess in the joy of the bath, any kind of ardour or thirst which perpetually impels the soul out of night into the morning, and out of gloom, out of "affliction" into clearness, brightness, depth, and refinement:--just as much as such a tendency DISTINGUISHES--it is a noble tendency--it also SEPARATES.--The pity of the saint is pity for the FILTH of the human, all-too-human. And there are grades and heights where pity itself is regarded by him as impurity, as filth.


Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, among our DUTIES.


A man who strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and hindrance--or as a temporary resting-place. His peculiar lofty BOUNTY to his fellow-men is only possible when he attains his elevation and dominates. Impatience, and the consciousness of being always condemned to comedy up to that time--for even strife is a comedy, and conceals the end, as every means does--spoil all intercourse for him; this kind of man is acquainted with solitude, and what is most poisonous in it.


THE PROBLEM OF THOSE WHO WAIT.--Happy chances are necessary, and many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or "break forth," as one might say--at the right moment. On an average it DOES NOT happen; and in all corners of the earth there are waiting ones sitting who hardly know to what extent they are waiting, and still less that they wait in vain. Occasionally, too, the waking call comes too late--the chance which gives "permission" to take action--when their best youth, and strength for action have been used up in sitting still; and how many a one, just as he "sprang up," has found with horror that his limbs are benumbed and his spirits are now too heavy! "It is too late," he has said to himself--and has become self-distrustful and henceforth for ever useless.--In the domain of genius, may not the "Raphael without hands" (taking the expression in its widest sense) perhaps not be the exception, but the rule?--Perhaps genius is by no means so rare: but rather the five hundred HANDS which it requires in order to tyrannize over the [GREEK INSERTED HERE], "the right time"--in order to take chance by the forelock!


He who does not WISH to see the height of a man, looks all the more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground--and thereby betrays himself.


In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be greater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its existence.--In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost; not so in man.--


It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something which he OUGHT absolutely to have known before he--began to build. The eternal, fatal "Too late!" The melancholia of everything COMPLETED--!


278.--Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without scorn, without love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a plummet which has returned to the light insatiated out of every depth--what did it seek down there?--with a bosom that never sighs, with lips that conceal their loathing, with a hand which only slowly grasps: who art thou? what hast thou done? Rest thee here: this place has hospitality for every one--refresh thyself! And whoever thou art, what is it that now pleases thee? What will serve to refresh thee? Only name it, whatever I have I offer thee! "To refresh me? To refresh me? Oh, thou prying one, what sayest thou! But give me, I pray thee---" What? what? Speak out! "Another mask! A second mask!"


Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well that it will flee from them!


"Bad! Bad! What? Does he not--go back?" Yes! But you misunderstand him when you complain about it. He goes back like every one who is about to make a great spring.


281.--"Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they believe it of me: I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of myself and about myself, only in very rare cases, only compulsorily, always without delight in 'the subject,' ready to digress from 'myself,' and always without faith in the result, owing to an unconquerable distrust of the POSSIBILITY of self-knowledge, which has led me so far as to feel a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO even in the idea of 'direct knowledge' which theorists allow themselves:--this matter of fact is almost the most certain thing I know about myself. There must be a sort of repugnance in me to BELIEVE anything definite about myself.--Is there perhaps some enigma therein? Probably; but fortunately nothing for my own teeth.--Perhaps it betrays the species to which I belong?--but not to myself, as is sufficiently agreeable to me."


282.--"But what has happened to you?"--"I do not know," he said, hesitatingly; "perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table."--It sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves, and shocks everybody--and finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at himself--whither? for what purpose? To famish apart? To suffocate with his memories?--To him who has the desires of a lofty and dainty soul, and only seldom finds his table laid and his food prepared, the danger will always be great--nowadays, however, it is extraordinarily so. Thrown into the midst of a noisy and plebeian age, with which he does not like to eat out of the same dish, he may readily perish of hunger and thirst--or, should he nevertheless finally "fall to," of sudden nausea.--We have probably all sat at tables to which we did not belong; and precisely the most spiritual of us, who are most difficult to nourish, know the dangerous DYSPEPSIA which originates from a sudden insight and disillusionment about our food and our messmates--the AFTER-DINNER NAUSEA.


If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a noble self-control, to praise only where one DOES NOT agree--otherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is contrary to good taste:--a self-control, to be sure, which offers excellent opportunity and provocation to constant MISUNDERSTANDING. To be able to allow oneself this veritable luxury of taste and morality, one must not live among intellectual imbeciles, but rather among men whose misunderstandings and mistakes amuse by their refinement--or one will have to pay dearly for it!--"He praises me, THEREFORE he acknowledges me to be right"--this asinine method of inference spoils half of the life of us recluses, for it brings the asses into our neighbourhood and friendship.


To live in a vast and proud tranquility; always beyond... To have, or not to have, one's emotions, one's For and Against, according to choice; to lower oneself to them for hours; to SEAT oneself on them as upon horses, and often as upon asses:--for one must know how to make use of their stupidity as well as of their fire. To conserve one's three hundred foregrounds; also one's black spectacles: for there are circumstances when nobody must look into our eyes, still less into our "motives." And to choose for company that roguish and cheerful vice, politeness. And to remain master of one's four virtues, courage, insight, sympathy, and solitude. For solitude is a virtue with us, as a sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of man and man--"in society"--it must be unavoidably impure. All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometime--"commonplace."


The greatest events and thoughts--the greatest thoughts, however, are the greatest events--are longest in being comprehended: the generations which are contemporary with them do not EXPERIENCE such events--they live past them. Something happens there as in the realm of stars. The light of the furthest stars is longest in reaching man; and before it has arrived man DENIES--that there are stars there. "How many centuries does a mind require to be understood?"--that is also a standard, one also makes a gradation of rank and an etiquette therewith, such as is necessary for mind and for star.


"Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted." [FOOTNOTE: Goethe's "Faust," Part II, Act V. The words of Dr. Marianus.]--But there is a reverse kind of man, who is also upon a height, and has also a free prospect--but looks DOWNWARDS.


What is noble? What does the word "noble" still mean for us nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he recognized under this heavy overcast sky of the commencing plebeianism, by which everything is rendered opaque and leaden?--It is not his actions which establish his claim--actions are always ambiguous, always inscrutable; neither is it his "works." One finds nowadays among artists and scholars plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for nobleness impels them; but this very NEED of nobleness is radically different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works, but the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines the order of rank--to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning--it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.--THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR ITSELF.--


There are men who are unavoidably intellectual, let them turn and twist themselves as they will, and hold their hands before their treacherous eyes--as though the hand were not a betrayer; it always comes out at last that they have something which they hide--namely, intellect. One of the subtlest means of deceiving, at least as long as possible, and of successfully representing oneself to be stupider than one really is--which in everyday life is often as desirable as an umbrella,--is called ENTHUSIASM, including what belongs to it, for instance, virtue. For as Galiani said, who was obliged to know it: VERTU EST ENTHOUSIASME.


In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of the echo of the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and timid vigilance of solitude; in his strongest words, even in his cry itself, there sounds a new and more dangerous kind of silence, of concealment. He who has sat day and night, from year's end to year's end, alone with his soul in familiar discord and discourse, he who has become a cave-bear, or a treasure-seeker, or a treasure-guardian and dragon in his cave--it may be a labyrinth, but can also be a gold-mine--his ideas themselves eventually acquire a twilight-colour of their own, and an odour, as much of the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative and repulsive, which blows chilly upon every passer-by. The recluse does not believe that a philosopher--supposing that a philosopher has always in the first place been a recluse--ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?--indeed, he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual" opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every "foundation." Every philosophy is a foreground philosophy--this is a recluse's verdict: "There is something arbitrary in the fact that the PHILOSOPHER came to a stand here, took a retrospect, and looked around; that he HERE laid his spade aside and did not dig any deeper--there is also something suspicious in it." Every philosophy also CONCEALS a philosophy; every opinion is also a LURKING-PLACE, every word is also a MASK.


Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you also have as hard a time of it as I have?"


Man, a COMPLEX, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to enjoy his soul as something SIMPLE; and the whole of morality is a long, audacious falsification, by virtue of which generally enjoyment at the sight of the soul becomes possible. From this point of view there is perhaps much more in the conception of "art" than is generally believed.


A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself--but whose curiosity always makes him "come to himself" again.


A man who says: "I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to guard and protect it from every one"; a man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a MASTER by nature--when such a man has sympathy, well! THAT sympathy has value! But of what account is the sympathy of those who suffer! Or of those even who preach sympathy! There is nowadays, throughout almost the whole of Europe, a sickly irritability and sensitiveness towards pain, and also a repulsive irrestrainableness in complaining, an effeminizing, which, with the aid of religion and philosophical nonsense, seeks to deck itself out as something superior--there is a regular cult of suffering. The UNMANLINESS of that which is called "sympathy" by such groups of visionaries, is always, I believe, the first thing that strikes the eye.--One must resolutely and radically taboo this latest form of bad taste; and finally I wish people to put the good amulet, "GAI SABER" ("gay science," in ordinary language), on heart and neck, as a protection against it.


THE OLYMPIAN VICE.--Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking minds--"Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every thinking mind will strive to overcome" (Hobbes),--I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their laughing--up to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter. And supposing that Gods also philosophize, which I am strongly inclined to believe, owing to many reasons--I have no doubt that they also know how to laugh thereby in an overman-like and new fashion--and at the expense of all serious things! Gods are fond of ridicule: it seems that they cannot refrain from laughter even in holy matters.


The genius of the heart, as that great mysterious one possesses it, the tempter-god and born rat-catcher of consciences, whose voice can descend into the nether-world of every soul, who neither speaks a word nor casts a glance in which there may not be some motive or touch of allurement, to whose perfection it pertains that he knows how to appear,--not as he is, but in a guise which acts as an ADDITIONAL constraint on his followers to press ever closer to him, to follow him more cordially and thoroughly;--the genius of the heart, which imposes silence and attention on everything loud and self-conceited, which smoothes rough souls and makes them taste a new longing--to lie placid as a mirror, that the deep heavens may be reflected in them;--the genius of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and too hasty hand to hesitate, and to grasp more delicately; which scents the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality under thick dark ice, and is a divining-rod for every grain of gold, long buried and imprisoned in mud and sand; the genius of the heart, from contact with which every one goes away richer; not favoured or surprised, not as though gratified and oppressed by the good things of others; but richer in himself, newer than before, broken up, blown upon, and sounded by a thawing wind; more uncertain, perhaps, more delicate, more fragile, more bruised, but full of hopes which as yet lack names, full of a new will and current, full of a new ill-will and counter-current... but what am I doing, my friends? Of whom am I talking to you? Have I forgotten myself so far that I have not even told you his name? Unless it be that you have already divined of your own accord who this questionable God and spirit is, that wishes to be PRAISED in such a manner? For, as it happens to every one who from childhood onward has always been on his legs, and in foreign lands, I have also encountered on my path many strange and dangerous spirits; above all, however, and again and again, the one of whom I have just spoken: in fact, no less a personage than the God DIONYSUS, the great equivocator and tempter, to whom, as you know, I once offered in all secrecy and reverence my first-fruits--the last, as it seems to me, who has offered a SACRIFICE to him, for I have found no one who could understand what I was then doing. In the meantime, however, I have learned much, far too much, about the philosophy of this God, and, as I said, from mouth to mouth--I, the last disciple and initiate of the God Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last begin to give you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little taste of this philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly: for it has to do with much that is secret, new, strange, wonderful, and uncanny. The very fact that Dionysus is a philosopher, and that therefore Gods also philosophize, seems to me a novelty which is not unensnaring, and might perhaps arouse suspicion precisely among philosophers;--among you, my friends, there is less to be said against it, except that it comes too late and not at the right time; for, as it has been disclosed to me, you are loth nowadays to believe in God and gods. It may happen, too, that in the frankness of my story I must go further than is agreeable to the strict usages of your ears? Certainly the God in question went further, very much further, in such dialogues, and was always many paces ahead of me... Indeed, if it were allowed, I should have to give him, according to human usage, fine ceremonious tides of lustre and merit, I should have to extol his courage as investigator and discoverer, his fearless honesty, truthfulness, and love of wisdom. But such a God does not know what to do with all that respectable trumpery and pomp. "Keep that," he would say, "for thyself and those like thee, and whoever else require it! I--have no reason to cover my nakedness!" One suspects that this kind of divinity and philosopher perhaps lacks shame?--He once said: "Under certain circumstances I love mankind"--and referred thereby to Ariadne, who was present; "in my opinion man is an agreeable, brave, inventive animal, that has not his equal upon earth, he makes his way even through all labyrinths. I like man, and often think how I can still further advance him, and make him stronger, more evil, and more profound."--"Stronger, more evil, and more profound?" I asked in horror. "Yes," he said again, "stronger, more evil, and more profound; also more beautiful"--and thereby the tempter-god smiled with his halcyon smile, as though he had just paid some charming compliment. One here sees at once that it is not only shame that this divinity lacks;--and in general there are good grounds for supposing that in some things the Gods could all of them come to us men for instruction. We men are--more human.--


Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh--and now? You have already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so tedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint, we mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalisers of things which LEND themselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas, only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas, only birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be captured with the hand--with OUR hand! We immortalize what cannot live and fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it is only for your AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds;--but nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved--EVIL thoughts!


Translated by L. A. Magnus


MIDDAY of Life! Oh, season of delight! My summer's park! Uneaseful joy to look, to lurk, to hark-- I peer for friends, am ready day and night,-- Where linger ye, my friends? The time is right!


Is not the glacier's grey today for you Rose-garlanded? The brooklet seeks you, wind, cloud, with longing thread And thrust themselves yet higher to the blue, To spy for you from farthest eagle's view.


My table was spread out for you on high-- Who dwelleth so Star-near, so near the grisly pit below?-- My realm--what realm hath wider boundary? My honey--who hath sipped its fragrancy?


Friends, ye are there! Woe me,--yet I am not He whom ye seek? Ye stare and stop--better your wrath could speak! I am not I? Hand, gait, face, changed? And what I am, to you my friends, now am I not?


Am I an other? Strange am I to Me? Yet from Me sprung? A wrestler, by himself too oft self-wrung? Hindering too oft my own self's potency, Wounded and hampered by self-victory?


I sought where-so the wind blows keenest. There I learned to dwell Where no man dwells, on lonesome ice-lorn fell, And unlearned Man and God and curse and prayer? Became a ghost haunting the glaciers bare?


Ye, my old friends! Look! Ye turn pale, filled o'er With love and fear! Go! Yet not in wrath. Ye could ne'er live here. Here in the farthest realm of ice and scaur, A huntsman must one be, like chamois soar.


An evil huntsman was I? See how taut My bow was bent! Strongest was he by whom such bolt were sent-- Woe now! That arrow is with peril fraught, Perilous as none.--Have yon safe home ye sought!


Ye go! Thou didst endure enough, oh, heart;-- Strong was thy hope; Unto new friends thy portals widely ope, Let old ones be. Bid memory depart! Wast thou young then, now--better young thou art!


What linked us once together, one hope's tie-- (Who now doth con Those lines, now fading, Love once wrote thereon?)-- Is like a parchment, which the hand is shy To touch--like crackling leaves, all seared, all dry.


Oh! Friends no more! They are--what name for those?-- Friends' phantom-flight Knocking at my heart's window-pane at night, Gazing on me, that speaks "We were" and goes,-- Oh, withered words, once fragrant as the rose!


Pinings of youth that might not understand! For which I pined, Which I deemed changed with me, kin of my kind: But they grew old, and thus were doomed and banned: None but new kith are native of my land!


Midday of life! My second youth's delight! My summer's park! Unrestful joy to long, to lurk, to hark! I peer for friends!--am ready day and night, For my new friends. Come! Come! The time is right!


This song is done,--the sweet sad cry of rue Sang out its end; A wizard wrought it, he the timely friend, The midday-friend,--no, do not ask me who; At midday 'twas, when one became as two.


We keep our Feast of Feasts, sure of our bourne, Our aims self-same: The Guest of Guests, friend Zarathustra, came! The world now laughs, the grisly veil was torn, And Light and Dark were one that wedding-morn.


Title: Romeo and Juliet


Author: William Shakespeare


Release date: November 1, 1998 [eBook #1513] Most recently updated: June 19, 2024


by William Shakespeare


ACT I Scene I. A public place. Scene II. A Street. Scene III. Room in Capulet's House. Scene IV. A Street. Scene V. A Hall in Capulet's House.


ACT II CHORUS. Scene I. An open place adjoining Capulet's Garden. Scene II. Capulet's Garden. Scene III. Friar Lawrence's Cell. Scene IV. A Street. Scene V. Capulet's Garden. Scene VI. Friar Lawrence's Cell.


ACT III Scene I. A public Place. Scene II. A Room in Capulet's House. Scene III. Friar Lawrence's cell. Scene IV. A Room in Capulet's House. Scene V. An open Gallery to Juliet's Chamber, overlooking the Garden.


ACT IV Scene I. Friar Lawrence's Cell. Scene II. Hall in Capulet's House. Scene III. Juliet's Chamber. Scene IV. Hall in Capulet's House. Scene V. Juliet's Chamber; Juliet on the bed.


ACT V Scene I. Mantua. A Street. Scene II. Friar Lawrence's Cell. Scene III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.


Dramatis Personæ


ESCALUS, Prince of Verona. MERCUTIO, kinsman to the Prince, and friend to Romeo. PARIS, a young Nobleman, kinsman to the Prince. Page to Paris.


MONTAGUE, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Capulets. LADY MONTAGUE, wife to Montague. ROMEO, son to Montague. BENVOLIO, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo. ABRAM, servant to Montague. BALTHASAR, servant to Romeo.


CAPULET, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Montagues. LADY CAPULET, wife to Capulet. JULIET, daughter to Capulet. TYBALT, nephew to Lady Capulet. CAPULET'S COUSIN, an old man. NURSE to Juliet. PETER, servant to Juliet's Nurse. SAMPSON, servant to Capulet. GREGORY, servant to Capulet. Servants.


FRIAR LAWRENCE, a Franciscan. FRIAR JOHN, of the same Order. An Apothecary. CHORUS. Three Musicians. An Officer. Citizens of Verona; several Men and Women, relations to both houses; Maskers, Guards, Watchmen and Attendants.


SCENE. During the greater part of the Play in Verona; once, in the Fifth Act, at Mantua.


CHORUS. Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which, if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.


Enter Sampson and Gregory armed with swords and bucklers.


SAMPSON. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.


GREGORY. No, for then we should be colliers.


GREGORY. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.


GREGORY. But thou art not quickly moved to strike.


SAMPSON. A dog of the house of Montague moves me.


GREGORY. To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.


SAMPSON. A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.


GREGORY. That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.


SAMPSON. True, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.


GREGORY. The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.


SAMPSON. 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads.


GREGORY. The heads of the maids?


SAMPSON. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.


GREGORY. They must take it in sense that feel it.


SAMPSON. Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.


GREGORY. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool; here comes of the house of Montagues.


Enter Abram and Balthasar.


SAMPSON. My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.


GREGORY. How? Turn thy back and run?


SAMPSON. Fear me not.


GREGORY. No, marry; I fear thee!


SAMPSON. Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.


GREGORY. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.


SAMPSON. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bear it.


ABRAM. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?


SAMPSON. I do bite my thumb, sir.


SAMPSON. Is the law of our side if I say ay?


SAMPSON. No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.


SAMPSON. But if you do, sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.


GREGORY. Say better; here comes one of my master's kinsmen.


SAMPSON. Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy washing blow.


[They fight.]


BENVOLIO. Part, fools! put up your swords, you know not what you do.


[Beats down their swords.]


TYBALT. What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee Benvolio, look upon thy death.


BENVOLIO. I do but keep the peace, put up thy sword, Or manage it to part these men with me.


TYBALT. What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward.


Enter three or four Citizens with clubs.


FIRST CITIZEN. Clubs, bills and partisans! Strike! Beat them down! Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!


Enter Capulet in his gown, and Lady Capulet.


CAPULET. What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!


LADY CAPULET. A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?


CAPULET. My sword, I say! Old Montague is come, And flourishes his blade in spite of me.


Enter Montague and his Lady Montague.


LADY MONTAGUE. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.


Enter Prince Escalus, with Attendants.


PRINCE. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,— Will they not hear? What, ho! You men, you beasts, That quench the fire of your pernicious rage With purple fountains issuing from your veins, On pain of torture, from those bloody hands Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground And hear the sentence of your moved prince. Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets, And made Verona's ancient citizens Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, To wield old partisans, in hands as old, Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate. If ever you disturb our streets again, Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. For this time all the rest depart away: You, Capulet, shall go along with me, And Montague, come you this afternoon, To know our farther pleasure in this case, To old Free-town, our common judgement-place. Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.


[Exeunt Prince and Attendants; Capulet, Lady Capulet, Tybalt, Citizens and Servants.]


MONTAGUE. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach? Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?


BENVOLIO. Here were the servants of your adversary And yours, close fighting ere I did approach. I drew to part them, in the instant came The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd, Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears, He swung about his head, and cut the winds, Who nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn. While we were interchanging thrusts and blows Came more and more, and fought on part and part, Till the Prince came, who parted either part.


LADY MONTAGUE. O where is Romeo, saw you him today? Right glad I am he was not at this fray.


BENVOLIO. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east, A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad, Where underneath the grove of sycamore That westward rooteth from this city side, So early walking did I see your son. Towards him I made, but he was ware of me, And stole into the covert of the wood. I, measuring his affections by my own, Which then most sought where most might not be found, Being one too many by my weary self, Pursu'd my humour, not pursuing his, And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.


MONTAGUE. Many a morning hath he there been seen, With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew, Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs; But all so soon as the all-cheering sun Should in the farthest east begin to draw The shady curtains from Aurora's bed, Away from light steals home my heavy son, And private in his chamber pens himself, Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out And makes himself an artificial night. Black and portentous must this humour 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 importun'd him by any means?


MONTAGUE. Both by myself and many other friends; But he, his own affections' counsellor, 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 Lady Montague.]


BENVOLIO. Good morrow, cousin.


ROMEO. Is the day so young?


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 of her favour 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 create! 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 purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' 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, A word ill urg'd to one that is so ill. In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.


BENVOLIO. I aim'd so near when I suppos'd you lov'd.


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 arm'd, From love's weak childish bow she lives uncharm'd. 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's 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 makes huge waste; For beauty starv'd 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 rul'd 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 pass'd that passing fair? Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.


BENVOLIO. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.


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 liv'd 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 swallowed 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 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. Go, sirrah, trudge about Through fair Verona; find those persons out Whose names are written there, [gives a paper] 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 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, Whipp'd and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.


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 Anselmo and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Utruvio; Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline and Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio and the lively Helena.


A fair assembly. [Gives back the paper] Whither should they come?


ROMEO. Whither to supper?


SERVANT. 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.


BENVOLIO. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov'st; 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 fire; 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 pois'd 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 splendour of my own.


SCENE III. 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!


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 knowest 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 teen 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 dovehouse 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 dovehouse: '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 th'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, and 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 it brow A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone; A perilous 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 nurs'd: And 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 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.


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.


Juliet, the County stays.


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 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 Or save your reverence love, wherein thou stickest 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, light lights 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 tonight.


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 Over men's noses as they lie asleep: Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; Her 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 hazelnut, 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 curtsies 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, ambuscados, 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 woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his side 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 suit. On, lusty gentlemen!


SCENE V. A Hall in Capulet's House.


Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.


FIRST SERVANT. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher! He scrape a trencher!


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


FIRST 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!


SECOND SERVANT. Ay, boy, ready.


FIRST SERVANT. You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber.


SECOND SERVANT. We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys. Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.


Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.


CAPULET. Welcome, gentlemen, ladies that have their toes Unplagu'd with corns will have a bout with you. Ah 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 ye now? Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day That I have worn a visor, 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?


CAPULET'S COUSIN. 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.


CAPULET'S COUSIN. '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 As 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, A bears him like a portly gentleman; And, to say truth, Verona brags of him To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth. I would not for the wealth of all the town Here in my house do him disparagement. Therefore be patient, take no note of him, It is my will; the which if thou respect, Show a fair presence and put off these frowns, An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.


TYBALT. It fits when such a villain is a guest: I'll not endure him.


CAPULET. He shall be endur'd. What, goodman boy! I say he shall, go to; Am I the master here, or you? Go to. You'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul, You'll make a mutiny among my guests! You will set cock-a-hoop, you'll be the man!


TYBALT. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.


CAPULET. Go to, go to! You are a saucy boy. Is't so, indeed? This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what. You must contrary me! Marry, 'tis time. Well said, my hearts!—You are a princox; go: Be quiet, or—More light, more light!—For shame! I'll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts.


TYBALT. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall, Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.


ROMEO. [To Juliet.] If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.


JULIET. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.


ROMEO. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?


JULIET. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.


ROMEO. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do: They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.


JULIET. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.


ROMEO. Then move not while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg'd. [Kissing her.]


JULIET. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.


ROMEO. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd! Give me my sin again.


JULIET. You kiss by the book.


NURSE. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.


ROMEO. What is her mother?


NURSE. Marry, bachelor, Her mother is the lady of the house, And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous. I nurs'd her daughter that you talk'd withal. I tell you, he that can lay hold of her Shall have the chinks.


ROMEO. Is she a Capulet? O dear account! My life is my foe's debt.


BENVOLIO. Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.


ROMEO. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.


CAPULET. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone, We have a trifling foolish banquet towards. Is it e'en so? Why then, I thank you all; I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night. More torches here! Come on then, let's to bed. Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late, I'll to my rest.


[Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse.]


JULIET. Come hither, Nurse. What is yond gentleman?


NURSE. The son and heir of old Tiberio.


JULIET. What's he that now is going out of door?


NURSE. Marry, that I think be young Petruchio.


JULIET. What's he that follows here, that would not dance?


NURSE. I know not.


JULIET. Go ask his name. If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed.


NURSE. His name is Romeo, and a Montague, The only son of your great enemy.


JULIET. My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy.


NURSE. What's this? What's this?


JULIET. A rhyme I learn'd even now Of one I danc'd withal.


[One calls within, 'Juliet'.]


NURSE. Anon, anon! Come let's away, the strangers all are gone.


CHORUS. Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie, And young affection gapes to be his heir; That fair for which love groan'd for and would die, With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair. Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again, Alike bewitched by the charm of looks; But to his foe suppos'd he must complain, And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks: Being held a foe, he may not have access To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear; And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new beloved anywhere. But passion lends them power, time means, to meet, Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.


ROMEO. Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.


[He climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]


Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.


BENVOLIO. Romeo! My cousin Romeo! Romeo!


MERCUTIO. He is wise, And on my life hath stol'n him home to bed.


BENVOLIO. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall: Call, good Mercutio.


MERCUTIO. Nay, I'll conjure too. Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh, Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied; Cry but 'Ah me!' Pronounce but Love and dove; Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, One nickname for her purblind son and heir, Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid. He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not; The ape is dead, and I must conjure him. I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes, By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, And the demesnes that there adjacent lie, That in thy likeness thou appear to us.


BENVOLIO. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.


MERCUTIO. This cannot anger him. 'Twould anger him To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle, Of some strange nature, letting it there stand Till she had laid it, and conjur'd it down; That were some spite. My invocation Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress' name, I conjure only but to raise up him.


BENVOLIO. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees To be consorted with the humorous night. Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.


MERCUTIO. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree, And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit As maids call medlars when they laugh alone. O Romeo, that she were, O that she were An open-arse and thou a poperin pear! Romeo, good night. I'll to my truckle-bed. This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep. Come, shall we go?


BENVOLIO. Go then; for 'tis in vain To seek him here that means not to be found.


ROMEO. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.


Juliet appears above at a window.


But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my lady, O it is my love! O, that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek.


JULIET. Ay me.


ROMEO. She speaks. O speak again bright angel, for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air.


JULIET. O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet.


ROMEO. [Aside.] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?


JULIET. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O be some other name. What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for thy name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself.


ROMEO. I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptis'd; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.


JULIET. What man art thou that, thus bescreen'd in night So stumblest on my counsel?


ROMEO. By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, Because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word.


JULIET. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words Of thy tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?


ROMEO. Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.


JULIET. How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, And the place death, considering who thou art, If any of my kinsmen find thee here.


ROMEO. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do, that dares love attempt: Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.


JULIET. If they do see thee, they will murder thee.


ROMEO. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.


JULIET. I would not for the world they saw thee here.


ROMEO. I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes, And but thou love me, let them find me here. My life were better ended by their hate Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.


JULIET. By whose direction found'st thou out this place?


ROMEO. By love, that first did prompt me to enquire; He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot; yet wert thou as far As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, I should adventure for such merchandise.


JULIET. Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke; but farewell compliment. Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say Ay, And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st, Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries, They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo. But else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond; And therefore thou mayst think my 'haviour light: But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou overheard'st, ere I was 'ware, My true-love passion; therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered.


ROMEO. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow, That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,—


JULIET. O swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.


ROMEO. What shall I swear by?


JULIET. Do not swear at all. Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I'll believe thee.


ROMEO. If my heart's dear love,—


JULIET. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight; It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden, Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say "It lightens." Sweet, good night. This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night. As sweet repose and rest Come to thy heart as that within my breast.


ROMEO. O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?


JULIET. What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?


ROMEO. Th'exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.


JULIET. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it; And yet I would it were to give again.


ROMEO. Would'st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?


JULIET. But to be frank and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have; 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. [Nurse calls within.] Anon, good Nurse!—Sweet Montague be true. Stay but a little, I will come again.


ROMEO. O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering sweet to be substantial.


JULIET. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed. If that thy bent of love be honourable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow, 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.


JULIET. I come, anon.— But if thou meanest not well, I do beseech thee,—


JULIET. By and by I come— To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief. Tomorrow will I send.


ROMEO. So thrive my soul,—


JULIET. A thousand times good night.


ROMEO. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light. Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.


[Retiring slowly.]


JULIET. Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer's voice To lure this tassel-gentle back again. Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud, Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine With repetition of my Romeo's name.


ROMEO. It is my soul that calls upon my name. How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears.


JULIET. What o'clock tomorrow Shall I send to thee?


ROMEO. By the hour of nine.


JULIET. I will not fail. 'Tis twenty years till then. I have forgot why I did call thee back.


ROMEO. Let me stand here till thou remember it.


JULIET. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there, Remembering how I love thy company.


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


JULIET. 'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone, And yet no farther than a wanton's bird, That lets it hop a little from her hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silk thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty.


ROMEO. I would I were thy bird.


JULIET. Sweet, so would I: Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow.


ROMEO. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast. Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest. Hence will I to my ghostly Sire's cell, His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.


SCENE III. Friar Lawrence's Cell.


Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night, Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's pathway, made by 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 upfill 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 plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities. For naught 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 part; Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings encamp them still In man as well as herbs,—grace and rude will; And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.


ROMEO. Good morrow, father.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. 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 uprous'd with some distemperature; Or if not so, then here I hit it right, Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.


ROMEO. That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. God pardon sin. Wast thou with Rosaline?


ROMEO. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No. I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. That's my good son. But where hast thou been then?


ROMEO. 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.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.


ROMEO. 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 today.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here! Is Rosaline, that 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 yet ring in mine ancient ears. Lo here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet. If ere 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.


ROMEO. Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rosaline.


ROMEO. And bad'st me bury love.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. Not in a grave To lay one in, another out to have.


ROMEO. I pray thee chide me not, her I love now Doth grace for grace and love for love allow. The other did not so.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. O, she knew well Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell. But come young waverer, come go with me, In one respect I'll thy assistant be; For this alliance may so happy prove, To turn your households' rancour to pure love.


ROMEO. O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.


MERCUTIO. Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?


BENVOLIO. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.


MERCUTIO. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so that he will sure run mad.


BENVOLIO. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father's house.


MERCUTIO. A challenge, on my life.


BENVOLIO. Romeo will answer it.


MERCUTIO. Any man that can write may answer a letter.


BENVOLIO. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared.


MERCUTIO. Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench's black eye; run through the ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft. And is he a man to encounter Tybalt?


BENVOLIO. Why, what is Tybalt?


MERCUTIO. More than Prince of cats. O, he's the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion. He rests 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.


BENVOLIO. The what?


MERCUTIO. The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; these new tuners of accent. 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 pardon-me's, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O their bones, their bones!


BENVOLIO. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!


MERCUTIO. 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 but a kitchen wench,—marry, she had a better love to berhyme her: Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bonjour! There's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.


ROMEO. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?


MERCUTIO. The slip sir, the slip; can you not conceive?


ROMEO. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.


MERCUTIO. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.


ROMEO. Meaning, to curtsy.


MERCUTIO. Thou hast most kindly hit it.


MERCUTIO. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.


ROMEO. Pink for flower.


MERCUTIO. Right.


ROMEO. Why, then is my pump well flowered.


MERCUTIO. Sure wit, 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.


ROMEO. O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!


MERCUTIO. Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.


ROMEO. Swits and spurs, swits and spurs; or I'll cry a match.


MERCUTIO. Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I am 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?


ROMEO. Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the goose.


MERCUTIO. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.


MERCUTIO. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most sharp sauce.


ROMEO. And is it not then well served in to a sweet goose?


MERCUTIO. O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad.


ROMEO. I stretch it out for that word broad, which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.


MERCUTIO. 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 drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.


BENVOLIO. Stop there, stop there.


MERCUTIO. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.


BENVOLIO. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.


MERCUTIO. 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.


ROMEO. Here's goodly gear! A sail, a sail!


MERCUTIO. Two, two; a shirt and a smock.


MERCUTIO. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face.


NURSE. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.


MERCUTIO. 'Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.


NURSE. Out upon you! What a man are you?


ROMEO. 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?


ROMEO. 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.


MERCUTIO. Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i'faith; wisely, wisely.


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


BENVOLIO. She will endite him to some supper.


ROMEO. What hast thou found?


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


[Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio.]


NURSE. I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his ropery?


ROMEO. 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. And a speak anything against me, I'll take him down, and 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 flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates.—And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure!


PETER. 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 bid me enquire you out; what she bade 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.


ROMEO. 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.


ROMEO. 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.


ROMEO. Bid her devise Some means to come to shrift this afternoon, And there she shall at Friar Lawrence' cell Be shriv'd and married. Here is for thy pains.


NURSE. No truly, sir; not a penny.


NURSE. This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.


ROMEO. And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall. Within this hour my man shall be with thee, And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair, Which to the high topgallant of my joy Must be my convoy in the secret night. Farewell, be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains; Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.


NURSE. Now God in heaven bless thee. Hark you, sir.


ROMEO. What say'st thou, my dear Nurse?


NURSE. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say, Two may keep counsel, putting one away?


ROMEO. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel.


NURSE. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! When 'twas a little prating thing,—O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man, but I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?


ROMEO. Ay, Nurse; what of that? Both with an R.


NURSE. Ah, mocker! That's the dog's name. R is for the—no, I know it begins with some other letter, and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.


ROMEO. Commend me to thy lady.


NURSE. Ay, a thousand times. Peter!


NURSE. Before and apace.


JULIET. The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse, In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him. That's not so. O, she is lame. Love's heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glides than the sun's beams, Driving back shadows over lowering hills: Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love, And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve Is three long hours, yet she is not come. Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She'd be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would bandy her to my sweet love, And his to me. But old folks, many feign as they were dead; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.


O God, she comes. O honey Nurse, what news? Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.


NURSE. Peter, stay at the gate.


JULIET. Now, good sweet Nurse,—O Lord, why look'st thou sad? Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily; If good, thou sham'st the music of sweet news By playing it to me with so sour a face.


NURSE. I am aweary, give me leave awhile; Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunt have I had!


JULIET. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news: Nay come, I pray thee speak; good, good Nurse, speak.


NURSE. Jesu, what haste? Can you not stay a while? Do you not see that I am out of breath?


JULIET. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath To say to me that thou art out of breath? The excuse that thou dost make in this delay Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse. Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that; Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance. Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?


NURSE. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man. Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's, and for a hand and a foot, and a body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but I'll warrant him as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench, serve God. What, have you dined at home?


JULIET. No, no. But all this did I know before. What says he of our marriage? What of that?


NURSE. Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I! It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. My back o' t'other side,—O my back, my back! Beshrew your heart for sending me about To catch my death with jauncing up and down.


JULIET. I'faith, I am sorry that thou art not well. Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me, what says my love?


NURSE. Your love says like an honest gentleman, And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, And I warrant a virtuous,—Where is your mother?


JULIET. Where is my mother? Why, she is within. Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest. 'Your love says, like an honest gentleman, 'Where is your mother?'


NURSE. O God's lady dear, Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow. Is this the poultice for my aching bones? Henceforward do your messages yourself.


JULIET. Here's such a coil. Come, what says Romeo?


NURSE. Have you got leave to go to shrift today?


NURSE. Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence' cell; There stays a husband to make you a wife. Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks, They'll be in scarlet straight at any news. Hie you to church. I must another way, To fetch a ladder by the which your love Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark. I am the drudge, and toil in your delight; But you shall bear the burden soon at night. Go. I'll to dinner; hie you to the cell.


JULIET. Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell.


SCENE VI. Friar Lawrence's Cell.


Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. So smile the heavens upon this holy act That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.


ROMEO. Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight. Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare, It is enough I may but call her mine.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die; like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness, And in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately: long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.


Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint. A lover may bestride the gossamers That idles in the wanton summer air And yet not fall; so light is vanity.


JULIET. Good even to my ghostly confessor.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.


JULIET. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.


ROMEO. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.


JULIET. Conceit more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament. They are but beggars that can count their worth; But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.


FRIAR LAWRENCE. Come, come with me, and we will make short work, For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone Till holy church incorporate two in one.


Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, Page and Servants.


BENVOLIO. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire: The day is hot, the Capulets abroad, And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl, For now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.


MERCUTIO. Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.


BENVOLIO. Am I like such a fellow?


MERCUTIO. Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.


BENVOLIO. And what to?


MERCUTIO. Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!


BENVOLIO. And I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.


MERCUTIO. The fee simple! O simple!


Enter Tybalt and others.


BENVOLIO. By my head, here comes the Capulets.


MERCUTIO. By my heel, I care not.


TYBALT. Follow me close, for I will speak to them. Gentlemen, good-den: a word with one of you.


MERCUTIO. And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.


TYBALT. You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me occasion.


MERCUTIO. Could you not take some occasion without giving?


TYBALT. Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.


MERCUTIO. Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my fiddlestick, here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!


BENVOLIO. We talk here in the public haunt of men. Either withdraw unto some private place, And reason coldly of your grievances, Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.


MERCUTIO. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze. I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.


TYBALT. Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.


MERCUTIO. But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery. Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower; Your worship in that sense may call him man.


TYBALT. Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford No better term than this: Thou art a villain.