The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Author: William Shakespeare Editor: William J. Rolfe Release Date: January 13, 2015 [EBook #47960] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMEO AND JULIET *** Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Sania Ali Mirza, Jane Robins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Note: Hover the mouse over words to identify links. SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET EDITED, WITH NOTES BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE, LITT.D. FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL CAMBRIDGE, MASS. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK ⁂ CINCINNATI ⁂ CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY Copyright, 1879 and 1898, by HARPER & BROTHERS. Copyright, 1904 and 1907, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE. ROMEO AND JULIET. W.P. 8 PREFACE This edition of Romeo and Juliet, first published in 1879, is now thoroughly revised on the same general plan as its predecessors in the new series. While I have omitted most of the notes on textual variations, I have retained a sufficient number to illustrate the curious and significant differences between the first and second quartos. Among the many new notes are some calling attention to portions of the early draft of the play—some of them very bad—which Shakespeare left unchanged when he revised it. The references to Dowden in the notes are to his recent and valuable edition of the play, which I did not see until this of mine was on the point of going to the printer. The quotation on page 288 of the Appendix is from his Shakspere: His Mind and Art, which, by the way, was reprinted in this country at my suggestion. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction to Romeo and Juliet 9 The History of the Play 9 The Sources of the Plot 14 General Comments on the Play 17 Romeo and Juliet 27 Act I 29 Act II 58 Act III 85 Act IV 118 [Pg 5] Act V 136 Notes 157 Appendix Concerning Arthur Brooke 275 Comments on Some of the Characters 278 The Time-Analysis of the Play 290 List of Characters in the Play 291 Index of Words and Phrases Explained 293 Funeral of Juliet Verona INTRODUCTION TO ROMEO AND JULIET THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY [Pg 9] The earliest edition of Romeo and Juliet, so far as we know, was a quarto printed in 1597, the title-page of which asserts that "it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely." A second quarto appeared in 1599, declared to be "newly corrected, augmented, and amended." Two other quartos appeared before the folio of 1623, one in 1609 and the other undated; and it is doubtful which was the earlier. The undated quarto is the first that bears the name of the author ("Written by W. Shake-speare"), but this does not occur in some copies of the edition. A fifth quarto was published in 1637. The first quarto is much shorter than the second, the former having only 2232 lines, including the prologue, while the latter has 3007 lines (Daniel). Some editors believe that the first quarto gives the author's first draft of the play, and the second the form it took after he had revised and enlarged it; but the majority of the best critics agree substantially in the opinion that the first quarto was a pirated edition, and represents in an abbreviated and imperfect form the play subsequently printed in full in the second. The former was "made up partly from copies of portions of the original play, partly from recollection and from notes taken during the performance;" the latter was from an authentic copy, and a careful comparison of the text with the earlier one shows that in the meantime the play "underwent revision, received some slight augmentation, and in some few places must have been entirely rewritten." A marked instance of this rewriting—the only one of considerable length—is in ii. 6. 6-37, where the first quarto reads thus (spelling and pointing being modernized):— Jul. Romeo. Rom. My Juliet, welcome. As do waking eyes Closed in Night's mists attend the frolick Day, So Romeo hath expected Juliet, And thou art come. Jul. I am, if I be Day, Come to my Sun: shine forth and make me fair. Rom. All beauteous fairness dwelleth in thine eyes. Jul. Romeo, from thine all brightness doth arise. Fri. Come, wantons, come, the stealing hours do pass, Defer embracements till some fitter time. Part for a while, you shall not be alone Till holy Church have joined ye both in one. Rom. Lead, holy Father, all delay seems long. Jul. Make haste, make haste, this lingering doth us wrong. For convenient comparison I quote the later text here:— Juliet. Good even to my ghostly confessor. Friar Laurence. 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 half my sum of wealth. Friar Laurence. 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. The "omission, mutilation, or botching" by which some German editors would explain all differences between the earlier [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] and later texts will not suffice to account for such divergence as this. "The two dialogues do not differ merely in expressiveness and effect; they embody different conceptions of the characters;" and yet we cannot doubt that both were written by Shakespeare. But while the second quarto is "unquestionably our best authority" for the text of the play, it is certain that it "was not printed from the author's manuscript, but from a transcript, the writer of which was not only careless, but thought fit to take unwarrantable liberties with the text." The first quarto, with all its faults and imperfections, is often useful in the detection and correction of these errors and corruptions, and all the modern editors have made more or less use of its readings. The third quarto (1609) was a reprint of the second, from which it "differs by a few corrections, and more frequently by additional errors." It is from this edition that the text of the first folio is taken, with some changes, accidental or intentional, "all generally for the worse," except in the punctuation, which is more correct, and the stage directions, which are more complete, than in the quarto. The date of the first draft of the play has been much discussed, but cannot be said to have been settled. The majority of the editors believe that it was begun as early as 1561, but I think that most of them lay too much stress on the Nurse's reference (i. 3. 22, 35) to the "earthquake," which occurred "eleven years" earlier, and which these critics suppose to have been the one felt in England in 1580. Aside from this and other attempts to fix the date by external evidence of a doubtful character, the internal evidence confirms the opinion that the tragedy was an early work of the poet, and that it was subsequently "corrected, augmented, and amended." There is a good deal of rhyme, and much of it in the form of alternate rhyme. The alliteration, the frequent playing upon words, and the lyrical character of many passages also lead to the same conclusion. The latest editors agree substantially with this view. Herford says: "The evidence points to 1594-1595 as the time at which the play was substantially composed, though it is tolerably certain that some parts of our present text were written as late as 1596-1598, and possibly that others are as early as 1591." Dowden sums up the matter thus: "On the whole, we might place Romeo and Juliet, on grounds of internal evidence, near The Rape of Lucrece; portions may be earlier in date; certain passages of the revised version are certainly later; but I think that 1595 may serve as an approximation to a central date, and cannot be far astray." For myself, while agreeing substantially with these authorities, I think that a careful comparison of what are evidently the earliest portions of the text with similar work in Love's Labour's Lost (a play revised like this, but retaining traces of the original form), The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and other plays which the critics generally assign to 1591 or 1592, proves conclusively that parts of Romeo and Juliet must be of quite as early a date. The earliest reference to the play in the literature of the time is in a sonnet to Shakespeare by John Weever, written probably in 1595 or 1596, though not published until 1599. After referring to Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, Weever adds:— "Romeo, Richard, more whose names I know not, Their sugred tongues and power attractive beuty Say they are saints," etc. No other allusion of earlier date than the publication of the first quarto has been discovered. THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT Girolamo della Corte, in his Storia di Verona, 1594, relates the story of the play as a true event occurring in 1303; but the earlier annalists of the city are silent on the subject. A tale very similar, the scene of which is laid in Siena, appears in a collection of novels by Masuccio di Salerno, printed at Naples in 1476; but Luigi da Porto, in his La Giulietta,[1] published about 1530, is the first to call the lovers Romeo and Juliet, and to make them the children of the rival Veronese houses. The story was retold in French by Adrian Sevin, about 1542; and a poetical version of it was published at Venice in 1553. It is also found in Bandello's Novelle, 1554; and five years later Pierre Boisteau translated it, with some variations, into French in his Histoire de Deux Amans. The earliest English version of the romance appeared in 1562 in a poem by Arthur Brooke founded upon Boisteau's novel, and entitled Romeus and Juliet. A prose translation of Boisteau's novel was given in Paynter's Palace of Pleasure, in 1567. It was undoubtedly from these English sources, and chiefly from the poem by Brooke, that Shakespeare drew his material. It is to be noted, however, that Brooke speaks of having seen "the same argument lately set forth on stage"; and it is possible that this lost play may also have been known to Shakespeare, though we have no reason to suppose that he made any use of it. That he followed Brooke's poem rather than Paynter's prose version is evident from a careful comparison of the two with the play. Grant White remarks: "The tragedy follows the poem with a faithfulness which might be called slavish, were it not that any variation from the course of the old story was entirely unnecessary for the sake of dramatic interest, and were there not shown in the progress of the action, in the modification of one character and in the disposal of another, all peculiar [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] [Pg 16] to the play, self-reliant dramatic intuition of the highest order. For the rest, there is not a personage or a situation, hardly a speech, essential to Brooke's poem, which has not its counterpart—its exalted and glorified counterpart—in the tragedy.... In brief, Romeo and Juliet owes to Shakespeare only its dramatic form and its poetic decoration. But what an exception is the latter! It is to say that the earth owes to the sun only its verdure and its flowers, the air only its perfume and its balm, the heavens only their azure and their glow. Yet this must not lead us to forget that the original tale is one of the most truthful and touching among the few that have entranced the ear and stirred the heart of the world for ages, or that in Shakespeare's transfiguration of it his fancy and his youthful fire had a much larger share than his philosophy or his imagination. "The only variations from the story in the play are the three which have just been alluded to: the compression of the action, which in the story occupies four or five months, to within as many days, thus adding impetuosity to a passion which had only depth, and enhancing dramatic effect by quickening truth to vividness; the conversion of Mercutio from a mere courtier, 'bolde emong the bashfull maydes,' 'courteous of his speech and pleasant of devise,' into that splendid union of the knight and the fine gentleman, in portraying which Shakespeare, with prophetic eye piercing a century, shows us the fire of faded chivalry expiring in a flash of wit; and the bringing-in of Paris (forgotten in the story after his bridal disappointment) to die at Juliet's bier by the hand of Romeo, thus gathering together all the threads of this love entanglement to be cut at once by Fate." GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY Coleridge, in his Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare, says: "The stage in Shakespeare's time was a naked room with a blanket for a curtain, but he made it a field for monarchs. That law of unity which has its foundations, not in the factitious necessity of custom, but in nature itself, the unity of feeling, is everywhere and at all times observed by Shakespeare in his plays. Read Romeo and Juliet: all is youth and spring—youth with its follies, its virtues, its precipitancies; spring with its odours, its flowers, and its transiency. It is one and the same feeling that commences, goes through, and ends the play. The old men, the Capulets and the Montagues, are not common old men; they have an eagerness, a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect of spring; with Romeo, his change of passion, his sudden marriage, and his rash death, are all the effects of youth; whilst in Juliet love has all that is tender and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with whatever is sweet in the freshness of spring; but it ends with a long deep sigh like the last breeze of the Italian evening." The play, like The Merchant of Venice, is thoroughly Italian in atmosphere and colour. The season, though Coleridge refers to it figuratively as spring, is really midsummer. The time is definitely fixed by the Nurse's talk about the age of Juliet. She asks Lady Capulet how long it is to Lammas-tide—that is, to August 1—and the reply is, "A fortnight and odd days"—sixteen or seventeen days we may suppose, making the time of the conversation not far from the middle of July. This is confirmed by allusions to the weather and other natural phenomena in the play. At the beginning of act iii, for instance, Benvolio says to his friends:— "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." When the Nurse goes on the errand to Romeo (ii. 4), Peter carries her fan, and she finds occasion to use it. "The nights are only softer days, not made for sleep, but for lingering in moonlit gardens, where the fruit-tree tops are tipped with silver and the nightingale sings on the pomegranate bough." It is only in the coolness of the dawn that Friar Laurence goes forth to gather herbs; and it is "An hour before the worshipp'd sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east," that we find Romeo wandering in the grove of sycamore, "with tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew," because Rosaline will not return his love. In one instance, overlooked by the commentators generally, Shakespeare seems to forget the time of year. In the masquerade scene (i. 5) Old Capulet bids the servants "quench the fire" because "the room is grown too hot." In Brooke's poem, where the action covers four or five months, this scene is in the winter. Shakespeare, in condensing the time to less than a single week in summer, neglected to omit this reference to a colder season. Aside from this little slip, the time is the Italian summer from first to last. And, as a French critic remarks, "the very form of the language comes from the South." The tale originated in Italy; "it breathes the very spirit of her national records, her old family feuds, the amorous and bloody intrigues which fill her annals. No one can fail to recognize Italy in its lyric rhythm, its blindness of passion, its blossoming and abundant vitality, in its brilliant imagery, its bold composition." All the characters are distinctively Italian. "In total effect," as another has said, "the play is so Italian that one may read it with increasing surprise and delight in Verona itself." Although, as I have said, it is doubtful whether the story has any historical basis, the Montagues and the Capulets were [Pg 17] [Pg 18] [Pg 19] famous old families in Verona. Dante alludes to them in the Purgatorio (vi. 107), though not as enemies:— "Vieni a veder Montecchi e Cappelletti, Monaldi e Filippeschi, uom senza cura, Color già tristi, e costor con sospetti."[2] The palace of the Capulets is to this day pointed out in Verona. It is degraded to plebeian occupancy, and the only mark of its ancient dignity is the badge of the family, the cap carved in stone on the inner side of the entrance to the court, which is of ample size, surrounded by buildings that probably formed the main part of the mansion, but are now divided into many tenements. The garden has disappeared, having been covered with other buildings centuries ago. The so-called "tomb of Juliet" is in a less disagreeable locality, but is unquestionably a fraud, though it has been exhibited for a century or two, and has received many tributes from credulous and sentimental tourists. It is in the garden of an ancient convent, and consists of an open, dilapidated stone sarcophagus (perhaps only an old horse- trough), without inscription or any authentic history. It is kept in a kind of shed, the walls of which are hung with faded wreaths and other mementoes from visitors. One pays twenty-five centesimi (five cents) for the privilege of inspecting it. Byron went to see it in 1816, and writes (November 6) to his sister Augusta: "I brought away four small pieces of it for you and the babes (at least the female part of them), and for Ada and her mother, if she will accept it from you. I thought the situation more appropriate to the history than if it had been less blighted. This struck me more than all the antiquities, more even than the amphitheatre." Maria Louisa, the French empress, got a piece of it, which she had made into hearts and other forms for bracelets and necklaces; and many other sentimental ladies followed the royal example before the mutilation of the relic was prohibited by its guardians. To return to the play—one would suppose that the keynote was struck with sufficient clearness in the prologue to indicate Shakespeare's purpose and the moral lesson that he meant to impress; but many of the critics have nevertheless failed to understand it. They have assumed that the misfortunes of the hero and heroine were mainly due to their own rashness or imprudence in yielding to the impulses of passion instead of obeying the dictates of reason. They think that the dramatist speaks through Friar Laurence when he warns them against haste in the marriage (ii. 6. 9 fol.):— "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." But the venerable celibate speaks for himself and in keeping with the character, not for Shakespeare. Neither does the poet, as some believe, intend to read a lesson against clandestine marriage and disregard for the authority or approval of parents in the match. The Friar, even at the first suggestion of the hurried and secret marriage, does not oppose or discourage it on any such grounds; nor, in the closing scene, does he blame either the lovers or himself on that account. Nowhere in the play is there the slightest suggestion of so-called "poetic justice" or retribution in the fate that overtakes the unhappy pair. It is the parents, not the children, that have sinned, and the sin of the parents is visited upon their innocent offspring. This is the burden of the prologue; and it is most emphatically repeated at the close of the play. The feud of the two households and the civil strife that it has caused are the first things to which the attention of those who are to witness the play is called. Next they are told that the children of these two foes become lovers—not foolish, rash, imprudent lovers, not victims of disobedience to their parents, not in any way responsible for what they afterwards suffer—but "star-cross'd lovers." The fault is not in themselves, but in their stars—in their fate as the offspring of these hostile parents. But their unfortunate and piteous overthrow is the means by which the fatal feud of the two families is brought to an end. The "death-mark'd love" of the children—love as pure as it was passionate, love true from first to last to the divine law of love—while by an evil destiny it brings death to themselves, involves also the death of the hate which was the primal cause of all the tragic consequences. This is no less distinctly expressed in the last speeches of the play. After hearing the Friar's story, the Prince says:— [Pg 20] [Pg 21] [Pg 22] [Pg 23] "Where be these enemies?—Capulet!—Montague! See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love! And I, for winking at your discords too, Have lost a brace of kinsmen; all are punish'd. Capulet. O brother Montague, give me thy hand; This is my daughter's jointure, for no more Can I demand. Montague. But I can give thee more; For I will raise her statue in pure gold, That while Verona by that name is known There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet. Capulet. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie; Poor sacrifices of our enmity!" It is the parents who are punished. The scourge is laid upon their hate, and it was the love of their children by which Heaven found the means to wield that scourge. The Prince himself has a share in the penalty for tolerating the discords of the families. "We all," he says, "all are punished." But the good Friar's hope, expressed when he consented to perform the marriage,— "For this alliance may so happy prove To turn your households' rancour to pure love,"— is now fulfilled. Both Capulet and Montague, as they join hands in amity over the dead bodies of their children, acknowledge the debt they owe to the "star-cross'd" love of those "poor sacrifices of their enmity." They vie with each other in doing honour to the guiltless victims of their "pernicious rage." Montague will raise the golden statue to Juliet, and Capulet promises as rich a monument to Romeo. Da Porto and Paynter and Brooke, in like manner, refer to the reconciliation of the rival families as the fortunate result of the tragic history. Da Porto says: "Their fathers, weeping over the bodies of their children and overcome by mutual pity, embraced each other; so that the long enmity between them and their houses, which neither the prayers of their friends, nor the menaces of the Prince, nor even time itself had been able to extinguish, was ended by the piteous death of the two lovers." As Paynter puts it, "The Montesches and Capellets poured forth such abundance of tears, as with the same they did evacuate their ancient grudge and choler, whereby they were then reconciled: and they which could not be brought to atonement[3] by any wisdom or human counsel were in the end vanquished and made friends by pity." So Brooke, in his lumbering verse:— "The straungenes of the chaunce, when tryed was the truth, The Montagewes and Capelets hath moved so to ruth, That with their emptyed teares, theyr choler and theyr rage Was emptied quite; and they whose wrath no wisdom could asswage, Nor threatning of the prince, ne mynd of murthers donne At length (so mighty Jove it would) by pitye they are wonne." And then the poem, like the play, ends with a reference to the monumental honour done to the lovers: "And lest that length of time might from our myndes remove The memory of so perfect, sound, and so approved love, The bodies dead, removed from vaulte where they did dye, In stately tombe, on pillers great of marble, rayse they hye. On every syde above were set, and eke beneath, Great store of cunning Epitaphes, in honor of theyr death. And even at this day the tombe is to be seene; So that among the monumentes that in Verona been, There is no monument more worthy of the sight, Then is the tombe of Juliet and Romeus her knight." [Pg 24] [Pg 25] [Pg 27] ROMEO AND JULIET DRAMATIS PERSONÆ Escalus, prince of Verona. Paris, a young nobleman, kinsman to the prince. Montague, } Capulet, } heads of two houses at variance with each other. An old man of the Capulet family. Romeo, son to Montague. Mercutio, kinsman to the prince, and friend to Romeo. Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo. Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet. Friar Laurence, } Friar John, } Franciscans. Balthasar, servant to Romeo. Sampson, } Gregory, } servants to Capulet. Peter, servant to Juliet's nurse. Abram, servant to Montague. An Apothecary. Three Musicians. Page to Paris; another Page; an Officer. Lady Montague, wife to Montague. Lady Capulet, wife to Capulet. Juliet, daughter to Capulet. Nurse to Juliet. Citizens of Verona; Kinsfolk of both houses; Maskers, Guards, Watchmen, and Attendants. Chorus. Scene: Verona; Mantua. The "Measure" [Pg 28] [Pg 29] PROLOGUE 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. ACT I SCENE I. Verona. A Public Place. Enter Sampson and Gregory, of the house of Capulet, with swords and bucklers Sampson. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals. Gregory. No, for then we should be colliers. Sampson. I mean, an we be in choler we'll draw. Gregory. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar. Sampson. I strike quickly, being moved. 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 cruel with the maids and cut off their heads. Gregory. Draw thy tool; here comes two of the [Pg 30] 10 [Pg 31] 20 Gregory. Draw thy tool; here comes two of the house of the Montagues. 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 a disgrace to them if they bear it. Enter Abram and Balthasar Abram. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? Sampson. I do bite my thumb, sir. Abram. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? Sampson. [Aside to Gregory] Is the law of our side, if I say ay? Gregory. No. Sampson. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir. Gregory. Do you quarrel, sir? Abram. Quarrel, sir! no, sir. Sampson. If you do, sir, I am for you; I serve as good a man as you. Abram. No better. Sampson. Well, sir. Gregory. [Aside to Sampson] Say 'better'; here comes one of my master's kinsmen. Sampson. Yes, better, sir. Abram. You lie. Sampson. Draw, if you be men.—Gregory, remember thy swashing blow. [They fight. [Beats down their swords. [They fight. Enter Benvolio Benvolio. Part, fools! Put up your swords; you know not what you do. Enter Tybalt 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 several of both houses who join the fray; then enter Citizens, with clubs First Citizen. Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down! 30 40 [Pg 32] 50 60 [Pg 33] 70 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 Lady Montague Montague. Thou villain Capulet!—Hold me not, let me go. Lady Montague. Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe. Enter Prince, with his train 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 further pleasure in this case, To old Freetown, our common judgment-place.— Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. [Exeunt all but Montague, Lady Montague, and Benvolio. 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 to-day? 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 70 80 [Pg 34] 90 100 110 [Pg 35] [Exeunt Montague and Lady. Where, underneath the grove of sycamore That westward rooteth from the city's 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, Pursued 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. Enter Romeo 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. Benvolio. Good morrow, cousin. Romeo. Is the day so young? Benvolio. But new struck nine. Romeo. Ay me! sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast? Benvolio. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours? Romeo. Not having that which, having, makes them short. Benvolio. In love? Romeo. Out— Benvolio. Of love? 120 130 [Pg 36] 139 150 160 [Pg 37] 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 any thing, of nothing first created! O heavy lightness! serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh? Benvolio. No, coz, I rather weep. Romeo. Good heart, at what? Benvolio. At thy good heart's oppression. Romeo. Why, such is love's transgression. Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest With more of thine; this love that thou hast shown Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke rais'd 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; An if you leave me so, you do me wrong. Romeo. Tut, I have lost myself, I am not here; This is not Romeo, he's some other where. Benvolio. Tell me in sadness who is that you love. Romeo. What, shall I groan and tell thee? Benvolio. Groan! why, no, But sadly tell me who. Romeo. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will; Ah, word ill 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 mark-man! 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 unharm'd. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes, Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold. O, she is rich in beauty! only poor That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store. 171 180 [Pg 38] 190 200 210 [Pg 39] Exeunt. 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, put 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 220 230 [Pg 40]