Nurse.
[Within.] Madam!
Juliet.
I come anon.— But if thou meanest not well,
I do beseech thee,—
Nurse.
[Within.] Madam!
Juliet.
By-and-by I come:—
To cease thy suit and leave me to my grief:
Tomorrow will I send.
Romeo.
So thrive my soul,—
Juliet.
A thousand times good night!
[Exit.]
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.
[Retirong slowly.]
[Re-enter Juliet, above.]
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.
Romeo!
Romeo.
My dear?
Juliet.
At what o’clock tomorrow
Shall I send to thee?
Romeo.
At 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.
[Exit.]
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 father’s cell,
His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
[Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.]
Friar.
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels:
Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth, that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying gave, 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 sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small 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.
[Enter Romeo.]
Romeo.
Good morrow, father!
Friar.
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.
God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?
Romeo.
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.