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.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter Chorus.]
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 us’d 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.
[Exit.]
ACT II.
SCENE I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.
[Enter Romeo.]
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!
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 auburn 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.—
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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Capulet’s Garden.
[Enter Romeo.]
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