Romeo and Juliet (Wisehouse Classics Edition). William Shakespeare

cousin.RomeoIs the day so young?BenvolioBut new struck nine.RomeoAy me! sad hours seem long.Was that my father that went hence so fast?BenvolioIt was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?RomeoNot having that, which, having, makes them short.BenvolioIn love?RomeoOut —BenvolioOf love?RomeoOut of her favour, where I am in love.BenvolioAlas, that love, so gentle in his view,Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.RomeoAlas, 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 create!O heavy lightness! serious vanity!Mis-shapen 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?BenvolioNo, coz, I rather weep.RomeoGood heart, at what?BenvolioAt thy good heart’s oppression.RomeoWhy, such is love’s transgression.Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prestWith more of thine: this love that thou hast shownDoth add more grief to too much of mine own.Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;

Benvolio	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.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 urged to one that is so ill!In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
Benvolio	I aim’d so near, when I supposed you loved.
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.
Benvolio	Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
Romeo	She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
	For beauty starved with her severityCuts 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 vowDo I live dead that live to tell it now.
Benvolio	Be ruled 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’ browsBeing black put us in mind they hide the fair;He that is strucken blind cannot forgetThe precious treasure of his eyesight lost:Show me a mistress that is passing fair,What doth her beauty serve, but as a noteWhere 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.
Exeunt

Scene II. A Street.

Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant
Capulet	But Montague is bound as well as I,
Paris	In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,For men so old as we to keep the peace.Of honourable reckoning are you both;
	And pity ’tis you lived 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 swallow’d 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;An she agree, within her scope of choiceLies 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 nightEarth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:Such comfort as do lusty young men feelWhen well-apparell’d April on the heelOf limping winter treads, even such delightAmong fresh female buds shall you this nightInherit at my house; hear all, all see,And like her most whose merit most shall be:Which on more view, of many mine being oneMay stand in number, though in reckoning none,Come, go with me.
To Servants, giving a paper
	Go, sirrah, trudge about
	Through fair Verona; find those persons out
	Whose names are written there, 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 plaintain-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 mad-man is;Shut up in prison, kept without my food,Whipp’d and tormented and — God-den, good fellow.

Servant	God gi’ god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?
Romeo	Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
Servant	Perhaps you have learned it without book: but, I pray, can you read any thing 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.
Breads
	‘Signior Martino and his wife and daughters; County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.’ A fair assembly: whither should they come?
Servant	Up.
Romeo	Whither?
Servant	To supper; 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!
Exit
Benvolio	At this same ancient feast of Capulet’sSups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,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