Romeo and Juliet (14 page)

Benvolio.
Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself poised° with herself in either eye;
But in that crystal scales° let there be weighed
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 seems best.

Romeo.
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.° [
Exeunt.
]

 

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 rememb’red 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’s not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammastide?°

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 weaned (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 high-lone;° 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 holidam,°
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 cock’rel’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 nursed.
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 dispositions to be married?

Juliet.
It is an honor that I dream not of.

Nurse.
An honor? Were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst sucked 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 gentle-
man?
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 obscured 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.

Servingman.
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.° [
Exit.
]

Lady Capulet.
We follow thee. Juliet, the County
stays.°

Nurse.
Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

 

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 hoodwinked° with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper;°
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 enpiercèd 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 boist’rous, 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.
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 proverbed with a grandsire phrase,°
I’ll be a candleholder° 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
Of this sir-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, like 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 masque,
But ’tis no wit° to go.

Mercutio.
Why, may one ask?

Romeo.
I dreamt a dream tonight.°

Mercutio.
And so did I.

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 forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies°
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners’° legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider web;
Her collars, of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;°
Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked 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;
On 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 breath 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 he dreams of another benefice.°
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, 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 elflocks° 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—