And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Nurse calls within.
I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!
Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again. Exit above.
Rom. O blessed blessed night! I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

Re-enter JULIET, above.

140

Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good
night indeed.

If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the
rite;

And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,

And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
Nurse. Within. Madam!

Jul. I come, anon.-But if thou mean'st not
well,

I do beseech thee

Nurse. Within. Madam!
Jul.

By and by; I come :-
To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:
To-morrow will I send.

Rom.

So thrive my soul,— Jul. A thousand times good night!

150

Exit above. Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.

Love goes toward love, as school-boys from their books;

But love from love, toward school with heavy

looks.

Re-enter JULIET, above.

Retiring.

SCENE III.-The Same. Friar LAURENCE's Cell.
Enter Friar LAURENCE, with a basket.

Fri. The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frown-
ing 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:
Now, 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 grave that is her womb, 10
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 herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:

Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O! for a falconer's For nought so vile that on the earth doth live

Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it.

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: 20
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime 's by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this weak 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.

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand Young son, it argues a distemper'd head there,

Remembering how I love thy company.

So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,

Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; forget,

Forgetting any other home but this.

Jul. 'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone;

31

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 up-rous'd by some distemperature; 40
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.
Rom. That last is true; the sweeter rest was
mine.

Fri. God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosa-
line?

Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; I have forgot that name, and that name's

woe.

Fri. That's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?

50

Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
That's by me wounded: both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies:
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo!
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy
drift;

Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

Rom. Then plainly know my heart's dear love

is set

On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combin'd, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage: when and where and how 61
We met we woo'd and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us to-day.

11

Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter. Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared.

Mer. Alas! poor Romeo, he is already dead; stabbed with a white wench's black eye; shot thorough the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bowboy's butt-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?

Mer. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O! he is the courageous captain of compli ments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your

Fri. Holy Saint Francis! what a change is bosom; the very butcher of a silk button, a here;

Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria! what a deal of brine
Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline; 70
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
Lo! here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet.
If e'er thou wast thyself and these woes
thine,

Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline :
And art thou chang'd? pronounce this sentence
then :

Women may fall, when there's no strength in

duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah! the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hay!

Ben. The what?

良

By

Mer. The pox of such antick, lisping, affecting fantasticoes, these new tuners of accents! Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardonnez-mois, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O! their bons, their bons.

Enter ROMEO.

Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was a kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to be-rime her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.

51

Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

Mer. The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. Rom. Meaning, to court'sy.

Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.

Rom. And stay, good nurse; behind the
abbey-wall

Within this hour my man shall be with thee,
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell! Be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.
Farewell! Commend me to thy mistress.
Nurse. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark
you, sir.

210

Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?
Nurse. Is your man secret ? Did you ne'er
hear say,

Two may keep counsel, putting one away?
Rom. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel.
Nurse. Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest
lady-Lord, Lord! when 'twas a little prating
thing,-O! there's a nobleman in town, one
Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she,
good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very toad, as
see him. I anger her sometimes and tell her
that Paris is the properer man ; but, I'll warrant
you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout
in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and
Romeo begin both with a letter?

223

Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R. Nurse. Ah! mocker; that's the dog's name. R is for the No; I know it begins with some other letter; and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.

Rom. Commend me to thy lady.
Nurse. Ay, a thousand times.

Peter!

Peter. Anon !

230 Exit ROMEO.

Jul. How art thou out of breath when thou
hast breath

To say to me that thou art out of breath?
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;
Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
Let me be satisfied, is 't good or bad?

Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his face be better than any man's. yet his leg excels all men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve God. What! have you dined at home?

Jul. No, no: but all this did I know before.
What says he of our marriage? what of that!
Nurse. Lord! how my head aches; what a
head have I !

It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
My back o' t' other side; O! my back, my back.
Beshrew your heart for sending me about,
To catch my death with jaunting up and down.
Jul. I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
Exeunt. Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says
my love?

Nurse. Before, and apace.

Jul. The clock struck nine when I did send
the nurse;

In half an hour she promis'd to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.
O! she is lame: love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams
Driving back shadows over louring hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw Love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill

11

Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections, and warm youthful blood,
She'd be as swift in motion as a ball;

My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me :

But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

Enter Nurse and PETER.

O God! she comes. O honey nurse! what news?
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.
Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate. Exit PETER.
Jul. Now, good sweet nurse; O Lord! why
look'st thou sad?

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;

21

30

Nurse. Your love says, like an honest gentle-
man, and a courteous, and a kind, and a hand-
some, and, I warrant, a virtuous,-Where is
your mother?
Jul. Where is my mother! why, she is within;
Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest:
'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
Where is your mother?'

Nurse.
O! God's lady dear.
Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow;
Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.
Jul. Here's such a coil! come, what says
Romeo?

Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-
day?

Jul. I have.

Nurse. Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence'

cell;

There stays a husband to make you a wife :
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Hie you to church; I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:
I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.

Jul. Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse,
farewell.
Exeunt.

Thou why thou wilt quarrel with a man that SCENE VI.-The Same. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell. hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than