Romeo and Juliet (17 page)

 

Friar.
The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning
night,
Check’ring the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And fleckèd° darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s burning wheels.°
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage° of ours
With baleful° weeds and precious-juicèd flowers.
The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb.
What is her burying grave, 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, strained° from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth,° stumbling on abuse.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime 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, stays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposèd 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.

Romeo.
Good morrow, father.

Friar. Benedicite!°
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemperèd 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 unbruisèd youth with unstuffed° brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art uproused with some distemp’rature;
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.

Friar.
That’s my good son! But where hast thou been
then?

Romeo.
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, blessèd man, for, lo,
My intercession° likewise steads° my foe.

Friar.
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift.°
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.°

Romeo.
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 combined,° save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When and where and how
We met, we wooed, and made exchange of vow,
I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us today.

Friar.
Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that 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 washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
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 mine ancient ears.
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not washed off yet.
If e’er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.
And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence
then:
Women may fall° when there’s no strength° in men.

Romeo.
Thou chidst me oft for loving Rosaline.

Friar.
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

Romeo.
And badst me bury love.

Friar.
Not in a grave
To lay one in, another out to have.

Romeo.
I pray thee chide me not. Her I love now
Doth grace° for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so.

Friar.
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.°
But come, young waverer, come go with me.
In one respect° I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households’ rancor to pure love.

Romeo.
O, let us hence! I stand on° sudden haste.

Friar.
Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.

 

Mercutio.
Where the devil should this Romeo be?
Came he not home tonight?

Benvolio.
Not to his father’s. I spoke with his man.

Mercutio.
Why, that same pale hardhearted wench,
that Rosaline,
Torments him so that he will sure run mad.

Benvolio.
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,
Hath sent a letter to his father’s house.

Mercutio.
A challenge, on my life.

Benvolio.
Romeo will answer it.

Mercutio.
Any man that can write may answer a letter.

Benvolio.
Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how
he dares, being dared.

Mercutio.
Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead:
stabbed with a white wench’s black eye; run through
the ear with a love song; the very pin° of his heart
cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft;° and is he
a man to encounter Tybalt?

Benvolio.
Why, what is Tybalt?

Mercutio.
More than Prince of Cats.° O, he’s the
courageous captain of compliments.° He fights as
you sing pricksong°—keeps time, distance, and pro-
portion; he rests his minim rests,° one, two, and
the third in your bosom! The very butcher of a silk
button,° a duelist, a duelist! A gentleman of the
very first house,° of the first and second cause.°
Ah, the immortal
passado!°
The
punto reverso!°
The hay!°

Benvolio.
The what?

Mercutio.
The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
fantasticoes°—these new tuners of accent! “By
Jesu, a very good blade! A very tall° man! A very
good whore!” Why, is not this a lamentable thing,
grandsir, that we should be thus afflicted with these
strange flies, these fashionmongers, these pardon-
me’s,° who stand so much on the new form° that
they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O, their
bones,° their bones!

Benvolio.
Here comes Romeo! Here comes Romeo!

Mercutio.
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 berhyme her), Dido° a dowdy,°
Cleopatra a gypsy,° Helen and Hero° hildings° and
harlots, Thisbe° a gray 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.

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

Mercutio.
The slip,° sir, the slip. Can you not con-
ceive?

Romeo.
Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was
great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain
courtesy.

Mercutio.
That’s as much as to say, such a case° as
yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.

Romeo.
Meaning, to curtsy.

Mercutio.
Thou hast most kindly hit° it.

Romeo.
A most courteous exposition.

Mercutio.
Nay, I am the very pink° of courtesy.

Romeo.
Pink for flower.

Mercutio.
Right.

Romeo.
Why, then is my pump° well-flowered.°

Mercutio.
Sure wit, follow me this jest now till thou
hast worn out thy pump, that, when the single sole
of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing,
solely singular.°

Romeo.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
singleness!

Mercutio.
Come between us, good Benvolio! My wits faints.

Romeo.
Swits° and spurs, swits and spurs; or I’ll cry
a match.°

Mercutio.
Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase,°
I am done; for thou hast more of the wild goose in
one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole
five. Was I with you there for the goose?°

Romeo.
Thou wast never with me for anything when
thou wast not there for the goose.°

Mercutio.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

Romeo.
Nay, good goose, bite not!°

Mercutio.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting;° it is a
most sharp sauce.

Romeo.
And is it not, then, well served in to a sweet
goose?°

Mercutio.
O, here’s a wit of cheveril,° that stretches
from an inch narrow to an ell broad!°

Romeo.
I stretch it out for that word “broad,” which
added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a
broad° goose.

Mercutio.
Why, is not this better now than groaning
for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou
Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well
as by nature. For this driveling love is like a great
natural° that runs lolling° up and down to hide his
bauble° in a hole.