JUL. "T is almost morning, I would have thee gone: ROM. I would I were thy bird. JUL. Sweet, so would I: Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, Exit. ROM. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! 'Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest! Hence will I to my ghostly friar's close cell; His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell. SCENE III.-Friar Laurence's Cell. Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a basket. [Exit. FRI. The gray-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night, Checkering 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: 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: Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use, 1 Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; Poison hath residence, and medicine power: For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; Two such opposed kings encamp them still In man as well as herbs,—grace, and rude will; Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. Enter ROMEO. Roм. Good morrow, father! FRI. Thou art up-rous'd by some distemp'rature, Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night. ROM. That last is true, the sweeter rest was mine. I have forgot that name, and that name's woe. FRI. That's my good son: but where hast thou been then? 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, 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 FRI. Holy saint Francis! what a change is here! Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! And art thou chang'd? pronounce this sentence then- Not in a grave To lay one in, another out to have. ROM. I pray thee, chide not: she, whom I love now, Doth grace for grace, and love for love, allow; The other did not so. SCENE IV.-A Street. Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO. MER. Where the devil should this Romeo be?Came he not home to-night? BEN. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man. MER. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. BEN. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father's house. MER. A challenge, on my life. BEN. Romeo will answer it. 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! run thorough the ear with a lovesong; 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. Q, he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house,-of the first and second cause: Ah, the immortal passado! the puncto reverso! the hay! BEN. The what? MER. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents!-By 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 fashionmongers, these pardonmea, 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:-0, flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!-Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchenwench;-marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her: Dido, a dowdy; Cleopatra, a gipsy; Helen and Hero, hildings and harlots; Thisbé, 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. 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. A most courteous exposition. MER. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. ROM. Pink for flower. MER. Right. ROM. Why, then is my pump well flowered. MER. 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, sole singular. ROM. O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness! MER. Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint. ROM. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match. MER. 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? ROM. Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the goose. MER. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. ROM. Nay, good goose, bite not. |