The Tragedy Of Romeo And Juliet

1 Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.
2 LADY CAPULET.
3 Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.
4 NURSE.
5 Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
6 I bade her come. What, lamb! What ladybird!
7 God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!
8 Enter Juliet.
9 JULIET.
10 How now, who calls?
11 NURSE.
12 Your mother.
13 JULIET.
14 Madam, I am here. What is your will?
15 LADY CAPULET.
16 This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile,
17 We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again,
18 I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel.
19 Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.
20 NURSE.
21 Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
22 LADY CAPULET.
23 She’s not fourteen.
24 NURSE.
25 I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,
26 And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,
27 She is not fourteen. How long is it now
28 To Lammas-tide?
29 LADY CAPULET.
30 A fortnight and odd days.
31 NURSE.
32 Even or odd, of all days in the year,
33 Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
34 Susan and she,—God rest all Christian souls!—
35 Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;
36 She was too good for me. But as I said,
37 On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;
38 That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
39 ’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
40 And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it—,
41 Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
42 For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
43 Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall;
44 My lord and you were then at Mantua:
45 Nay, I do bear a brain. But as I said,
46 When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
47 Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
48 To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug!
49 Shake, quoth the dovehouse: ’twas no need, I trow,
50 To bid me trudge.
51 And since that time it is eleven years;
52 For then she could stand alone; nay, by th’rood
53 She could have run and waddled all about;
54 For even the day before she broke her brow,
55 And then my husband,—God be with his soul!
56 A was a merry man,—took up the child:
57 ‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face?
58 Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
59 Wilt thou not, Jule?’ and, by my holidame,
60 The pretty wretch left crying, and said ‘Ay’.
61 To see now how a jest shall come about.
62 I warrant, and I should live a thousand years,
63 I never should forget it. ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he;
64 And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said ‘Ay.’
65 LADY CAPULET.
66 Enough of this; I pray thee hold thy peace.
67 NURSE.
68 Yes, madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh,
69 To think it should leave crying, and say ‘Ay’;
70 And yet I warrant it had upon it brow
71 A bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone;
72 A perilous knock, and it cried bitterly.
73 ‘Yea,’ quoth my husband, ‘fall’st upon thy face?
74 Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
75 Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted, and said ‘Ay’.
76 JULIET.
77 And stint thou too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I.
78 NURSE.
79 Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace
80 Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nurs’d:
81 And I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.
82 LADY CAPULET.
83 Marry, that marry is the very theme
84 I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
85 How stands your disposition to be married?
86 JULIET.
87 It is an honour that I dream not of.
88 NURSE.
89 An honour! Were not I thine only nurse,
90 I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.
91 LADY CAPULET.
92 Well, think of marriage now: younger than you,
93 Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
94 Are made already mothers. By my count
95 I was your mother much upon these years
96 That you are now a maid. Thus, then, in brief;
97 The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
98 NURSE.
99 A man, young lady! Lady, such a man
100 As all the world—why he’s a man of wax.
101 LADY CAPULET.
102 Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.
103 NURSE.
104 Nay, he’s a flower, in faith a very flower.
105 LADY CAPULET.
106 What say you, can you love the gentleman?
107 This night you shall behold him at our feast;
108 Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,
109 And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen.
110 Examine every married lineament,
111 And see how one another lends content;
112 And what obscur’d in this fair volume lies,
113 Find written in the margent of his eyes.
114 This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
115 To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
116 The fish lives in the sea; and ’tis much pride
117 For fair without the fair within to hide.
118 That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory,
119 That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
120 So shall you share all that he doth possess,
121 By having him, making yourself no less.
122 NURSE.
123 No less, nay bigger. Women grow by men.
124 LADY CAPULET.
125 Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?
126 JULIET.
127 I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
128 But no more deep will I endart mine eye
129 Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
130 Enter a Servant.
131 SERVANT.
132 Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady
133 asked for, the Nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity.
134 I must hence to wait, I beseech you follow straight.
135 LADY CAPULET.
136 We follow thee.
137 [_Exit Servant._]
138 Juliet, the County stays.
139 NURSE.
140 Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
141 [_Exeunt._]