Enter several Partisans of both houses, who join the fray: then enter Citizens, with clubs.

1st Cit. Clubs, bills, and partizans! strike! beat them down!

Down with the Capulets!—down with the Montagues!

Enter CAPULET, in his gown; and LADY CAPULET. Cap. What noise is this?-Give me my longsword, ho!

Lady C. A crutch, a crutch!-Why call you for a sword?

Cap. My sword, I say!—Old Montague is come, And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

Enter MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE. Mon. Thou villain, Capulet!—Hold me not;

let me go.

Lady M. Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.

Enter PRINCE, with Attendants.
Prin. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stainéd steel,—
Will they not hear?-What, ho! you men, you
beasts,

That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins!
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your movéd Prince.-
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet and Montague,
Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets;
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partizans, in hands as old,
Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate :
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

For this time, all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our farther pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
[Exeunt PRINCE and Attendants; CAPULET, LADY
CAPULET, TYBALT, Citizens, and Servants.
Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new

abroach ?

Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?

Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary, And yours, close fighting ere I did approach: I drew to part them: in the instant came The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared; Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears, He swung about his head, and cut the winds, Who, nothing hurt withal, hissed him in scorn: While we were interchanging thrusts and blows, Came more and more, and fought on part and part, Till the Prince came, who parted either part. Lady M. O, where is Romeo?—saw you to-day?

Right glad am I he was not at this fray.

him

Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipped

sun

Peered forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from the city's side,
So early walking did I see your son:
Towards him I made; but he was 'ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood:
I, measuring his affections by my own,
That most are busied when they are most alone,
Pursued my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me.

Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs:
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself;
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause? Mon. I neither know it, nor can learn of him. Ben. Have you impórtuned him by any means? Mon. Both by myself and many other friends: But he, his own affections' counsellor, Is to himself-I will not say, how trueBut to himself so secret and so close, So far from sounding and discovery,

Rom. Out of her favour where I am in love. Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should without eyes see pathways to his will! Where shall we dine?-O me!-What fray was here?

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

Here's much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!

O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.—
Dost thou not laugh?

Ben.

No, coz, I rather weep.

Rom. Good heart, at what?

Ben.
At thy good heart's oppression.
Rom. Why, such is love's trangression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast;
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
With more of thine: this love that thou hast
shewn

Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.

:

Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill! In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman. Ben. I aimed so near when I supposed you loved. Rom. A right good marksman!—And she's fair I love.

Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
Rom. Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow: she hath Dian's wit;
And, in strong proof of chastity well armed,
From love's weak childish bow she lives un-
harmed.

She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-sedncing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty: only poor,

That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store!
Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still

live chaste?

Rom. She hath; and in that sparing makes huge waste:

For beauty, starved with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

Ben. Be ruled by me; forget to think of her.
Rom. O, teach me how I should forget to think.
Ben. By giving liberty unto thine
eyes:
Examine other beauties.

To call her's, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,
Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair:
He that is strucken blind, cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost :
Shew me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
Where I may read who passed that passing fair?
Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.
Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II-A Street.

[Going.

Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant. Cap. And Montague is bound as well as I,

In penalty alike; and 't is not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.

Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both;
And pity 't is you lived at odds so long.
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?

Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before: My child is yet a stranger in the world, She hath not seen the change of fourteen years: Let two more summers wither in their pride, Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.
Cap. And too soon marred are those so early
made.

The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she;
She is the hopeful lady of my earth.
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart;
My will to her consent is but a part:
An she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustomed feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love: and you, among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light.
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparelled April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house: hear all, all see,

And like her most whose merit most shall be:
Such, amongst view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me.-Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out
Whose names are written there [gives a paper],
and to them say,

My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. [Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS.

Serv. Find them out whose names are written here? It is written that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned :-In good time.

Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO.

Ben. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,

One pain is lessened by another's anguish ; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's lan

guish :

Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.

Rom. Your plaintain leaf is excellent for that. Ben. For what, I pray thee?

Rom.

For your broken shin.

Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad? Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is:

Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipped and tormented, and-Good-e'en, good fellow.

Serv. God gi' good-e'en. I pray, sir, can you read?

Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. Serv. Perhaps you have learned it without book: But I pray, can you read anything you see? Rom. Ay, if I know the letters and the lan

guage.

Serv. Ye say honestly: rest you merry! Rom. Stay, fellow: I can read.

Reads.

Signior Martino, and his wife and daughters; County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt: Lucio, and the lively Helena.

A fair assembly [gives back the note]. Whither should they come?

Serv. Up.

Rom. Whither?

Serv. To supper; to our house. Rom. Whose house?

Serv. My master's.

Rom. Indeed I should have asked you that before.

Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry.

[Exit.

Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st; With all the admiréd beauties of Verona : Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall shew, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires! And these-who, often drowned, could never die— Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars! One fairer than my love!-the all-seeing sun Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.

Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by; Herself poised with herself in either eye: But in those crystal scales, let there be weighed Your lady-love against some other maid That I will shew you, shining at this feast, And she shall scant shew well, that now shews best.

Lady C. This is the matter:-Nurse, give leave awhile;

We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again;

I have remembered me, thou shalt hear our counsel.

Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age. Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. Lady C. She's not fourteen.

Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teethAnd yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four

She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?

Lady C.
A fortnight and odd days.
Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be four-

teen.

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: 't was no need,

I trow, To bid me trudge.

And since that time it is eleven years: For then she could stand alone; nay, by the 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 holy-dam, The pretty wretch left crying, and said "Ay:" To see now, how a jest shall come about!

I warrant, an 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 C. Enough of this; I pray thee hold thy

teat.

Lady C. 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 C. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.

Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.

Lady C. What say you? can you love the
gentleman?

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 margin 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 't is 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 C. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?

Jul. 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.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. 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.

Lady C. We follow thee.-Juliet, the County

stays.