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-apparell’d 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: Which on more view, of many mine being one May stand in number, though in reckoning none, Come, go with me.
To Servant, giving a paper
Go, sirrah, trudge about Through fair Verona; find those persons out Whose names are written there, and to them say, My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.
Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS
Servant:
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
BENVOLIO:
Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning, One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another’s languish: Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.
ROMEO:
Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.
BENVOLIO:
For what, I pray thee?
ROMEO:
For your broken shin.
BENVOLIO:
Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
ROMEO:
Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is; Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipp’d and tormented and-God-den, good fellow.
Servant:
God gi’ god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?
ROMEO:
Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
Servant:
Perhaps you have learned it without book: but, I pray, can you read any thing you see?
ROMEO:
Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
Servant:
Ye say honestly: rest you merry!
ROMEO:
Stay, fellow; I can read.
Reads
’Signior Martino and his wife and daughters; County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitravio; 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: whither should they come?
Servant:
Up.
ROMEO:
Whither?
Servant:
To supper; to our house.
ROMEO:
Whose house?
Servant:
My master’s.
ROMEO:
Indeed, I should have ask’d you that before.
Servant:
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
BENVOLIO:
At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest, With all the admired beauties of Verona: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall show, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
ROMEO:
When the devout religion of mine eye Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires; And these, who often drown’d 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.
BENVOLIO:
Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by, Herself poised with herself in either eye: But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’d Your lady’s love against some other maid That I will show you shining at this feast, And she shall scant show well that now shows best.
ROMEO:
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
Exeunt
Scene 3
A room in Capulet’s house.
Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse
LADY CAPULET:
Nurse, where’s my daughter? call her forth to me.
Nurse:
Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old, I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird! God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!
Enter JULIET
JULIET:
How now! who calls?
Nurse:
Your mother.
JULIET:
Madam, I am here. What is your will?
LADY CAPULET:
This is the matter:-Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret:-nurse, come back again; I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel. Thou know’st my daughter’s of a pretty age.
Nurse:
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
LADY CAPULET:
She’s not fourteen.
Nurse:
I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,- And yet,
