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.
Breads
‘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’sSups 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 eyeMaintains 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 sunNe’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’dYour lady’s love against some other maidThat 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.
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, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four —She is not fourteen. How long is it nowTo Lammas-tide?
Lady Capulet
A fortnight and odd days.
Nurse
Even or odd, of all days in the year,Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.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 wean’d — 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 dove-house 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 nippleOf my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!Shake quoth the dove-house: ’twas 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 holidame,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 Capulet
Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
Nurse
Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,To think it should leave crying and say ‘Ay.’And yet, I warrant, it had upon its browA bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone;A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:‘Yea,’ quoth my husband,’fall’st upon thy face?Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted and said ‘Ay.’
Juliet
And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
Nurse
Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed:An I might live to see thee married once,I have my wish.
Lady Capulet
Marry, that ‘marry’ is the very themeI came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,How stands your disposition to be married?
Juliet
It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse
An honour! were not I thine only nurse,I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.
Lady Capulet
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 yearsThat 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 manAs all the world — why, he’s a man of wax.
Lady Capulet
Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse
Nay, he’s a flower; in faith, a very flower.
Lady Capulet
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 contentAnd what obscured in this fair volume liesFind written in the margent 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 ’tis much prideFor 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 Capulet
Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?
Juliet
I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:But no more deep will I endart mine eyeThan your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Enter a Servant
Servant
Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and
others
Romeo
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
or shall we on without a apology?
Benvolio
The date is out of such prolixity:
We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spokeAfter the prompter, for our entrance:But let them measure us by what they will;We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.
and tormented and — God-den, good fellow.
