Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 1
Verona. A public place.
Sampson : Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.
Gregory : Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.
Gregory : No, for then we should be colliers.
Sampson : I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.
Gregory : Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.
Sampson : I strike quickly, being moved.
Gregory : But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
Sampson : A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
Gregory : To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
[p]therefore, if
thou art moved, thou runn'st away.
Sampson : A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will
[p]take the wall of
any man or maid of Montague's.
Gregory : That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes
[p]to the wall.
Sampson : True; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,
[p]are ever
thrust to the wall: therefore I will push
[p]Montague's men from the
wall, and thrust his maids
[p]to the wall.
Gregory : The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.
Sampson : 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I
[p]have fought with
the men, I will be cruel with the
[p]maids, and cut off their heads.
Gregory : The heads of the maids?
Sampson : Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads;
[p]take it in what
sense thou wilt.
Gregory : They must take it in sense that feel it.
Sampson : Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and
[p]'tis known I am a
pretty piece of flesh.
Gregory : 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou
[p]hadst been poor
John. Draw thy tool! here comes
[p]two of the house of the Montagues.
Sampson : My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.
Gregory : How! turn thy back and run?
Sampson : Fear me not.
Gregory : No, marry; I fear thee!
Sampson : Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.
Gregory : I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as
[p]they list.
Sampson : Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them;
[p]which is a
disgrace to them, if they bear it.
Abraham : Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sampson : I do bite my thumb, sir.
Abraham : Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sampson : [Aside to GREGORY] Is the law of our side, if I say
[p]ay?
Gregory : No.
Sampson : No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I
[p]bite my thumb,
sir.
Gregory : Do you quarrel, sir?
Abraham : Quarrel sir! no, sir.
Sampson : If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.
Abraham : No better.
Sampson : Well, sir.
Gregory : Say 'better:' here comes one of my master's kinsmen.
Sampson : Yes, better, sir.
Abraham : You lie.
Sampson : Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.
Benvolio : Part, fools!
[p]Put up your swords; you know not what you do.
Tybalt : What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
[p]Turn thee,
Benvolio, look upon thy death.
Benvolio : I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
[p]Or manage it to part
these men with me.
Tybalt : What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
[p]As I hate hell,
all Montagues, and thee:
[p]Have at thee, coward!
[p][They
fight]
[p][Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray;]
[p]then
enter Citizens, with clubs]
First Citizen : Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat them down!
[p]Down with the
Capulets! down with the Montagues!
Capulet : What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!
Lady Capulet : A crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?
Capulet : My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
[p]And flourishes his blade in
spite of me.
Montague : Thou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.
Lady Montague : Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.
Prince Escalus : Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
[p]Profaners of this
neighbour-stained steel,--
[p]Will they not hear? What, ho! you men,
you beasts,
[p]That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
[p]With
purple fountains issuing from your veins,
[p]On pain of torture, from
those bloody hands
[p]Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the
ground,
[p]And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
[p]Three civil
brawls, bred of an airy word,
[p]By thee, old Capulet, and
Montague,
[p]Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
[p]And
made Verona's ancient citizens
[p]Cast by their grave beseeming
ornaments,
[p]To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
[p]Canker'd
with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
[p]If ever you disturb our
streets again,
[p]Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the
peace.
[p]For this time, all the rest depart away:
[p]You Capulet;
shall go along with me:
[p]And, Montague, come you this
afternoon,
[p]To know our further pleasure in this case,
[p]To old
Free-town, our common judgment-place.
[p]Once more, on pain of death,
all men depart.
Montague : Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
[p]Speak, nephew, were you
by when it began?
Benvolio : Here were the servants of your adversary,
[p]And yours, close fighting
ere I did approach:
[p]I drew to part them: in the instant came
[p]The
fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,
[p]Which, as he breathed
defiance to my ears,
[p]He swung about his head and cut the
winds,
[p]Who nothing hurt withal hiss'd him in scorn:
[p]While we
were interchanging thrusts and blows,
[p]Came more and more and fought
on part and part,
[p]Till the prince came, who parted either part.
Lady Montague : O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?
[p]Right glad I am he was not
at this fray.
Benvolio : Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun
[p]Peer'd forth the golden
window of the east,
[p]A troubled mind drave me to walk
abroad;
[p]Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
[p]That westward
rooteth from the city's side,
[p]So early walking did I see your
son:
[p]Towards him I made, but he was ware of me
[p]And stole into
the covert of the wood:
[p]I, measuring his affections by my
own,
[p]That most are busied when they're most alone,
[p]Pursued my
humour not pursuing his,
[p]And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from
me.
Montague : Many a morning hath he there been seen,
[p]With tears augmenting the
fresh morning dew.
[p]Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep
sighs;
[p]But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
[p]Should in the
furthest east begin to draw
[p]The shady curtains from Aurora's
bed,
[p]Away from the light steals home my heavy son,
[p]And private
in his chamber pens himself,
[p]Shuts up his windows, locks far
daylight out
[p]And makes himself an artificial night:
[p]Black and
portentous must this humour prove,
[p]Unless good counsel may the
cause remove.
Benvolio : My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
Montague : I neither know it nor can learn of him.
Benvolio : Have you importuned him by any means?
Montague : Both by myself and many other friends:
[p]But he, his own affections'
counsellor,
[p]Is to himself--I will not say how true--
[p]But to
himself so secret and so close,
[p]So far from sounding and
discovery,
[p]As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
[p]Ere he can
spread his sweet leaves to the air,
[p]Or dedicate his beauty to the
sun.
[p]Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.
[p]We would
as willingly give cure as know.
Benvolio : See, where he comes: so please you, step aside;
[p]I'll know his
grievance, or be much denied.
Montague : I would thou wert so happy by thy stay,
[p]To hear true shrift. Come,
madam, let's away.
Benvolio : Good-morrow, cousin.
Romeo : Is the day so young?
Benvolio : But new struck nine.
Romeo : Ay me! sad hours seem long.
[p]Was that my father that went hence so
fast?
Benvolio : It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Romeo : Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
Benvolio : In love?
Romeo : Out--
Benvolio : Of love?
Romeo : Out of her favour, where I am in love.
Benvolio : Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
[p]Should be so tyrannous and
rough in proof!
Romeo : Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
[p]Should, without eyes,
see pathways to his will!
[p]Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was
here?
[p]Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
[p]Here's much to
do with hate, but more with love.
[p]Why, then, O brawling love! O
loving hate!
[p]O any thing, of nothing first create!
[p]O heavy
lightness! serious vanity!
[p]Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming
forms!
[p]Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
[p]sick
health!
[p]Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
[p]This love
feel I, that feel no love in this.
[p]Dost thou not laugh?
Benvolio : No, coz, I rather weep.
Romeo : Good heart, at what?
Benvolio : At thy good heart's oppression.
Romeo : Why, such is love's transgression.
[p]Griefs of mine own lie heavy in
my breast,
[p]Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
[p]With more
of thine: this love that thou hast shown
[p]Doth add more grief to too
much of mine own.
[p]Love is a smoke raised with the fume of
sighs;
[p]Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
[p]Being
vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
[p]What is it else? a
madness most discreet,
[p]A choking gall and a preserving
sweet.
[p]Farewell, my coz.
Benvolio : Soft! I will go along;
[p]An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
Romeo : Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here;
[p]This is not Romeo, he's
some other where.
Benvolio : Tell me in sadness, who is that you love.
Romeo : What, shall I groan and tell thee?
Benvolio : Groan! why, no.
[p]But sadly tell me who.
Romeo : Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:
[p]Ah, word ill urged to one
that is so ill!
[p]In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
Benvolio : I aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.
Romeo : A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.
Benvolio : A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
Romeo : Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit
[p]With Cupid's arrow;
she hath Dian's wit;
[p]And, in strong proof of chastity well
arm'd,
[p]From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.
[p]She
will not stay the siege of loving terms,
[p]Nor bide the encounter of
assailing eyes,
[p]Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
[p]O, she
is rich in beauty, only poor,
[p]That when she dies with beauty dies
her store.
Benvolio : Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
Romeo : She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
[p]For beauty starved
with her severity
[p]Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
[p]She is too
fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
[p]To merit bliss by making me
despair:
[p]She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
[p]Do I live
dead that live to tell it now.
Benvolio : Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
Romeo : O, teach me how I should forget to think.
Benvolio : By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
[p]Examine other beauties.
Romeo : 'Tis the way
[p]To call hers exquisite, in question more:
[p]These
happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows
[p]Being black put us in mind
they hide the fair;
[p]He that is strucken blind cannot forget
[p]The
precious treasure of his eyesight lost:
[p]Show me a mistress that is
passing fair,
[p]What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
[p]Where I
may read who pass'd that passing fair?
[p]Farewell: thou canst not
teach me to forget.
Benvolio : I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
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