Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Act 3 - Scene 2

Capulet’s orchard.

Juliet : Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, [p]Towards Phoebus' lodging:
such a wagoner [p]As Phaethon would whip you to the west, [p]And bring
in cloudy night immediately. [p]Spread thy close curtain,
love-performing night, [p]That runaway's eyes may wink and
Romeo [p]Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen. [p]Lovers can see
to do their amorous rites [p]By their own beauties; or, if love be
blind, [p]It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, [p]Thou
sober-suited matron, all in black, [p]And learn me how to lose a
winning match, [p]Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: [p]Hood
my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, [p]With thy black mantle; till
strange love, grown bold, [p]Think true love acted simple
modesty. [p]Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; [p]For
thou wilt lie upon the wings of night [p]Whiter than new snow on a
raven's back. [p]Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd
night, [p]Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, [p]Take him and
cut him out in little stars, [p]And he will make the face of heaven so
fine [p]That all the world will be in love with night [p]And pay no
worship to the garish sun. [p]O, I have bought the mansion of a
love, [p]But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold, [p]Not yet
enjoy'd: so tedious is this day [p]As is the night before some
festival [p]To an impatient child that hath new robes [p]And may not
wear them. O, here comes my nurse, [p]And she brings news; and every
tongue that speaks [p]But Romeo's name speaks heavenly
eloquence. [p][Enter Nurse, with cords] [p]Now, nurse, what news? What
hast thou there? the cords [p]That Romeo bid thee fetch?

Nurse : Ay, ay, the cords.

Juliet : Ay me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?

Nurse : Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead! [p]We are undone,
lady, we are undone! [p]Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's
dead!

Juliet : Can heaven be so envious?

Nurse : Romeo can, [p]Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo! [p]Who ever would
have thought it? Romeo!

Juliet : What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus? [p]This torture should
be roar'd in dismal hell. [p]Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but
'I,' [p]And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more [p]Than the
death-darting eye of cockatrice: [p]I am not I, if there be such an
I; [p]Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.' [p]If he be
slain, say 'I'; or if not, no: [p]Brief sounds determine of my weal or
woe.

Nurse : I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,-- [p]God save the
mark!--here on his manly breast: [p]A piteous corse, a bloody piteous
corse; [p]Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood, [p]All in
gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.

Juliet : O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once! [p]To prison, eyes,
ne'er look on liberty! [p]Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion
here; [p]And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!

Nurse : O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had! [p]O courteous Tybalt! honest
gentleman! [p]That ever I should live to see thee dead!

Juliet : What storm is this that blows so contrary? [p]Is Romeo slaughter'd,
and is Tybalt dead? [p]My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer
lord? [p]Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom! [p]For who is
living, if those two are gone?

Nurse : Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished; [p]Romeo that kill'd him, he is
banished.

Juliet : O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

Nurse : It did, it did; alas the day, it did!

Juliet : O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! [p]Did ever dragon keep so
fair a cave? [p]Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! [p]Dove-feather'd
raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! [p]Despised substance of divinest
show! [p]Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, [p]A damned saint,
an honourable villain! [p]O nature, what hadst thou to do in
hell, [p]When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend [p]In moral
paradise of such sweet flesh? [p]Was ever book containing such vile
matter [p]So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell [p]In such a
gorgeous palace!

Nurse : There's no trust, [p]No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, [p]All
forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. [p]Ah, where's my man? give me
some aqua vitae: [p]These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me
old. [p]Shame come to Romeo!

Juliet : Blister'd be thy tongue [p]For such a wish! he was not born to
shame: [p]Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit; [p]For 'tis a throne
where honour may be crown'd [p]Sole monarch of the universal
earth. [p]O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Nurse : Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?

Juliet : Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? [p]Ah, poor my lord, what
tongue shall smooth thy name, [p]When I, thy three-hours wife, have
mangled it? [p]But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my
cousin? [p]That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband: [p]Back,
foolish tears, back to your native spring; [p]Your tributary drops
belong to woe, [p]Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. [p]My husband
lives, that Tybalt would have slain; [p]And Tybalt's dead, that would
have slain my husband: [p]All this is comfort; wherefore weep I
then? [p]Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, [p]That
murder'd me: I would forget it fain; [p]But, O, it presses to my
memory, [p]Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds: [p]'Tybalt is
dead, and Romeo--banished;' [p]That 'banished,' that one word
'banished,' [p]Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death [p]Was
woe enough, if it had ended there: [p]Or, if sour woe delights in
fellowship [p]And needly will be rank'd with other griefs, [p]Why
follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,' [p]Thy father, or thy
mother, nay, or both, [p]Which modern lamentations might have
moved? [p]But with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death, [p]'Romeo is
banished,' to speak that word, [p]Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo,
Juliet, [p]All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!' [p]There is no
end, no limit, measure, bound, [p]In that word's death; no words can
that woe sound. [p]Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?

Nurse : Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse: [p]Will you go to them? I
will bring you thither.

Juliet : Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent, [p]When theirs
are dry, for Romeo's banishment. [p]Take up those cords: poor ropes,
you are beguiled, [p]Both you and I; for Romeo is exiled: [p]He made
you for a highway to my bed; [p]But I, a maid, die
maiden-widowed. [p]Come, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my
wedding-bed; [p]And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

Nurse : Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo [p]To comfort you: I wot well
where he is. [p]Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night: [p]I'll to
him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.

Juliet : O, find him! give this ring to my true knight, [p]And bid him come to
take his last farewell.

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