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.

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

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 brow
A bump as big as a young cockrel's stone:
A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly.
"Yea," quoth my husband, "fall'st upon thy

face?

Thou wilt fall backward when thou com'st to

age;

Wilt thou not, Jule?" it stinted, and said "Ay." Jul. 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 C. Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of.—Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only

nurse,

I'd say thou hadst sucked wisdom from 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.

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being angered, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

Ben. This wind you talk of, blows us from
ourselves:

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

Rom. I fear, too early: for my mind misgives, Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, closed in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail!-On, lusty gentlemen.
Ben. Strike, drum.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-A Hall in CAPULET'S House.

Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

1st Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!

2nd Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 't is a foul thing.

1st Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate:-good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.-Antony and Potpan!

2nd Serv. Ay, boy; ready.

1st Serv. You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber. 2nd Serv. We cannot be here and there too. -Cheerly, boys; be brisk a while, and the longer liver take all. [They retire behind.

Enter CAPULET, &c., with the Guests and the Maskers.

Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that have

their toes

all

Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you
Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty, she
I'll swear hath corns :-am I come near you now?
You are welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the
day

That I have worn a visor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
Such as would please :-'t is gone, 't is gone,
't is gone.

You are welcome, gentlemen!-Come, musicians, play.

A hall! a hall! give room, and foot it, girls.
[Music plays, and they dance.
More light, ye knaves; and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.-
Ah, sirrah, this unlooked-for sport comes well.
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;
For you and I are past our dancing days:
How long is 't now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?
2nd Cap.

By 'r lady, thirty years.

1st Cap. What, man! 't is not so much, 't is not so much:

'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,

Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,

Some five and twenty years; and then we masked. 2nd Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more: his son is elder, sir; His son is thirty.

1st Cap.

Will you tell me that? His son was but a ward two years ago.

Rom. What lady's that, which doth enrich the hand

Of yonder knight?

Serv. I know not, sir.

Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn

bright!

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear:
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shews a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shews.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blesséd my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague:-
Fetch me my rapier, boy:-What! dares the slave
Come hither, covered with an antick face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

1st Cap. Why, how now, kinsman; wherefore storm you so?

Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe; A villain, that is hither come in spite,