My house and welcome on their pleasures 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 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. Rom. Your plantain 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 mad man is: Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipp'd, 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 learn'd it without book. But I pray, can you read any thing you see? Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language. 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 daugh ters; 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 be fore. you be not Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking: My master is the great rich Capulet; and if of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry. Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye But in those crystal scales, let there be weigh'd And she shall scant3 show well, that now shows best. (1) We still say in cant language-to crack a bottle. (2) Weighed. (3) Scarce, hardly. Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt. SCENE III.—A room in Capulet's house. Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse. La. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me. Nurse. Now, by my maiden-head, at twelve year old, I bade her come.-What, lamb! what, lady bird! God forbid !-where's this girl?-what, Juliet! Enter Juliet. Jul. How now, who calls? Nurse. Jul. What is your will? Your mother. Madam, I am here. La. Cap. This is the matter :-Nurse, give leave a while, We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again; I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our counsel. Thou know'st, my daughter's of a pretty age. Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. La. Cap. She's not fourteen. Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth And yet, to my teen1 be it spoken, I have but four,— She is not fourteen: How long is it now To Lammas-tide? La. Cap. 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; (1) To my sorrow. And she was wean'd,-I never shall forget it,- And since that time it is eleven years: For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,2 And, pretty fool, it stinted,4 and said—Ay. peace. Nurse. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot choose but laugh, To think it should leave crying, and say-Ay: A bump as big as a young cockrel's stone; A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly. (1) i. e. I have a perfect remembrance or recollection. (2) The cross. (3) Holy dame, i. e. the blessed Virgin. Yea, quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face? Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd: La. Cap. 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 suck'd wisdom from thy teat. La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger than you, Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Are made already mothers: by my count, Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, As all the world-Why, he's a man of wax.2 La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower. This night you shall behold him at our feast: And see how one another lends content; (1) Favour. (2) Well made, as if he had been modelled in wax. (3) The comments on ancient books were al ways printed in the margin. |