Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:
Romeo is coming. Nurse

O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

Romeo Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. Nurse

Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. Exit.

Romeo How well my comfort is revived by this! Friar Laurence

Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:
Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguised from hence:
Sojourn in Mantua; I’ll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here:
Give me thy hand; ’tis late: farewell; good night.

Romeo

But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief, so brief to part with thee:
Farewell. Exeunt.

Scene IV

A room in Capulet’s house.

Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, and Paris. Capulet

Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily,
That we have had no time to move our daughter:
Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I:⁠—Well, we were born to die.
’Tis very late, she’ll not come down to-night:
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

Paris

These times of woe afford no time to woo.
Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter.

Lady Capulet

I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;
To-night she is mew’d up to her heaviness.

Capulet

Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child’s love: I think she will be ruled
In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love;
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next⁠—
But, soft! what day is this?

Paris Monday, my lord, Capulet

Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
O’ Thursday let it be: o’ Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? do you like this haste?
We’ll keep no great ado⁠—a friend or two;
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much:
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

Paris My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow. Capulet

Well, get you gone: o’ Thursday be it, then.
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.
Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me! it is so very very late,
That we may call it early by and by.
Good night. Exeunt.

Scene V

Capulet’s orchard.

Enter Romeo and Juliet above, at the window. Juliet

Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo

It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Juliet

Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone.

Romeo

Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay than will to go:
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? let’s talk; it is not day.

Juliet

It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
O, now I would they had changed voices too!
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.

Romeo More light and light; more dark and dark our woes! Enter Nurse, to the chamber. Nurse Madam! Juliet Nurse? Nurse

Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:
The day is broke; be wary, look about. Exit.

Juliet Then, window, let day in, and let life out. Romeo Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I’ll descend. He goeth down. Juliet

Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days:
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo!

Romeo

Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

Juliet O think’st thou we shall ever meet again? Romeo

I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.

Juliet

O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

Romeo

And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu! Exit.

Juliet

O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.
That is renown’d