Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (most read book in the world TXT) 📕
Description
Over four hundred years after it was first published, Romeo and Juliet remains one of Shakespeare’s most famous and most frequently performed plays. During the late 1500s many playwrights loved to base their plays off of Italian stories, and Shakespeare was no different; he was heavily influenced by the Italian tale “The Goodly History of the True and Constant Love of Romeo and Juliett.” Today Romeo and Juliet continues to spread its influence within literature and performing arts. It has been adapted into 24 operas, numerous films, a ballet, and has also been referenced in law. The play has entertained generations with its romance, deception, revenge, sword-fighting, creative verse, comedic relief, and tragic fate.
The prologue lays before us the fate of our star-crossed lovers: two Italian households have a long, ongoing vendetta against each other, kept under control only by Prince Escalus, the ruler of Verona. Romeo meets with his friends Benvolio and Mercutio after having his heart broken by Rosaline. Encouraged to find love elsewhere, Mercutio sneaks him into one of Capulet’s masked parties, where he encounters Juliet, Capulet’s daughter. This is the beginning of a love affair that is destined to end in tragedy.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
Read free book «Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (most read book in the world TXT) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: William Shakespeare
Read book online «Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (most read book in the world TXT) 📕». Author - William Shakespeare
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back. Lady Capulet Within. Ho, daughter! are you up? Juliet
Who is’t that calls? is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?
Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death,
As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.
Aside. Villain and he be many miles asunder.—
God Pardon him! I do, with all my heart;
And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands:
Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!
We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram,
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.
Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart for a kinsman vex’d:
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it;
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him named, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him!
Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
And joy comes well in such a needy time:
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expect’st not nor I look’d not for.
Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,
The gallant, young and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
Now, by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo.
I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!
Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.
When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother’s son
It rains downright.
How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeit’st a bark, a sea, a wind;
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,
Without a sudden calm, will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife!
Have you deliver’d to her our decree?
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave!
Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.
How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
Not proud, you have; but thankful, that you have:
Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.
How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?
“Proud,” and “I thank you,” and “I thank you not;”
And yet “not proud:” mistress minion, you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next,
To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face:
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That God had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her:
Out on her, hilding!
God in heaven bless her!
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl;
For here we need it not.
God’s bread! it makes me mad:
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match’d: and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train’d,
Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man;
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
To answer “I’ll not wed; I cannot love,
I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.”
But, as you
Comments (0)