Being one too many by my weary self,
Pursu’d my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn’d who gladly fled from me.
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MONTAGUE
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
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The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night.
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Black and portentous must this humour prove
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
BENVOLIO My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
MONTAGUE I neither know it nor can learn of him.
BENVOLIO Have you importun’d him by any means?
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MONTAGUE Both by myself and many other friends.
But he, his own affections’ counsellor,
Is to himself – I will not say how true –
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
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As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure as know.
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Enter ROMEO.
BENVOLIO
See where he comes. So please you step aside;
I’ll know his grievance or be much denied.
MONTAGUE I would thou wert so happy by thy stay
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away.
Exeunt Montague and Lady Montague.
BENVOLIO Good morrow, cousin.
ROMEO Is the day so young?
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BENVOLIO But new struck nine.
ROMEO Ay me, sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?
BENVOLIO
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?
ROMEO
Not having that which, having, makes them short.
BENVOLIO In love?
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ROMEO Out.
BENVOLIO Of love?
ROMEO Out of her favour where I am in love.
BENVOLIO Alas that love so gentle in his view
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.
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ROMEO Alas that love whose view is muffled still
Should without eyes see pathways to his will.
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.
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Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
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Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!
This love feel I that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
BENVOLIO No coz, I rather weep.
ROMEO Good heart, at what?
BENVOLIO At thy good heart’s oppression.
ROMEO Why such is love’s transgression.
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Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it press’d
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
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Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears;
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.
BENVOLIO Soft, I will go along;
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And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
ROMEO Tut, I have lost myself, I am not here.
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.
BENVOLIO Tell me in sadness who is that you love?
ROMEO What, shall I groan and tell thee?
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BENVOLIO Groan? Why no, but sadly tell me who.
ROMEO Bid a sick man in sadness make his will?
A word ill-urg’d to one that is so ill.
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
BENVOLIO I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you lov’d.
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ROMEO A right good markman; and she’s fair I love.
BENVOLIO A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
ROMEO Well, in that hit you miss; she’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit,
And in strong proof of chastity well arm’d
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From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’d.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold;
O she is rich in beauty, only poor
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That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.
BENVOLIO
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
ROMEO
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste.
For beauty starv’d with her severity
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
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She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.
BENVOLIO Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.
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ROMEO O teach me how I should forget to think.
BENVOLIO By giving liberty unto thine eyes:
Examine other beauties.
ROMEO ’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
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Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair;
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
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Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair?
Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.
BENVOLIO I’ll pay that doctrine or else die in debt.
Exeunt.
1.2 Enter CAPULET, PARIS and a Servant.
CAPULET But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike, and ’tis not hard I think
For men so old as we to keep the peace.
PARIS Of honourable reckoning are you both,
And pity ’tis you lived at odds so long.
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But now my lord, what say you to my suit?
CAPULET 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
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Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
PARIS Younger than she are happy mothers made.
CAPULET
And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
Earth hath swallow’d all my hopes but she;
She is
the hopeful lady of my earth.
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But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part,
And she agreed, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast
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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.
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Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparell’d 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,
30
And like her most whose merit most shall be;
Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come go with me.
[To servant] Go sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona, find those persons out
35
Whose names are written there, and to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.
Exeunt Capulet and Paris.
SERVANT 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
40
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.
BENVOLIO
Tut man, one fire burns out another’s burning,
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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.
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ROMEO Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
BENVOLIO For what, I pray thee?
ROMEO For your broken shin.
BENVOLIO Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
ROMEO Not mad, but bound more than a madman is:
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
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Whipp’d and tormented and – good e’en, good fellow.
SERVANT God gi’ good e’en; I pray, sir, can you read?
ROMEO Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
SERVANT Perhaps you have learned it without book.
But I pray can you read anything you see?
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ROMEO Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
SERVANT Ye say honestly; rest you merry.
ROMEO Stay, fellow, I can read. [He reads the letter.]
Signor Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselm and his beauteous sisters;
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The lady widow of Utruvio;
Signor Placentio and his lovely nieces;
Mercutio and his brother Valentine;
Mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters;
My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;
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Signor Valentio and his cousin Tybalt;
Lucio and the lively Helena.
A fair assembly. Whither should they come?
SERVANT Up.
ROMEO Whither to supper?
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SERVANT To our house.
ROMEO Whose house?
SERVANT My master’s.
ROMEO Indeed I should have asked you that before.
SERVANT Now I’ll tell you without asking. My master is
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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.
BENVOLIO At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s
Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so loves,
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With all the admired beauties of Verona.
Go thither and with unattainted eye
Compare her face with some that I shall show
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
ROMEO When the devout religion of mine eye
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Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire,
And these who, often drown’d, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 442
