Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is I

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.

Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,

Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed

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,

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes,

Being vexed, a sea nourished 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;

An 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?

BENVOLIO

Groan? Why no; but sadly tell me who.

ROMEO

Bid a sick man in sadness make his will,

A word ill urged to one that is so ill.

In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

BENVOLIO

I aimed so near when I supposed you loved.

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 armed,

From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharmed.

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

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 starved with her severity

Cuts beauty off from all posterity.

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 ruled by me; forget to think of her.

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,

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

Where I may read who passed 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 ⌈Peter,⌉ a servingman

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.

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

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS

Younger than she are happy mothers made.

CAPULET

And too soon marred are those so early made.

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-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,

Which on more view of many, mine, being one,

May stand in number, though in reck’ning none.

Come, go with me. (Giving ⌈Peter⌉ a paper) Go, sirrah,

trudge about;

Through fair Verona find those persons out

Whose names are written there, and to them say

My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

Exeunt Capulet and Paris

⌈PETER⌉ 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.