The Best of Shakespeare:. William Shakespeare
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.
Yond light is not daylight, 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 the 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 gray 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 chang’d 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.]
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.
[Descends.]
Juliet.
Art thou gone so? my lord, my love, my friend!
I must hear from thee every day i’ 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 below.]
Juliet.
O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
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?
[Enter Lady Capulet.]
Lady Capulet.
Why, how now, Juliet?
Juliet.
Madam, I am not well.
Lady Capulet.
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.
Juliet.
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
Lady Capulet.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.
Juliet.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
Lady Capulet.
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death
As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.
Juliet.
What villain, madam?
Lady Capulet.
That same villain Romeo.
Juliet.
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.
Lady Capulet.
That is because the traitor murderer lives.
Juliet.
Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.
Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!
Lady Capulet.
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.
Juliet.
Indeed I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo till I behold him—dead—