Jonah

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Juliet and Juliet

Dan Cox

And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. \nIt is an honour that I dream not of. \nI'll look to like, if looking liking move: \nBut no more deep will I endart mine eye \nThan your consent gives strength to make it fly. \nGood pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, \nWhich mannerly devotion shows in this; \nFor saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, \nAnd palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. \nAy, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. \nSaints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. \nThen have my lips the sin that they have took. \nYou kiss by the book. \nCome hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman? \nWhat's he that now is going out of door? \nWhat's he that follows there, that would not dance? \nGo ask his name: if he be married. \nMy grave is like to be my wedding bed. \nMy only love sprung from my only hate! \nToo early seen unknown, and known too late! \nProdigious birth of love it is to me, \nThat I must love a loathed enemy. \nA rhyme I learn'd even now \nOf one I danced withal. \nAy me! \nO Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? \nDeny thy father and refuse thy name; \nOr, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, \nAnd I'll no longer be a Capulet. \n'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; \nThou art thyself, though not a Montague. \nWhat's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, \nNor arm, nor face, nor any other part \nBelonging to a man. O, be some other name! \nWhat's in a name? that which we call a rose \nBy any other name would smell as sweet; \nSo Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, \nRetain that dear perfection which he owes \nWithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name, \nAnd for that name which is no part of thee \nTake all myself. \nWhat man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night \nSo stumblest on my counsel? \nMy ears have not yet drunk a hundred words \nOf that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: \nArt thou not Romeo and a Montague? \nHow camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? \nThe orchard walls are high and hard to climb, \nAnd the place death, considering who thou art, \nIf any of my kinsmen find thee here. \nIf they do see thee, they will murder thee. \nI would not for the world they saw thee here. \nBy whose direction found'st thou out this place? \nThou know'st the mask of night is on my face, \nElse would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek \nFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night \nFain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny \nWhat I have spoke: but farewell compliment! \nDost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,' \nAnd I will take thy word: yet if thou swear'st, \nThou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries \nThen say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, \nIf thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully: \nOr if thou think'st I am too quickly won, \nI'll frown and be perverse an say thee nay, \nSo thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world. \nIn truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, \nAnd therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light: \nBut trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true \nThan those that have more cunning to be strange. \nI should have been more strange, I must confess, \nBut that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, \nMy true love's passion: therefore pardon me, \nAnd not impute this yielding to light love, \nWhich the dark night hath so discovered. \nO, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, \nThat monthly changes in her circled orb, \nLest that thy love prove likewise variable. \nDo not swear at all; \nOr, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, \nWhich is the god of my idolatry, \nAnd I'll believe thee. \nWell, do not swear: although I joy in thee, \nI have no joy of this contract to-night: \nIt is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; \nToo like the lightning, which doth cease to be \nEre one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night! \nThis bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, \nMay prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. \nGood night, good night! as sweet repose and rest \nCome to thy heart as that within my breast! \nWhat satisfaction canst thou have to-night? \nI gave thee mine before thou didst request it: \nAnd yet I would it were to give again. \nBut to be frank, and give it thee again. \nAnd yet I wish but for the thing I have: \nMy bounty is as boundless as the sea, \nMy love as deep; the more I give to thee, \nThe more I have, for both are infinite. \nI hear some noise within; dear love, adieu! \nAnon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true. \nStay but a little, I will come again. \nThree words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed. \nIf that thy bent of love be honourable, \nThy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow, \nBy one that I'll procure to come to thee, \nWhere and what time thou wilt perform the rite; \nAnd all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay \nAnd follow thee my lord throughout the world. \nI come, anon.--But if thou mean'st not well, \nI do beseech thee-- \nBy and by, I come:-- \nTo cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief: \nTo-morrow will I send. \nA thousand times good night! \nHist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer's voice, \nTo lure this tassel-gentle back again! \nBondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud; \nElse would I tear the cave where Echo lies, \nAnd make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine, \nWith repetition of my Romeo's name. \nAt what o'clock to-morrow \nShall I send to thee? \nI will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then. \nI have forgot why I did call thee back. \nI shall forget, to have thee still stand there, \nRemembering how I love thy company. \n'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone: \nAnd yet no further than a wanton's bird; \nWho lets it hop a little from her hand, \nLike a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, \nAnd with a silk thread plucks it back again, \nSo loving-jealous of his liberty. \nSweet, so would I: \nYet I should kill thee with much cherishing. \nGood night, good night! parting is such \nsweet sorrow, \nThat I shall say good night till it be morrow. \nThe clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; \nIn half an hour she promised to return. \nPerchance she cannot meet him: that's not so. \nO, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts, \nWhich ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, \nDriving back shadows over louring hills: \nTherefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love, \nAnd therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. \nNow is the sun upon the highmost hill \nOf this day's journey, and from nine till twelve \nIs three long hours, yet she is not come. \nHad she affections and warm youthful blood, \nShe would be as swift in motion as a ball; \nMy words would bandy her to my sweet love, \nAnd his to me: \nBut old folks, many feign as they were dead; \nUnwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead. \nO God, she comes! \nO honey nurse, what news? \nHast thou met with him? Send thy man away. \nNow, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad? \nThough news be sad, yet tell them merrily; \nIf good, thou shamest the music of sweet news \nBy playing it to me with so sour a face. \nI would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news: \nNay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak. \nHow art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath \nTo say to me that thou art out of breath? \nThe excuse that thou dost make in this delay \nIs longer than the tale thou dost excuse. \nIs thy news good, or bad? answer to that; \nSay either, and I'll stay the circumstance: \nLet me be satisfied, is't good or bad? \nNo, no: but all this did I know before. \nWhat says he of our marriage? what of that? \nI' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well. \nSweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love? \nWhere is my mother! why, she is within; \nWhere should she be? How oddly thou repliest! \n'Your love says, like an honest gentleman, \nWhere is your mother?' \nHere's such a coil! come, what says Romeo? \nI have. \nHie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell. \nGood even to my ghostly confessor. \nAs much to him, else is his thanks too much. \nConceit, more rich in matter than in words, \nBrags of his substance, not of ornament: \nThey are but beggars that can count their worth; \nBut my true love is grown to such excess \nI cannot sum up sum of half my wealth. \nGallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, \nTowards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner \nAs Phaethon would whip you to the west, \nAnd bring in cloudy night immediately. \nSpread thy close curtain, love-performing night, \nThat runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo \nLeap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen. \nLovers can see to do their amorous rites \nBy their own beauties; or, if love be blind, \nIt best agrees with night. Come, civil night, \nThou sober-suited matron, all in black, \nAnd learn me how to lose a winning match, \nPlay'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: \nHood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, \nWith thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, \nThink true love acted simple modesty. \nCome, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; \nFor thou wilt lie upon the wings of night \nWhiter than new snow on a raven's back. \nCome, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, \nGive me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, \nTake him and cut him out in little stars, \nAnd he will make the face of heaven so fine \nThat all the world will be in love with night \nAnd pay no worship to the garish sun. \nO, I have bought the mansion of a love, \nBut not possess'd it, and, though I am sold, \nNot yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day \nAs is the night before some festival \nTo an impatient child that hath new robes \nAnd may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse, \nAnd she brings news; and every tongue that speaks \nBut Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence. \nNow, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords \nThat Romeo bid thee fetch? \nAy me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands? \nCan heaven be so envious? \nWhat devil art thou, that dost torment me thus? \nThis torture should be roar'd in dismal hell. \nHath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 'I,' \nAnd that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more \nThan the death-darting eye of cockatrice: \nI am not I, if there be such an I; \nOr those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.' \nIf he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no: \nBrief sounds determine of my weal or woe. \nO, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once! \nTo prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty! \nVile earth, to earth resign; end motion here; \nAnd thou and Romeo press one heavy bier! \nWhat storm is this that blows so contrary? \nIs Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead? \nMy dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord? \nThen, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom! \nFor who is living, if those two are gone? \nO serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! \nDid ever dragon keep so fair a cave? \nBeautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! \nDove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! \nDespised substance of divinest show! \nJust opposite to what thou justly seem'st, \nA damned saint, an honourable villain! \nO nature, what hadst thou to do in hell, \nWhen thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend \nIn moral paradise of such sweet flesh? \nWas ever book containing such vile matter \nSo fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell \nIn such a gorgeous palace! \nBlister'd be thy tongue \nFor such a wish! he was not born to shame: \nUpon his brow shame is ashamed to sit; \nFor 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd \nSole monarch of the universal earth. \nO, what a beast was I to chide at him! \nShall I speak ill of him that is my husband? \nAh, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, \nWhen I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? \nBut, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? \nThat villain cousin would have kill'd my husband: \nBack, foolish tears, back to your native spring; \nYour tributary drops belong to woe, \nWhich you, mistaking, offer up to joy. \nMy husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain; \nAnd Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband: \nAll this is comfort; wherefore weep I then? \nSome word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, \nThat murder'd me: I would forget it fain; \nBut, O, it presses to my memory, \nLike damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds: \n'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banished;' \nThat 'banished,' that one word 'banished,' \nHath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death \nWas woe enough, if it had ended there: \nOr, if sour woe delights in fellowship \nAnd needly will be rank'd with other griefs, \nWhy follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,' \nThy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, \nWhich modern lamentations might have moved? \nBut with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death, \n'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word, \nIs father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, \nAll slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!' \nThere is no end, no limit, measure, bound, \nIn that word's death; no words can that woe sound. \nWhere is my father, and my mother, nurse? \nWash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent, \nWhen theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. \nTake up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled, \nBoth you and I; for Romeo is exiled: \nHe made you for a highway to my bed; \nBut I, a maid, die maiden-widowed. \nCome, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed; \nAnd death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead! \nO, find him! give this ring to my true knight, \nAnd bid him come to take his last farewell. \nWilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: \nIt was the nightingale, and not the lark, \nThat pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; \nNightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree: \nBelieve me, love, it was the nightingale. \nYon light is not day-light, I know it, I: \nIt is some meteor that the sun exhales, \nTo be to thee this night a torch-bearer, \nAnd light thee on thy way to Mantua: \nTherefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone. \nIt is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away! \nIt is the lark that sings so out of tune, \nStraining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. \nSome say the lark makes sweet division; \nThis doth not so, for she divideth us: \nSome say the lark and loathed toad change eyes, \nO, now I would they had changed voices too! \nSince arm from arm that voice doth us affray, \nHunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day, \nO, now be gone; more light and light it grows. \nThen, window, let day in, and let life out. \nArt thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend! \nI must hear from thee every day in the hour, \nFor in a minute there are many days: \nO, by this count I shall be much in years \nEre I again behold my Romeo! \nO think'st thou we shall ever meet again? \nO God, I have an ill-divining soul! \nMethinks I see thee, now thou art below, \nAs one dead in the bottom of a tomb: \nEither my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale. \nO fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle: \nIf thou art fickle, what dost thou with him. \nThat is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune; \nFor then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long, \nBut send him back. \nWho is't that calls? is it my lady mother? \nIs she not down so late, or up so early? \nWhat unaccustom'd cause procures her hither? \nMadam, I am not well. \nYet let me weep for such a feeling loss. \nFeeling so the loss, \nCannot choose but ever weep the friend. \nWhat villain madam? \nVillain and he be many miles asunder.-- \nGod Pardon him! I do, with all my heart; \nAnd yet no man like he doth grieve my heart. \nAy, madam, from the reach of these my hands: \nWould none but I might venge my cousin's death! \nIndeed, I never shall be satisfied \nWith Romeo, till I behold him--dead-- \nIs my poor heart for a kinsman vex'd. \nMadam, if you could find out but a man \nTo bear a poison, I would temper it; \nThat Romeo should, upon receipt thereof, \nSoon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors \nTo hear him named, and cannot come to him. \nTo wreak the love I bore my cousin \nUpon his body that slaughter'd him! \nAnd joy comes well in such a needy time: \nWhat are they, I beseech your ladyship? \nMadam, in happy time, what day is that? \nNow, by Saint Peter's Church and Peter too, \nHe shall not make me there a joyful bride. \nI wonder at this haste; that I must wed \nEre he, that should be husband, comes to woo. \nI pray you, tell my lord and father, madam, \nI will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear, \nIt shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, \nRather than Paris. These are news indeed! \nNot proud, you have; but thankful, that you have: \nProud can I never be of what I hate; \nBut thankful even for hate, that is meant love. \nGood father, I beseech you on my knees, \nHear me with patience but to speak a word. \nIs there no pity sitting in the clouds, \nThat sees into the bottom of my grief? \nO, sweet my mother, cast me not away! \nDelay this marriage for a month, a week; \nOr, if you do not, make the bridal bed \nIn that dim monument where Tybalt lies. \nO God!--O nurse, how shall this be prevented? \nMy husband is on earth, my faith in heaven; \nHow shall that faith return again to earth, \nUnless that husband send it me from heaven \nBy leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me. \nAlack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems \nUpon so soft a subject as myself! \nWhat say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy? \nSome comfort, nurse. \nSpeakest thou from thy heart? \nAmen! \nWell, thou hast comforted me marvellous much. \nGo in: and tell my lady I am gone, \nHaving displeased my father, to Laurence' cell, \nTo make confession and to be absolved. \nAncient damnation! O most wicked fiend! \nIs it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, \nOr to dispraise my lord with that same tongue \nWhich she hath praised him with above compare \nSo many thousand times? Go, counsellor; \nThou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. \nI'll to the friar, to know his remedy: \nIf all else fail, myself have power to die. \nThat may be, sir, when I may be a wife. \nWhat must be shall be. \nTo answer that, I should confess to you. \nI will confess to you that I love him. \nIf I do so, it will be of more price, \nBeing spoke behind your back, than to your face. \nThe tears have got small victory by that; \nFor it was bad enough before their spite. \nThat is no slander, sir, which is a truth; \nAnd what I spake, I spake it to my face. \nIt may be so, for it is not mine own. \nAre you at leisure, holy father, now; \nOr shall I come to you at evening mass? \nO shut the door! and when thou hast done so, \nCome weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help! \nTell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this, \nUnless thou tell me how I may prevent it: \nIf, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help, \nDo thou but call my resolution wise, \nAnd with this knife I'll help it presently. \nGod join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands; \nAnd ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd, \nShall be the label to another deed, \nOr my true heart with treacherous revolt \nTurn to another, this shall slay them both: \nTherefore, out of thy long-experienced time, \nGive me some present counsel, or, behold, \n'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife \nShall play the umpire, arbitrating that \nWhich the commission of thy years and art \nCould to no issue of true honour bring. \nBe not so long to speak; I long to die, \nIf what thou speak'st speak not of remedy. \nO, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, \nFrom off the battlements of yonder tower; \nOr walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk \nWhere serpents are; chain me with roaring bears; \nOr shut me nightly in a charnel-house, \nO'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones, \nWith reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls; \nOr bid me go into a new-made grave \nAnd hide me with a dead man in his shroud; \nThings that, to hear them told, have made me tremble; \nAnd I will do it without fear or doubt, \nTo live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love. \nGive me, give me! O, tell not me of fear! \nLove give me strength! and strength shall help afford. \nWhere I have learn'd me to repent the sin \nOf disobedient opposition \nTo you and your behests, and am enjoin'd \nBy holy Laurence to fall prostrate here, \nAnd beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you! \nHenceforward I am ever ruled by you. \nI met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell; \nAnd gave him what becomed love I might, \nNot step o'er the bounds of modesty. \nNurse, will you go with me into my closet, \nTo help me sort such needful ornaments \nAs you think fit to furnish me to-morrow? \nAy, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse, \nI pray thee, leave me to my self to-night, \nFor I have need of many orisons \nTo move the heavens to smile upon my state, \nWhich, well thou know'st, is cross, and full of sin. \nNo, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries \nAs are behoveful for our state to-morrow: \nSo please you, let me now be left alone, \nAnd let the nurse this night sit up with you; \nFor, I am sure, you have your hands full all, \nIn this so sudden business. \nFarewell! God knows when we shall meet again. \nI have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, \nThat almost freezes up the heat of life: \nI'll call them back again to comfort me: \nNurse! What should she do here? \nMy dismal scene I needs must act alone. \nCome, vial. \nWhat if this mixture do not work at all? \nShall I be married then to-morrow morning? \nNo, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there. \nWhat if it be a poison, which the friar \nSubtly hath minister'd to have me dead, \nLest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd, \nBecause he married me before to Romeo? \nI fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not, \nFor he hath still been tried a holy man. \nHow if, when I am laid into the tomb, \nI wake before the time that Romeo \nCome to redeem me? there's a fearful point! \nShall I not, then, be stifled in the vault, \nTo whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, \nAnd there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? \nOr, if I live, is it not very like, \nThe horrible conceit of death and night, \nTogether with the terror of the place,-- \nAs in a vault, an ancient receptacle, \nWhere, for these many hundred years, the bones \nOf all my buried ancestors are packed: \nWhere bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, \nLies festering in his shroud; where, as they say, \nAt some hours in the night spirits resort;-- \nAlack, alack, is it not like that I, \nSo early waking, what with loathsome smells, \nAnd shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth, \nThat living mortals, hearing them, run mad:-- \nO, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, \nEnvironed with all these hideous fears? \nAnd madly play with my forefather's joints? \nAnd pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? \nAnd, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone, \nAs with a club, dash out my desperate brains? \nO, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost \nSeeking out Romeo, that did spit his body \nUpon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay! \nRomeo, I come! this do I drink to thee. \nO comfortable friar! where is my lord? \nI do remember well where I should be, \nAnd there I am. Where is my Romeo? \nGo, get thee hence, for I will not away. \nWhat's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand? \nPoison, I see, hath been his timeless end: \nO churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop \nTo help me after? I will kiss thy lips; \nHaply some poison yet doth hang on them, \nTo make die with a restorative. \nYea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger! \nThis is thy sheath; \nthere rust, and let me die.