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Romeo and Juliet: Act II, Scene 5

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Romeo and Juliet
Act II, Scene 5

Capulet’s orchard.

Julia Marlowe as Juliet

Julia Marlowe as Juliet

B. J. Falk, 1892

  1. Enter Juliet.

Juliet

1 - 19
  1. The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;
  2. In half an hour she promised to return.
  3. Perchance she cannot meet him—that’s not so.
  4. O, she is lame! Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
  5. Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,
  6. Driving back shadows over low’ring hills;
  7. Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw Love,
  8. And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
  9. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
  10. Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve
  11. Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
  12. Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
  13. She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
  14. My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
  15. And his to me.
  16. But old folks—many feign as they were dead,
  17. Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead.
  18. Enter Nurse and Peter.
  19. O God, she comes! O honey nurse, what news?
  20. Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

Nurse

20
  1. Peter, stay at the gate.
  1. Exit Peter.

Juliet

21 - 24
  1. Now, good sweet nurse—O Lord, why lookest thou sad?
  2. Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
  3. If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news
  4. By playing it to me with so sour a face.

Nurse

25 - 26
  1. I am a-weary, give me leave a while.
  2. Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I!

Juliet

27 - 28
  1. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news.
  2. Nay, come, I pray thee speak, good, good nurse, speak.

Nurse

29 - 30
  1. Jesu, what haste! Can you not stay a while?
  2. Do you not see that I am out of breath?

Juliet

31 - 37
  1. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
  2. To say to me that thou art out of breath?
  3. The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
  4. Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
  5. Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that.
  6. Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance.
  7. Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?

Nurse

38 - 44
  1. Well, you have made a simple choice, you know not how to
  2. choose a man. Romeo! No, not he. Though his face be better
  3. than any man’s, yet his leg excels all men’s, and for a hand
  4. and a foot and a body, though they be not to be talk’d on,
  5. yet they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy,
  6. but I’ll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways,
  7. wench, serve God. What, have you din’d at home?

O Lord, why lookest thou sad?

John Masey Wright, circa 1810

Juliet

45 - 46
  1. No, no! But all this did I know before.
  2. What says he of our marriage? What of that?

Nurse

47 - 51
  1. Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!
  2. It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
  3. My back a’ t’ other side—ah, my back, my back!
  4. Beshrew your heart for sending me about
  5. To catch my death with jauncing up and down!

Juliet

52 - 53
  1. I’ faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
  2. Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

Nurse

54 - 56
  1. Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
  2. An’ a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome,
  3. And, I warrant, a virtuous—Where is your mother?

Juliet

57 - 60
  1. Where is my mother! Why, she is within,
  2. Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!
  3. “Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
  4. ‘Where is your mother?’”

Nurse

61 - 64
  1.                          O God’s lady dear!
  2. Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow;
  3. Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
  4. Henceforward do your messages yourself.

Juliet

65
  1. Here’s such a coil! Come, what says Romeo?

Nurse

66
  1. Have you got leave to go to shrift today?

Juliet

67
  1. I have.

Nurse

68 - 77
  1. Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’ cell,
  2. There stays a husband to make you a wife.
  3. Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
  4. They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.
  5. Hie you to church, I must another way,
  6. To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
  7. Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
  8. I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;
  9. But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
  10. Go, I’ll to dinner, hie you to the cell.

Juliet

78
  1. Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.
  1. Exeunt.
Illustrations of costume, Romeo and Juliet

From: Illustrations of costume, Romeo and Juliet

E. W. Godwin, 1880.

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