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Romeo and Juliet: Act III, Scene 5

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Romeo and Juliet
Act III, Scene 5

Capulet’s orchard and Juliet’s chamber.

Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.

Benjamin West, 18th century

  1. Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft at the window.

Juliet

1 - 5
  1. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
  2. It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
  3. That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
  4. Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
  5. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo

6 - 11
  1. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
  2. No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
  3. Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
  4. Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
  5. Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
  6. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Juliet

12 - 16
  1. Yond light is not day-light, I know it, I;
  2. It is some meteor that the sun exhal’d
  3. To be to thee this night a torch-bearer
  4. And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
  5. Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.

Romeo

17 - 25
  1. Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death,
  2. I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
  3. I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
  4. ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow;
  5. Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
  6. The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
  7. I have more care to stay than will to go.
  8. Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
  9. How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk, it is not day.

Juliet

26 - 35
  1. It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away!
  2. It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
  3. Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
  4. Some say the lark makes sweet division;
  5. This doth not so, for she divideth us.
  6. Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
  7. O now I would they had chang’d voices too,
  8. Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    Frighten. This word later evolved into “afraid”.
  9. Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
  10. O now be gone, more light and light it grows.

Romeo

36
  1. More light and light, more dark and dark our woes!
  1. Enter Nurse hastily.

Nurse

37
  1. Madam!

Juliet

38
  1. Nurse?

Nurse

39 - 40
  1. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.
  2. The day is broke, be wary, look about.
  1. Exit.

Juliet

41
  1. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

Romeo

42
  1. Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I’ll descend.
  1. He goeth down.

Juliet

43 - 47
  1. Art thou gone so, love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
  2. I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
  3. For in a minute there are many days.
  4. O, by this count I shall be much in years
  5. Ere I again behold my Romeo!

Romeo

48 - 50
  1. From below.
  2.                              Farewell!
  3. I will omit no opportunity
  4. That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

Juliet

51
  1. O, think’st thou we shall ever meet again?

Romeo

52 - 53
  1. I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve
  2. For sweet discourses in our times to come.

Juliet

54 - 57
  1. O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
  2. Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low,
  3. As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
  4. Either my eyesight fails, or thou lookest pale.

Romeo

58 - 59
  1. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you;
  2. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!
  1. Exit.

Juliet

60 - 64
  1. O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle;
  2. If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
  3. That is renowm’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune:
  4. For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long,
  5. But send him back.

Lady Capulet

65
  1. Within.
  2.                    Ho, daughter, are you up?

Juliet

66 - 68
  1. Who is’t that calls? It is my lady mother.
  2. Is she not down so late, or up so early?
  3. What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?
  1. She goeth down from the window.
  1. Enter Mother, Lady Capulet.

Byam Shaw, 1901

Lady Capulet

69
  1. Why, how now, Juliet?

Juliet

70
  1.                       Madam, I am not well.

Lady Capulet

71 - 75
  1. Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
  2. What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
  3. And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
  4. Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of love,
  5. But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

Juliet

76
  1. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

Lady Capulet

77 - 78
  1. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
  2. Which you weep for.

Juliet

79 - 80
  1.                     Feeling so the loss,
  2. I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

Lady Capulet

81 - 82
  1. Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death,
  2. As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

Juliet

83
  1. What villain, madam?

Lady Capulet

84
  1.                      That same villain Romeo.

Juliet

85 - 87
  1. Aside.
  2. Villain and he be many miles asunder.—
  3. God pardon him! I do with all my heart;
  4. And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

Lady Capulet

88
  1. That is because the traitor murderer lives.

Juliet

89 - 90
  1. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.
  2. Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!

Lady Capulet

91 - 96
  1. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.
  2. Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
  3. Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
  4. Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram
  5. That he shall soon keep Tybalt company;
  6. And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.

Juliet

97 - 106
  1. Indeed I never shall be satisfied
  2. With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—
  3. Is my poor heart, so for a kinsman vex’d.
  4. Madam, if you could find out but a man
  5. To bear a poison, I would temper it,
  6. That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
  7. Soon sleep in quiet. O how my heart abhors
  8. To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him
  9. To wreak the love I bore my cousin
  10. Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him!

Lady Capulet

107 - 108
  1. Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
  2. But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

Juliet

109 - 110
  1. And joy comes well in such a needy time.
  2. What are they, beseech your ladyship?

Lady Capulet

111 - 114
  1. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child,
  2. One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
  3. Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
  4. That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.

Juliet

115
  1. Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

Lady Capulet

116 - 119
  1. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,
  2. The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
  3. The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
  4. Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

Juliet

120 - 127
  1. Now, by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too,
  2. He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
  3. I wonder at this haste, that I must wed
  4. Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
  5. I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,
  6. I will not marry yet, and when I do, I swear
  7. It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
  8. Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!

Lady Capulet

128 - 129
  1. Here comes your father, tell him so yourself;
  2. And see how he will take it at your hands.
  1. Enter Capulet and Nurse.

Capulet

130 - 142
  1. When the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle dew,
  2. But for the sunset of my brother’s son
  3. It rains downright.
  4. How now, a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?
  5. Evermore show’ring? In one little body
  6. Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind:
  7. For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
  8. Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
  9. Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs,
  10. Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,
  11. Without a sudden calm, will overset
  12. Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?
  13. Have you delivered to her our decree?

I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

Raphael Tuck & Sons, before 1928

Lady Capulet

143 - 144
  1. Ay, sir, but she will none, she gives you thanks.
  2. I would the fool were married to her grave!

Capulet

145 - 149
  1. Soft, take me with you, take me with you, wife.
  2. How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?
  3. Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,
  4. Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
  5. So worthy a gentleman to be her bride?

Juliet

150 - 152
  1. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.
  2. Proud can I never be of what I hate,
  3. But thankful even for hate that is meant love.

Capulet

153 - 161
  1. How how, how how, chopp’d logic! What is this?
  2. “Proud,” and “I thank you,” and “I thank you not,”
  3. And yet “not proud,” mistress minion you?
  4. Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
  5. But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next,
  6. To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
  7. Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
  8. Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
  9. You tallow-face!

Lady Capulet

162
  1.                  Fie, fie, what, are you mad?

Juliet

163 - 164
  1. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
  2. Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
  1. She kneels down.

Capulet

165 - 173
  1. Hang thee, young baggage! Disobedient wretch!
  2. I tell thee what: get thee to church a’ Thursday,
  3. Or never after look me in the face.
  4. Speak not, reply not, do not answer me!
  5. My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
  6. That God had lent us but this only child,
  7. But now I see this one is one too much,
  8. And that we have a curse in having her.
  9. Out on her, hilding!

Nurse

174 - 175
  1.                      God in heaven bless her!
  2. You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

Capulet

176 - 177
  1. And why, my Lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,
  2. Good Prudence, smatter with your gossips, go.

Nurse

178
  1. I speak no treason.

Capulet

179
  1.                     O, God-i-goden!

Nurse

180
  1. May not one speak?

Capulet

181 - 183
  1. Peace, you mumbling fool!
  2. Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,
  3. For here we need it not.

Lady Capulet

184
  1.                          You are too hot.

Capulet

185 - 204
  1. God’s bread, it makes me mad! Day, night, work, play,
  2. Alone, in company, still my care hath been
  3. To have her match’d; and having now provided
  4. A gentleman of noble parentage,
  5. Of fair demesnes, youthful and nobly lien’d,
  6. Stuff’d, as they say, with honorable parts,
  7. Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man,
  8. And then to have a wretched puling fool,
  9. A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
  10. To answer, “I’ll not wed, I cannot love;
  11. I am too young, I pray you pardon me.”
  12. But and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you.
  13. Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.
  14. Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
  15. Thursday is near, lay hand on heart, advise.
  16. And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
  17. And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
  18. For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
  19. Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
  20. Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.
  1. Exit.

Jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops

George Richmond, circa 1830

Juliet

205 - 210
  1. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
  2. That sees into the bottom of my grief?
  3. O sweet my mother, cast me not away!
  4. Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
  5. Or if you do not, make the bridal bed
  6. In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

Lady Capulet

211 - 212
  1. Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
  2. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
  1. Exit.

Juliet

213 - 221
  1. O God!—O nurse, how shall this be prevented?
  2. My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
  3. How shall that faith return again to earth,
  4. Unless that husband send it me from heaven
  5. By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me!
  6. Alack, alack, that heaven should practice stratagems
  7. Upon so soft a subject as myself!
  8. What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?
  9. Some comfort, nurse.

Nurse

222 - 235
  1.                      Faith, here it is.
  2. Romeo is banished, and all the world to nothing
  3. That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you;
  4. Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
  5. Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
  6. I think it best you married with the County.
  7. O he’s a lovely gentleman!
  8. Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
  9. Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
  10. As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
  11. I think you are happy in this second match,
  12. For it excels your first; or if it did not,
  13. Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were
  14. As living here and you no use of him.

Juliet

236
  1. Speak’st thou from thy heart?

Nurse

237
  1. And from my soul too, else beshrew them both.

Juliet

238
  1. Amen!

Nurse

239
  1. What?

Juliet

240 - 243
  1. Well, thou hast comforted me marvelous much.
  2. Go in, and tell my lady I am gone,
  3. Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell,
  4. To make confession and to be absolv’d.

Nurse

244
  1. Marry, I will, and this is wisely done.
  1. Exit.

Juliet

245 - 252
  1. She looks after Nurse.
  2. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
  3. Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
  4. Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
  5. Which she hath prais’d him with above compare
  6. So many thousand times? Go, counsellor,
  7. Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
  8. I’ll to the friar to know his remedy;
  9. If all else fail, myself have power to die.
  1. Exit.

Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.

E. and J. Wright; Vernor & Hood, booksellers; 1808

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