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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / Romeo and Juliet / Act I Scene III
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Romeo and Juliet: Act 1 Scene 3
Scene III A room in Capulet's house.
- [Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse]
- LADY CAPULET
- Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.
- NURSE
- Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
- I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird!
- God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!
- [Enter JULIET]
- JULIET
- How now! who calls?
- NURSE
- Your mother.
- JULIET
- Madam, I am here.
- What is your will?
- LADY CAPULET
- This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile,
- We must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again;
- I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.
- Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.
- NURSE
- Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
- LADY CAPULET
- She's not fourteen.
- NURSE
- I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--
- And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--
- She is not fourteen. How long is it now
- To Lammas-tide?
- LADY CAPULET
- A fortnight and odd days.
- NURSE
- Even or odd, of all days in the year,
- Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
- Susan and she--God rest all Christian souls!--
- Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
- She was too good for me: but, as I said,
- On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
- That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
- 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
- And she was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--
- Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
- For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
- Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
- My lord and you were then at Mantua:--
- Nay, I do bear a brain:--but, as I said,
- When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
- Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
- To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
- Shake quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,
- To bid me trudge:
- And since that time it is eleven years;
- For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
- She could have run and waddled all about;
- For even the day before, she broke her brow:
- And then my husband--God be with his soul!
- A' was a merry man--took up the child:
- 'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
- Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
- Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,
- The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'
- To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
- I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
- I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he;
- And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'
- LADY CAPULET
- Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
- NURSE
- Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,
- To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'
- And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
- A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;
- A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:
- 'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?
- Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
- Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'
- JULIET
- And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
- NURSE
- Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!
- Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed:
- An I might live to see thee married once,
- I have my wish.
- LADY CAPULET
- Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme
- I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
- How stands your disposition to be married?
- JULIET
- It is an honour that I dream not of.
- NURSE
- An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
- I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
- LADY CAPULET
- Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
- Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
- Are made already mothers: by my count,
- I was your mother much upon these years
- That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
- The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
- NURSE
- A man, young lady! lady, such a man
- As all the world--why, he's a man of wax.
- LADY CAPULET
- Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
- NURSE
- Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
- LADY CAPULET
- What say you? can you love the gentleman?
- This night you shall behold him at our feast;
- Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
- And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
- Examine every married lineament,
- And see how one another lends content
- And what obscured in this fair volume lies
- Find written in the margent of his eyes.
- This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
- To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
- The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
- For fair without the fair within to hide:
- That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
- That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
- So shall you share all that he doth possess,
- By having him, making yourself no less.
- NURSE
- No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.
- LADY CAPULET
- Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
- JULIET
- I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
- But no more deep will I endart mine eye
- Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
- [Enter a Servant]
- SERVANT
- Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you
- called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in
- the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must
- hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.
- LADY CAPULET
- We follow thee.
- [Exit Servant]
- Juliet, the county stays.
- NURSE
- Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
- [Exeunt]
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