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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / Romeo and Juliet / Act II Scene V
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Romeo and Juliet: Act 2 Scene 5
Scene V Capulet's orchard.
- [Enter JULIET]
- JULIET
- The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;
- In half an hour she promised to return.
- Perchance she cannot meet him: that's not so.
- O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts,
- Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
- Driving back shadows over louring hills:
- Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
- And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
- Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
- Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve
- Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
- Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
- She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
- My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
- And his to me:
- But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
- Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
- O God, she comes!
- [Enter Nurse and PETER]
- O honey nurse, what news?
- Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.
- NURSE
- Peter, stay at the gate.
- [Exit PETER]
- JULIET
- Now, good sweet nurse,--O Lord, why look'st thou sad?
- Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
- If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news
- By playing it to me with so sour a face.
- NURSE
- I am a-weary, give me leave awhile:
- Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!
- JULIET
- I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
- Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.
- NURSE
- Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?
- Do you not see that I am out of breath?
- JULIET
- How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
- To say to me that thou art out of breath?
- The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
- Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
- Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;
- Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
- Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?
- NURSE
- Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not
- how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his
- face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels
- all men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,
- though they be not to be talked on, yet they are
- past compare: he is not the flower of courtesy,
- but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy
- ways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at home?
- JULIET
- No, no: but all this did I know before.
- What says he of our marriage? what of that?
- NURSE
- Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I!
- It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
- My back o' t' other side,--O, my back, my back!
- Beshrew your heart for sending me about,
- To catch my death with jaunting up and down!
- JULIET
- I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
- Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?
- NURSE
- Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a
- courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I
- warrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?
- JULIET
- Where is my mother! why, she is within;
- Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!
- 'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
- Where is your mother?'
- NURSE
- O God's lady dear!
- Are you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;
- Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
- Henceforward do your messages yourself.
- JULIET
- Here's such a coil! come, what says Romeo?
- NURSE
- Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?
- JULIET
- I have.
- NURSE
- Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;
- There stays a husband to make you a wife:
- Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
- They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.
- Hie you to church; I must another way,
- To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
- Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark:
- I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
- But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
- Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.
- JULIET
- Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.
- [Exeunt]
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