JULIET:
Gallop
apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards
Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner
As
Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring
in cloudy night immediately.
Spread
thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That
runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to
these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
Lovers
can see to do their amorous rites
By their
own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best
agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou
sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn
me how to lose a winning match,
Play’d
for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hood my
unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy
black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think
true love acted simple modesty.
Come,
night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou
wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter
than new snow on a raven’s back.
Come,
gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me
my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him
and cut him out in little stars,
And he
will make the face of heaven so fine
That all
the world will be in love with night
And pay
no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have
bought the mansion of a love,
But not
possess’d it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet
enjoy’d: so tedious is this day
As is the
night before some festival
To an
impatient child that hath new robes
And may
not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
And she
brings news; and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo’s
name speaks heavenly eloquence.
Enter
Nurse, with cords
Now,
nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords
That
Romeo bid thee fetch?
Nurse:
Ay, ay,
the cords.
Throws
them down
JULIET:
Ay me!
what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?
Nurse:
Ah,
well-a-day! he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
We are
undone, lady, we are undone!
Alack the
day! he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead!
JULIET:
Can
heaven be so envious?
Nurse:
Romeo
can,
Though
heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!
Who ever
would have thought it? Romeo!
JULIET:
What
devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This
torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
Hath
Romeo slain himself? say thou but ‘I’,
And that
bare vowel ‘I’ shall poison more
Than the
death-darting eye of cockatrice:
I am not
I, if there be such an I;
Or those
eyes shut, that make thee answer ‘I’.
If he be
slain, say ‘I’; or if not, no:
Brief
sounds determine of my weal or woe.
