Romeo and Juliet

When pressed, Romeo admits he loves a woman. She is fair, Benvolio guesses? A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit. But Romeo replies she will not be hit with Cupid’s arrow; she hath Diana’s wit, is strongly armed in chastity, and will not stay the siege of loving terms nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold. She is rich in beauty, only poor that when she dies, with beauty dies her store. She has forsworn to love, and in that vow Romeo lives dead. Benvolio counsels him to examine other beauties, but Romeo counters that any new mistress will only serve as a note where he can read who passed that passing fair. He cannot be taught to forget; Benvolio, accepting his debt, will pay that doctrine or die in debt.

The scene shifts to a street where Capulet walks with Count Paris and a servant. Paris, a young nobleman and kinsman to the Prince, presses his suit for Juliet’s hand. Capulet, though honourable and of good reckoning, demurs: Juliet is not yet fourteen, a stranger in the world. Let two more summers wither before they think her ripe. Paris answers that younger than she are happy mothers made; Capulet replies that those so early made are too soon marred. The earth hath swallowed all his hopes but her; she is the hopeful lady of his earth. But if Paris can win her heart, his consent will follow. Capulet then invites Paris to an old accustomed feast that very night, where many fair ladies shall be gathered. He hands the servant a paper listing the invited guests and bids him trudge through Verona to deliver the invitations.

The servant, illiterate, laments that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last — but he must find those whose names are written. Benvolio and Romeo appear, and the servant begs Romeo, who can read, to help. Romeo reads the list, which includes the fair Rosaline, the lady he loves. Benvolio seizes his chance: at this very feast of Capulet’s shall Rosaline sup, with all the admired beauties of Verona. Go thither, he urges, with unattainted eye, compare her face with others, and he will make Romeo think his swan a crow. Romeo scoffs that the all-seeing sun ne’er saw her match, but he consents to go, intending to rejoice only in her splendour.

Thus ends the first portion: Verona’s streets have run with threatened blood, the Prince has warned both houses, Romeo broods over Rosaline, and an invitation to the Capulet feast has fallen into his hands — the very feast where he will look upon a different face and his tragedy will truly begin.

Part 4

The morning found Romeo in the Friar’s cell, his confession tumbling out in riddles before he could be stopped. He had been feasting with his enemy, he said, and on a sudden one had wounded him who was by him wounded. Both remedies lay in the holy man’s help. Then, when pressed to speak plainly, Romeo dropped all pretense: his heart’s dear love was set on the fair daughter of rich Capulet, hers on his, and all combined save what holy marriage must combine. He asked the Friar to join them that very day.

Friar Lawrence stared as if he had been struck. Holy Saint Francis, what a change was here! Was Rosaline, that Romeo had loved so dear, so soon forsaken? Young men’s love, the Friar muttered, lay not truly in their hearts but in their eyes. He remembered only too well the salt water Romeo had wept, the sighs and groans that had rung in his ancient ears, the salt-stain of an old tear not yet washed from his cheek. If these woes had truly been Romeo’s, then the young man and his woes had all been for Rosaline, and now he was changed. Women might fall, the Friar concluded darkly, when there was no strength in men.

Romeo bore the scolding patiently, reminding the Friar that he himself had once bid him bury love—though not in a grave, the Friar snapped back, where one woman is laid in and another brought out. The young lover pressed on: her I love now doth grace for grace and love for love allow; the other did not so. At last the Friar’s resistance cracked, not from romance but from reason. This alliance might so happy prove, he said, as to turn the households’ rancor into pure love. Romeo was already on his feet, declaring he stood on sudden haste. Wisely and slow, the Friar warned, they stumble that run fast.

Out on the sunny street, meanwhile, Mercutio and Benvolio were wondering aloud what had become of their friend. He had not been home to his father; Benvolio had spoken with his man. Mercutio was in top form, declaring that the pale hard-hearted wench Rosaline was tormenting Romeo into madness. He was still chattering when Benvolio mentioned that Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, had sent a letter to Romeo’s father’s house. A challenge, Mercutio cried, on my life. Any man that can write may answer a letter, Benvolio replied, but Romeo would answer the letter’s master, how he dares, being dared.

Poor Romeo, Mercutio laughed, was already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black eye, run through the ear with a love song, his very heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft. Was he a man to encounter Tybalt? Benvolio asked what Tybalt was, and Mercutio launched into a gloriously elaborate mockery: more than Prince of cats, the courageous captain of compliments, who fights as you sing prick-song, keeping time, distance, and proportion, the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a gentleman of the very first house. The immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay! Benvolio, lost, cried “The what?” Mercutio threw up his hands at these new tuners of accent, these fashion-mongers, these pardon-me’s who could not sit at ease on the old bench. O their bones, their bones!

Then Romeo himself appeared, and Mercutio, calling him a dried herring without his roe, swung into Petrarchan parody, declaring that Laura to his lady was but a kitchen wench, Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots. Signior Romeo, bonjour! There was a French salutation for his French slop. Romeo begged pardon for slipping away the night before; his business had been great. Such a case as his, Mercutio said sweetly, constrained a man to bow in the hams—meaning, to curtsy. They fenced wordily through several more rounds, Romeo good-naturedly, Mercutio delighted with his own wit, until at last Mercutio declared that Romeo was sociable again, was Romeo, was what he was by art as well as by nature, for drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.