Enter Benvolio and ROMEO.

Ben. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's

burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;

One desperate grief cures with another's languish:
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
Ben. For what, I pray thee?
Rom.

For your broken shin.
Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman

is: Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipp'd, and tormented, and-Good-e'en, good

fellow. Serv. God gi' good e'en.-I pray, sir, can you read?

Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

Serv. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book: But I pray, can you read any thing you see?

Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language.
Serv. Ye say honestly; Rest you merry !
Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read. [Reads.

Signior Martino, and his wife, and daughters ; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters ; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena.

* Your plantain leaf is excellent for that,] The plantain leaf is a blood-stauncher, and was formerly applied to green wounds.

A fair assembly; [Gives back the Note.] Whither

should they come ? Serv. Up: Rom. Whither? Serv. To supper; to our house. Rom. Whose house? Serv. My master's. Rom. Indeed, I should have asked you that before.

Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking: My master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry.

[Exit. Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov’st; With all the admired beauties of Verona: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall show, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye

Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires! And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,

Transparent hereticks, be burnt for liars ! One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.

Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by, Herself pois'd with herself in either eye: But in those crystal scales, let there be weigh'd Your lady's love against some other maid That I will show you, shining at this feast, And she shall scant show well, that now shows best.

Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt.

9

crush a cup of wine.] This cant expression seems to have been once common among low people. We still say, in cant language-to crack a bottle.

Your lady's love-] Your lady's love is the love you bear to your body.

SCENE III.

A Room in Capulet's House.

Enter Lady CAPULET and Nurse. La. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her

forth to me. Nurse. Now, by my maiden-head,—at twelve year

old,

I bade her come.-What, lamb! what, lady-bird ! God forbid !- where's this girl?-what, Juliet !

Enter Juliet.

your will?

Jul. How now, who calls?
Nurse.

Your mother.
Jul.

Madam, I am here. What is La. Cap. This is the matter:~Nurse, give leave

awhile,
We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again ;
I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our counsel.
Thou know’st, my daughter's of a pretty age.

Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
La. Cap. She's not fourteen.
Nurse.

I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, And yet, to my teen? be it spoken, I have but

four,
She is not fourteen: How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
La. Cap.

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 !-

My lord and

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,

you

were then at Mantua:Nay, I do bear a brain:3—but, as I said, When it did taste the worinwood 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 ine 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 holy dam, 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. La. Cap. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy

peace.

Nay, I do bear a brain:] That is, I have a perfect remembrance or recollection.

it stinted,] i. e. it stopped, it forbore from weeping. VOL. IX.

D

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 cockrel's stone; ;
A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly.
Yea, quoth my husband, fallost upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com'st to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule? it stinted, and said-Ay.

Jul. 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 nurs'd:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.

La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of:-Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?

Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.

Nurse. An honour ! were not I thine only nurse, I'd say, thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.

La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger 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.

La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
La. Cap. What say you ? can you love the gen-

tleman?

than you,

5

a man of wax.] Well made, as if he had been modelled