R&J Scene 1

Good Morrow, cousin

Is the day so young?

Benvolio: But new struck nine.

Ay me! sad hours seem long.

Was that my mother that went hence so fast?

Benvolio: It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

Not having that which having makes them short.

BENVOLIO

In love?

Out--

BENVOLIO

Of love?

Out of her favour, where I am in love.

BENVOLIO

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,

Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,

Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!

Where shall we dine?

Where shall we dine?

O me! What fray was here?

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.

Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.

Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!

O any thing, of nothing first create!

O heavy lightness! serious vanity!

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,

sick health!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,

sick health!

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

Dost thou not laugh?

BENVOLIO

No, coz, I rather weep.

Good heart, at what?

BENVOLIO

At thy good heart's oppression.

Why, such is love's transgression.

Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,

Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest

With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown

Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;

Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:

What is it else? a madness most discreet,

A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

Farewell, my coz.

BENVOLIO

Soft! I will go along;

An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here.

This is not Romeo, he's some other where.

BENVOLIO

Tell me in sadness, who is that you love.

What, shall I groan and tell thee?

BENVOLIO

Groan? why, no.

But sadly tell me who.

Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:

Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!

In sadness, cousin, I do love…a woman.

BENVOLIO

I aim'd so near when I supposed you loved.

A right good markman. And she's fair I love.

BENVOLIO

A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit

With Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit;

And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,

From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.

From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.

She will not stay the siege of loving terms,

Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,

Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:

O, she is rich in beauty, only poor,

That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.

BENVOLIO

Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

ROMEO

She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,

For beauty starved with her severity

Cuts beauty off from all posterity.

She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,

To merit bliss by making me despair:

She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow

Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

BENVOLIO

Be ruled by me: forget to think of her.

O, teach me how I should forget to think!

BENVOLIO

By giving liberty unto thine eyes;

Examine other beauties.

'Tis the way

To call hers exquisite, in question more:

These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows

Being black put us in mind they hide the fair;

He that is strucken blind cannot forget

The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:

He that is strucken blind cannot forget

The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:

Show me a mistress that is passing fair,

What doth her beauty serve, but as a note

Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?

Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.