Act 2 WSI Romeo and Juliet

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,

Tempering extremities with extreme sweet

Chorus

Can I go forward when my heart is here?

Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out.

Romeo

‘Twould anger him

To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle

Of some strange nature letting it there stand

Till she had laid it and conjured it down.

Mercutio

Now will he sit under a medlar tree

And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit

As maids call medlars when they laugh alone

Mercutio

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she

Romeo

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name.

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Juliet

I take thee at thy word.

Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized.

Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Romeo

With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,

For Stony limits cannot hold love out,

And what love can do, that dares love attempt.

Romeo

I am no pilot. Yet, wert thou as far

As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,

I would adventure for such merchandise

Romeo

Therefore, pardon me,

And not impute this yielding to light love,

Which the dark night hath so discovered

Juliet

Do not swear at all.

Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,

Which is the god of my idolatry,

And I’ll believe thee.

Juliet

O Blessed, blessed night! I am afeard,

Being in night, all this is but a dream,

Too flattering sweet to be substantial

Romeo

A thousand times the worse to want thy light.

Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,

But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.

Romeo

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,

And vice sometime by action dignified

Friar Lawrence

Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!

Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,

So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies

Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes

Friar Lawrence

And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence then:

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men

Friar Lawrence

In one respect I’ll thy assistant be,

For this alliance may so happy prove

To turn your households’ rancor to pure love.

Friar Lawrence

More than Prince of Cats. Oh, he’s the courageous captain

of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps

time, distance, and proportion

Mercutio

Now art thou what

thou art—by art as well as by nature, for this driveling love

is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide

his bauble in a hole.

Mercutio

One, gentlewoman, that God hath made, himself to mar.

Mercutio

To you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.

Nurse

She will indite him to some supper.

Benvolio

No hare, sir, unless a hare, sir, in a Lenten pie—that is,

something stale and hoar ere it be spent.

Mercutio

A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and

will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.

Romeo

I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is

a gentlemanlike offer.

Nurse

Love’s heralds should be thoughts,

Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams,

Driving back shadows over louring hills

Juliet

These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

Which, as they kiss, consume.

Friar Lawrence

Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy

Be heaped like mine, and that thy skill be more

To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath

This neighbor air, and let rich music’s tongue

Unfold the imagined happiness that both

Receive in either by this dear encounter.

Romeo

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,

Brag of his substance, not of ornament.

They are but beggars that can count their worth.

But my true love is grown to such excess

I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

Juliet