Anchorwoman: Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes. A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. Whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parent's stife. The fearful passage of their death marked love and the continuance of their parent's rage which but their children's end naught could remove is now the two hours traffic of our stage.
Gregory: A dog of the house of Capulet moves me!
Benvolio: The quarrel is between our masters.
Gregory: ...and us their men!
Gregory/Sampson (singing): I am a pretty piece of flesh! I am a pretty piece of flesh!
Sampson: Here comes the House of Capulet.
Gregory: Quarrel! I will back thee.
Sampson: I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it.
Gregory: Go forth. I will back thee.
Abra: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sampson: I do bite my thumb, sir.
Abra: Do you bite your thumb at US...sir?
Sampson: Is the law on our side if I say "Ay"?
Gregory: No.
Sampson: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir!
Gregory: Do you quarrel, sir?
Abra: Quarrel, sir, no sir.
Sampson: But if you do, sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.
Abra: NO better?
Gregory: Here comes our kinsman. Say "better".
Sampson: YES SIR, BETTER!
Abra: You lie. DRAW IF YOU BE MEN!
Benvolio: Part fools! You know not what you do! Put up your swords!
Tybalt: What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee Benvolio and look upon thy death.
Benvolio: I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword, or manage it to part these men with me.
Tybalt: Peace? Peace. I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
Captain Prince: Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, throw your mistempered weapons to the ground.
Captain Prince: Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word by thee, old Capulet and Montague, have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets. If ever you disturb our streets again, your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
Caroline Montague: Oh where is Romeo, saw you him today? Right glad
I am he was not at this fray.
Benvolio: Madam, underneath the Grove of Sycamore so early walking did
I see your son.
Montague: Many a morning hath he there been seen with tears
augmenting the fresh morning's dew.
Caroline: Away from light steals home my heavy son and private in his chamber pens himself, shuts up his windows, locks fair
daylight out, and makes himself an artificial night.
Romeo V.O.: Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything, of nothing first create! Heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms.
Montague: Black and portentous must this humor prove unless good counsel may the cause remove.
Benvolio: So please you step aside. I'll know his grievance or be much denied.
Benvolio: Good morrow, cousin.
Romeo: Is the day so young?
Benvolio: But new struck, coz.
Romeo: Ay me! Sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast?
Benvolio: It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Romeo: Not having that which having makes them short.
Benvolio: In love?
Romeo: Out.
Benvolio: Of love?
Romeo: Out of her favor where I am in love.
Benvolio: Alas that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
Romeo: Alas that love, whose view is muffled, still should without eyes, see pathways to his will. 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. Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity. Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, feather of lead...dost though not laugh?
Benvolio: No, coz, I rather weep.
Romeo: Good heart, at what?
Benvolio: At thy good hearts' oppression.
Romeo: Farewell, my coz.
Benvolio: Soft! I will go along. And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
Dave: Of honorable reckoning are you both, and pity 'tis you lived at odds so long. But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
Capulet: But saying o'er what I have said before; my child is yet a stranger in the world; let two more summers wither in their pride, ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
Benvolio: Tell me in sadness, who is it that you love?
Romeo: In sadness, cousin, I do love a women.
Benvolio: I aimed so near when I supposed you loved.
Romeo: A right good marksman. And she's fair I love.
Benvolio: Alright fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
Romeo: Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit with Cupid's
arrow. Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes, nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
Benvolio: Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
Romeo: She hath; and in that sparing makes huge waste.
Benvolio: Be ruled by me; forget to think of her.
Romeo: Teach me how I should forget to think!
Benvolio: By giving liberty unto thine eyes. Examine other beauties.Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
Romeo: Not mad, but bound more than a madman is; shut up in prison, kept
without my food, whipped and tormented.
Romeo: Good day, good fellow.
Benvolio:Go thither, and with unattained eye, compare her face with some
that I shall show, and I will make thee think thy swan a crow!
Romeo: I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, but to rejoice in splendor
of mine own!
Nurse: J-U-L-I-E-T!!!!!!
Gloria Capulet: Nurse. Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.
Nurse: I bade her come. God forbid! Juliet!
Juliet: Madam, I am here. What is your will?
Gloria: Nurse, give us leave awhile, we must talk in secret.
Gloria: Nurse, come back again. I have remembered me. Thou's hear our counsel. Nurse, thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.
Nurse: Thou wast the prettiest babe that I e'er I nursed.
Gloria: By my count, I was your mother much upon these years 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.
Gloria: Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse: Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
Gloria: This night you shall behold him at our feast; read o'er the volume of young Paris' face and find delight writ there with beauty's pen. This precious book of love, this unbound lover, to beautify him only lacks a cover. So shall you share all that he doth possess, by having him, making yourself no less.
Nurse: Nay bigger women grow by men.
Gloria: Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
Juliet: I'll look to like, if looking liking move, but no more deep will I endart mine eye, than your consent gives stength to make it fly.
Nurse: Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
Mercutio: Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
Romeo: Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead.
Mercutio: You are a lover, borrow Cupid's wings and soar with them above a common bound.
Romeo: Under love's heavy burden do I sink!
Mercutio: Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Romeo: Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
Mercutio: If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Benvolio: Every man be take him to his legs!
Mercutio: Come, we burn daylight, no!
Romeo: But 'tis no wit to go.
Mercutio: Why, may one ask?
Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: And what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
Mercutio: Then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomies over men's noses as they lie asleep. Her chariot is an empty hazelnut her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat. And in this state she gallops night by night through lovers brains, and then they dream of love. O'er lawyers' fingers who straight dreams on fees; sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, and then dreams he of cutting foreign throats. And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two and sleeps again. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, that presses them and learns them first to bear, making them women of good carriage. This is she, this she...
Romeo: Peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talkst of nothing.
Mercutio: True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy. Which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind, who woos even now the frozen bosom of the north, and being angered puffs away from thence, turning his side to the dew-dropping south.
Benvolio: This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves. Supper is done,
and we shall come to late.
Romeo: I fear, too early, for my mind misgives some consequence yet
hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night's revels, and expire the term of a despised life closed within my breast, by some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage of my course direct my sail.
Romeo: On, lusty gentlemen.
Romeo (takes pill): Drugs are quick.
Dave (extending his hand to Juliet): Will you now deny to dance?
Gloria (whispering to Juliet): A man, young lady, such a man.
Tybalt: What, dares the slave come hither to fleer and scorn at our solemnity? Now by the stock and honor of my kin to strike him dead I hold it not a sin.
Capulet: Why, how now, kinsman, wherefore storm you so?
Tybalt: Uncle, this is that villain Romeo. A Montague, our foe.
Capulet: Romeo is it?
Tybalt: 'Tis he.
Capulet: Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone. I would not for the wealth of all this town have in my house do him disparagement. Therefore be patient; take no note of him.
Tybalt: I'll not endure him.
Capulet: He shall be endured! Go to. What, goodman boy! I say he shall! Go to.
Tybalt: Uncle 'tis a shame.
Capulet: You'll make a mutiny among my guests.
Romeo: Did my heart love 'till now? For swear it, sight. For I ne'er saw true beauty 'till this night.
Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this. My lips, two blushing pilgrams, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo: O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do, they pray: grant thou,
lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake.
Romeo: Then move not while my prayer's effect I take. Thus for my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Romeo: Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.
Juliet: You kiss by the book.
Romeo: Is she a Capulet?
Nurse: His name is Romeo, and he's a Montague. The only son of your greatest enemy.
Juliet: My only love sprung from my only hate. Too early seen
unknown, and known too late. Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy.
Mercutio:Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Romeo: He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Romeo: 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: She Speaks. O, speak again, bright angel!
Juliet: Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and
refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I
shall no longer be a Capulet.
Romeo: Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Juliet: 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself though
not a Montague. What's Montague? It is not hand, nor foot, nor arm,
nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as
sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear
perfection to which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
and for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.
Romeo: I take thee at thy word!
Juliet: Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?
Romeo: Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
Juliet: How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The garden walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art.
Romeo: With love's light wings did I o'er perch these walls. For stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt. Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.
Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
Romeo: I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes. And but thou love me, let them find me here. My life were better ended by their hate than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
Juliet: O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon, that monthly
changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Romeo: What shall I swear by?
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.
Romeo: If my heart's dear love--
Juliet: Do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say "It lightens." Sweet, good night. This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night.
Romeo: O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
Juliet: What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?
Romeo: The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.
Juliet: I gave thee mine before thou didst request it!
[kissing him passionately]
Nurse: Juliet!
Juliet: Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed. If that thy bent of love be honorable, thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow, by one that I'll procure to come to thee, where and what time thou wilt perform the rite, and all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay and follow thee, my lord, throughout the world.
Nurse: Julieta!
Juliet: (to Nurse) I come, anon, by and by I come. (to Romeo) But if thou meanest not well, I do beseech thee...
Nurse: Juliet.
Juliet: (to Nurse) By and by I come! (to Romeo) To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief. Tomorrow I will send.
Romeo: So thrive my soul.
Juliet: A thousand times good night.
Romeo: A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
Romeo: Love goes towards love as schoolboys from their books; but love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
Juliet: Romeo! What o'clock tomorrow shall I send to thee?
Romeo: By the hour of nine.
Juliet: (takes off necklace) I will not fail. 'Tis twenty year till then. Goodnight, goodnight! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I
shall say goodnight till it be morrow.(she lets the necklace fall from her and Romeo catches it)
Father Laurence: Almighty is the powerful grace that lies in plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities. For naught so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give; nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use, revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied and vice sometimes by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this weak flower poison is resident and medicine power. For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings encamp them still in man as well as herbs: grace and rude will; and where the worser is predominant, full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Romeo: Good morrow, father!
Father Laurence: Benedicite! What early tongue so sweet saluteh me?
Father Laurence: Young son, it argues a distempered head so soon to bid good morrow to thy bed. Or if not so, then here I hit it right--our Romeo hath not seen his bed tonight.
Romeo: The last is true. The sweeter rest was mine.
Father Laurence: God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?
Romeo: Rosaline, my ghostly father? No. I have forgot that name and that name's woe.
Father Laurence: That's my good son! But where then has thou been then?
Romeo: I have been feasting with mine enemy, where on a sudden one hath wounded me that's by me wounded. Both our remedies within thy help and holy physic lies.
Father Laurence: Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift. Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
Romeo: Then plainly know that my heart's dear love is set, on the fair daughter of rich Capulet. We met, we wooed, and made exchange of vow, I'll tell thee as we pass. But this I pray, that thou consent to marry us today.
Father Laurence: Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here! Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear, so soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Romeo: Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.
Father Laurence: For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Romeo: I pray thee chide me not. Her I love now doth grace for grace and love for love allow. The other did not so.
Father Laurence: O, she well knew. Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
Benvolio: Here comes Romeo. Ro-meo!
Romeo: Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a case as mine a many may strain courtesy.
Mercutio: That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
Romeo: Meaning to curtsy.
Mercutio: Thou has most kindly hit it.
Romeo: A most courteous exposition.
Mercutio: Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
Romeo: Pink for flower?
Mercutio: Right.
Romeo: Why, then is my pump well flowered.
Mercutio: God ye good e'en, fair gentlewomen.
Mercutio: Fairwell ancient lady, farewell.
Nurse: If ye should lead her in a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say. For the lady is young; and therefore...if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing and very weak dealing.
Romeo: Bid her to come to confesion this afternoon, and there she shall at
Friar Laurence's cell be shrived and...married!
Juliet: How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath to say to me that thou art out of breath!
Nurse: Well, you have made a simple choice. You know not how to choose a man. Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's and for a hand and a foot and a body.
Juliet: No, no. But all this I did know before. What says he of our marriage? What of that?
Juliet: O, Here's such a coil! COME, WHAT SAYS ROMEO?
Nurse: Have you got leave to go to confession today?
Juliet: I have.
Nurse: Then hie you hence to Father Laurence's cell. There stays a husband to make you a wife!
Benvolio: By my head, here come the Capulets.
Mercutio: By my heel, I care not.
Mercutio: Ooh but one word with one of us? Couple it with something. Make it a word and a...blow.
Tybalt: Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford no better term than this: thou art a villain!
Romeo: Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the
appertaining rage to such a greeting: villain am I none, therefore
farewell. I see thou knowest me not.
Romeo: I do contest. I never injured thee, but love be better than thou can't survive so though shalt know the reason of my love and so...satisfied. Be satisfied.
Mercutio: They have made worms' meat of me. A plague o' both your houses!
Mercutio: Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.
Romeo: I thought all for the best.
Juliet: Come gentle night, come loving black browed night, give me my Romeo. And when I 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.
Romeo: Mercutio's soul is but a little way above our heads, staying for
thine to keep him company.
Tybalt: Thou, wretched boy, shall with him hence.
Romeo: Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.
Romeo: I am Fortune's Fool!
Balthasar: Romeo, away, be gone! Stand not amazed!!
Captain Prince: Where are the vile beginners of this frame? Benvolio, who began this bloody frame?
Benvolio: Romeo, he cried aloud old friend. Tybalt hit the light that stopped Mercutio. Tybalt here slain. Romeo's hand did slay.
Gloria: I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give; Romeo slew Tybalt. Romeo must not live!
Captain Prince: Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio; who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?
Montague: Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio's friend; his fault concludes but what the law should end, the life of Tybalt.
Captain Prince: And for that offence immediately we do exile him. Let Romeo hence in haste, else, when he is found that hour is his last. Romeo is banished.
Romeo: Banishment. Be merciful. Say death, for exile hath more terror in his look, much more than death. Do not say banishment.
Father Laurence: Affliction is enamoured of thy parts and thou art wed did to calamity. Hence from Verona art thou banished. Be patient for the world is broad and wide.
Romeo: There is no world without Verona walls. Banished is banished from the world and world's exile is death and banished is death misterm calling death banished. Thou cuts my head off with a golden ax and smiles upon thy stroke that murders me.
Juliet V.O.: Oh god, did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood? Oh serpent heart hidden with a flowering face. Was every book containing such vile matters so fairly bound? Oh that deceipt should dwell in such a gorgeous palace.
Romeo:Speakest thou of Juliet? Where is she? And how doth she? And what says my concealed lady to our canceled love?
Nurse: O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps, and then on Romeo cries, and then falls down again.
Romeo: As if that name, shot from the deadly level of a gun, did murder her, as that name's cursed hand murdered her kinsman!
Father Laurence: I thought thy disposition better tempered! Thy Juliet is alive. There art thou happy. Tybalt. There are thou happy. The law that threatened death becomes thy friend and turns to exile. There art thou happy. A pack of blessings light upon thy back.
Gloria: She'll not come down tonight.
Capulet: Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly.
Gloria: And so did I.
Capulet: Well, we were born to die.
Juliet V.O.: Shall I speak ill of him, that is my husband? Oh, poor my lord what tongue shall smooth thy name when I thy three hours wife have mangled it?
Juliet: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
Romeo: I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Romeo: Let me be taken, let me be put to death. I have more care to stay then will to go. Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so. How is't, my soul? Let's talk. It is not day.
Juliet: It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away! O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.
Romeo: More light and light: more dark and dark our woes.
Juliet: Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
Juliet:O God, I have an ill-divining soul. Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Juliet: O Fortune, Fortune! Be fickle, Fortune, for then I hope thou wilt not keep him long but send him back.
Gloria: Thou hast a careful father, child; one who, to put thee from thy heaviness, hath sorted out a sudden day of joy which thou expects not nor I looked not for.
Juliet: Madam, in happy time. What day is that?
Gloria: Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn the gallant, young and noble gentleman, sir Paris, at Saint Peter's Church, shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
Juliet: Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too, he shall not make me there a joyful bride!
Gloria: Here comes your father. Tell him yourself.
Capulet: How now, wife? Have you delivered to her our decree?
Gloria: Ay, sir. But she will none, she gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave!
Capulet: How? Will she none? Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest, unworthy as she is, that we have wrought so worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
Juliet: Not proud you have, but thankful that you have. Proud can I never be of what I hate. O sweet my mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a week. Or if you do not, make the bridal bed in that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
Gloria: Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
Juliet: What sayest thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, Nurse.
Nurse: Faith, here it is. I think it best you married with this Paris. O, he's a lovely gentelman! I think you are happy in this second match, for it excels your first; or if it did not, your first is dead--or 'twere as good he were as living here and you no use to him.
Juliet: Speakest thou from thy heart?
Nurse: And from my soul too. Else beshrew them both.
Juliet: Amen.
Juliet: Be not so long to speak. I long to die!
Romeo:J-U-L-I-E-T
