Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.
LADY CAPULET:
Nurse where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.
NURSE:
Now by my maidenhead at twelve year old,
I bade her come, what lamb, what lady-bird,
God forbid, where's this girl? What Juliet.
JULIET:
How now who calls?
JULIET:
Madam I am here, what is your will?
LADY CAPULET:
This is the matter. Nurse give leave awhile,
we must talk in secret. Nurse come back again,
I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel.
Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.
NURSE:
Faith I can tell her age unto an hour.
LADY CAPULET:
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?
LADY CAPULET:
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, 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 worm-wood to my dug,
sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall.
My Lord and you were then at Mantua,
nay I do bear a brain. But as I said, when it did taste
the worm-wood 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 me trudge: and since that time it is eleven years,
for then she could stand high-lone, nay by th' 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 holidame,
the pretty wretch left crying, and said ay:
to see now how a jest shall come about:
I warrant, and 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.
LADY CAPULET:
Enough of this, I pray thee hold thy peace.
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 it brow, a bump as big as a young cockerel's
stone: a perilous knock, and it cried bitterly.
Yea quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face,
thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age:
wilt thou not Jule? It stinted, and said ay.
JULIET:
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,
and I might live to see thee married once,
LADY CAPULET:
Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of, tell me daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET:
It is an honour that I dream not of.
NURSE:
An honour, were not I thine only Nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
LADY CAPULET:
Well think of marriage now, younger than you
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.
LADY CAPULET:
Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
NURSE:
Nay he's a flower in faith a very flower.
LADY CAPULET:
What say you, can you love the gentleman?
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,
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content:
And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair, within to hide:
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story:
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
NURSE:
No less, nay bigger women grow by men.
LADY CAPULET:
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 strength to make it fly.
SERVINGMAN:
Madam the guests are come, supper serv'd up,
you call'd, my young Lady ask'd for,
the Nurse curs'd in the Pantry,
and every thing in extremity:
I must hence to wait, I beseech you follow straight.
LADY CAPULET:
We follow thee, Juliet the County stays.
NURSE:
Go girl, seek happy nights to happy days.