Act 1, Scene 2

A Street.

[Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant.]
Capulet
250 But Montague is bound as well as I,
251 In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,
252 For men so old as we to keep the peace.
Paris
253 Of honourable reckoning are you both;
254 And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long.
255 But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
Capulet
256 But saying o'er what I have said before:
257 My child is yet a stranger in the world,
258 She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
259 Let two more summers wither in their pride
260 Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
Paris
261 Younger than she are happy mothers made.
Capulet
262 And too soon marr'd are those so early made.
263 The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,—
264 She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
265 But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
266 My will to her consent is but a part;
267 An she agree, within her scope of choice
268 Lies my consent and fair according voice.
269 This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,
270 Whereto I have invited many a guest,
271 Such as I love; and you among the store,
272 One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
273 At my poor house look to behold this night
274 Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
275 Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
276 When well apparell'd April on the heel
277 Of limping winter treads, even such delight
278 Among fresh female buds shall you this night
279 Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,
280 And like her most whose merit most shall be:
281 Which, among view of many, mine, being one,
282 May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
283 Come, go with me.—Go, sirrah, trudge about
284 Through fair Verona; find those persons out
285 Whose names are written there,
[gives a paper]
Capulet
286 and to them say,
287 My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.
[Exeunt Capulet and Paris]
Capulet
288 .
Capulet
289 Servant.Find them out whose names are written here!
290 It is written that the shoemaker should meddle with
291 his yard and the tailor with his last, the fisher with
292 his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am
293 sent to find those persons whose names are here writ,
294 and can never find what names the writing person
295 hath here writ. I must to the learned:—in good time!
[Enter Benvolio and Romeo.]
Benvolio
296 Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,
297 One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish;
298 Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
299 One desperate grief cures with another's languish:
300 Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
301 And the rank poison of the old will die.
Romeo
302 Your plantain-leaf is excellent for that.
Benvolio
303 For what, I pray thee?
Romeo
304 For your broken shin.
Benvolio
305 Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
Romeo
306 Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;
307 Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
308 Whipp'd and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.
Servant
309 God gi' go-den.—I pray, sir, can you read?
Romeo
310 Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
Servant
311 Perhaps you have learned it without book:
312 but I pray, can you read anything you see?
Romeo
313 Ay, If I know the letters and the language.
Servant
314 Ye say honestly: rest you merry!
Romeo
315 Stay, fellow; I can read.
[Reads.]
Romeo
316 'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
317 County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters; the
318 lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio and
319 his lovely nieces; Mercutio and his brother
320 Valentine; mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and
321 daughters; my fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior
322 Valentio and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio and the
323 lively Helena.'
324 A fair assembly.
[Gives back the paper]
Romeo
325 : whither should they
326 come?
Servant
327 Up.
Romeo
328 Whither?
Servant
329 To supper; to our house.
Romeo
330 Whose house?
Servant
331 My master's.
Romeo
332 Indeed I should have ask'd you that before.
Servant
333 Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the great
334 rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues,
335 I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry!
[Exit.]
Benvolio
336 At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
337 Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov'st;
338 With all the admired beauties of Verona.
339 Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
340 Compare her face with some that I shall show,
341 And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
Romeo
342 When the devout religion of mine eye
343 Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
344 And these,—who, often drown'd, could never die,—
345 Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
346 One fairer than my love? the all-seeing sun
347 Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.
Benvolio
348 Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
349 Herself pois'd with herself in either eye:
350 But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd
351 Your lady's love against some other maid
352 That I will show you shining at this feast,
353 And she shall scant show well that now shows best.
Romeo
354 I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
355 But to rejoice in splendour of my own.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 258historical topical
“not seen the change of fourteen years”
Capulet says Juliet has not yet completed fourteen years. Elizabethan common law set the minimum age of valid marriage at twelve for girls and fourteen for boys (following canon law derived from Roman law). Capulet urges Paris to wait two more summers, making Juliet sixteen — a pause that marks him, at this point in the play, as protective rather than tyrannical.
TLN 261wordplay
“Younger than she are happy mothers made”
Paris argues that girls younger than Juliet are already mothers; Capulet counters that those 'so early made' are 'too soon marr'd.' The paired rhyme makes the wordplay plain: 'made' (a bride, a woman) and 'marr'd' (ruined, damaged) are near-homophones in Elizabethan pronunciation, turning a social argument into a compressed pun on what marriage can do to a very young woman.
TLN 274rhetorical device
“Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light”
Capulet promises Paris that at his feast there will be 'Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light' — the beautiful young women who will walk his floors. The figure is an oxymoron and a conceit: stars belong in the sky and make the darkness bright, but these women walk the ground. It inverts the usual order so that the earth, not heaven, holds the light. Romeo will call Juliet 'a snowy dove trooping with crows' and later 'she doth teach the torches to burn bright' at the feast itself, extending the same conceit.
historical Petrarch and the Petrarchan lover
TLN 290wordplay
“the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last”
The Servant muddles the trades: shoemakers measure with a 'yard' (a yardstick), but a shoemaker's proper tool is a 'last' (a foot-shaped block); tailors use the last... no, that is the shoemaker's again. He has scrambled the pairs. The comedy shows a man who has been asked to read a list he cannot read, and who cannot even correctly recall the proverb about sticking to one's trade.
TLN 298archaic vocab
“Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning”
'Holp' is the old past tense of 'help' — it means 'helped.' The line is part of Benvolio's argument that the remedy for dizziness (caused by spinning) is to spin the opposite way; likewise, the cure for one painful love is a new one. Benvolio is urging Romeo to look at other women to get over Rosaline.
TLN 302cultural context
“Your plantain-leaf is excellent for that”
A plantain leaf (from the broad-leaved weed Plantago major, common in English fields and not the tropical banana) was the standard Elizabethan first-aid remedy for cuts, grazes, and bruises — you pressed the leaf directly onto the wound. Romeo is mocking Benvolio: his poetic advice about curing love-pain with a new love is as crude and physical as slapping a dock-leaf on a skinned shin.
TLN 335archaic vocab
“come and crush a cup of wine”
'Crush a cup' means to drink a cup of wine — 'crush' here means to press or squeeze, as in pressing grapes, and by extension to drain a cup dry. The Servant is inviting Romeo and Benvolio to the Capulet feast, not knowing they are Montagues.
TLN 339archaic vocab
“with unattainted eye”
'Unattainted' means unprejudiced, uncorrupted, or unbiased — an eye not already stained or infected by love. Benvolio urges Romeo to look at all the women at the feast without his vision being distorted by his obsession with Rosaline. 'Taint' in Shakespeare often carries the sense of infecting or poisoning, so an 'attainted' eye is one already diseased by passion.
TLN 345historical topical
“Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars”
Romeo calls his own eyes 'transparent heretics' and curses them to be 'burnt for liars' — the legal punishment for heresy in Catholic (and some Protestant) Europe was death by burning. If his eyes ever accept that any woman is fairer than Rosaline, he says, let them be treated as heretics who have publicly denied a truth they were once convicted of holding. The religious vocabulary of faith, heresy, and execution mirrors Romeo's treatment of love as a religion.