Act 3, Scene 2

A Room in Capulet's House.

[Enter Juliet.]
Juliet
1596 Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
1597 Towards Phoebus' lodging; such a waggoner
1598 As Phaeton would whip you to the west
1599 And bring in cloudy night immediately.—
1600 Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night!
1601 That rude eyes may wink, and Romeo
1602 Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.—
1603 Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
1604 By their own beauties: or, if love be blind,
1605 It best agrees with night.—Come, civil night,
1606 Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
1607 And learn me how to lose a winning match,
1608 Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
1609 Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
1610 With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
1611 Think true love acted simple modesty.
1612 Come, night;—come, Romeo;—come, thou day in night;
1613 For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
1614 Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.—
1615 Come, gentle night;—come, loving, black-brow'd night,
1616 Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
1617 Take him and cut him out in little stars,
1618 And he will make the face of heaven so fine
1619 That all the world will be in love with night,
1620 And pay no worship to the garish sun.—
1621 O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
1622 But not possess'd it; and, though I am sold,
1623 Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day
1624 As is the night before some festival
1625 To an impatient child that hath new robes,
1626 And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
1627 And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks
1628 But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.—
[Enter Nurse, with cords.]
Juliet
1629 Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords
1630 That Romeo bid thee fetch?
Nurse
1631 Ay, ay, the cords.
[Throws them down.]
Juliet
1632 Ah me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?
Nurse
1633 Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!
1634 We are undone, lady, we are undone!—
1635 Alack the day!—he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!
Juliet
1636 Can heaven be so envious?
Nurse
1637 Romeo can,
1638 Though heaven cannot.—O Romeo, Romeo!—
1639 Who ever would have thought it?—Romeo!
Juliet
1640 What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
1641 This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
1642 Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but I,
1643 And that bare vowel I shall poison more
1644 Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
1645 I am not I if there be such an I;
1646 Or those eyes shut that make thee answer I.
1647 If he be slain, say I; or if not, no:
1648 Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
Nurse
1649 I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,—
1650 God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
1651 A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
1652 Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
1653 All in gore-blood;—I swounded at the sight.
Juliet
1654 O, break, my heart!—poor bankrout, break at once!
1655 To prison, eyes; ne'er look on liberty!
1656 Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
1657 And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!
Nurse
1658 O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
1659 O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
1660 That ever I should live to see thee dead!
Juliet
1661 What storm is this that blows so contrary?
1662 Is Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?
1663 My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord?—
1664 Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
1665 For who is living, if those two are gone?
Nurse
1666 Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
1667 Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.
Juliet
1668 O God!—did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?
Nurse
1669 It did, it did; alas the day, it did!
Juliet
1670 O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
1671 Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
1672 Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
1673 Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
1674 Despised substance of divinest show!
1675 Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
1676 A damned saint, an honourable villain!—
1677 O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
1678 When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
1679 In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?—
1680 Was ever book containing such vile matter
1681 So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
1682 In such a gorgeous palace!
Nurse
1683 There's no trust,
1684 No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,
1685 All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.—
1686 Ah, where's my man? Give me some aqua vitae.—
1687 These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
1688 Shame come to Romeo!
Juliet
1689 Blister'd be thy tongue
1690 For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
1691 Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;
1692 For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
1693 Sole monarch of the universal earth.
1694 O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
Nurse
1695 Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?
Juliet
1696 Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
1697 Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
1698 When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it?—
1699 But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
1700 That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:
1701 Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
1702 Your tributary drops belong to woe,
1703 Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
1704 My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
1705 And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:
1706 All this is comfort; wherefore weep I, then?
1707 Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
1708 That murder'd me: I would forget it fain;
1709 But O, it presses to my memory
1710 Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
1711 'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.'
1712 That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'
1713 Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
1714 Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
1715 Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship,
1716 And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,—
1717 Why follow'd not, when she said Tybalt's dead,
1718 Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
1719 Which modern lamentation might have mov'd?
1720 But with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
1721 'Romeo is banished'—to speak that word
1722 Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
1723 All slain, all dead: 'Romeo is banished,'—
1724 There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
1725 In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.—
1726 Where is my father and my mother, nurse?
Nurse
1727 Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:
1728 Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
Juliet
1729 Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,
1730 When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.
1731 Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil'd,
1732 Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd:
1733 He made you for a highway to my bed;
1734 But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
1735 Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed;
1736 And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!
Nurse
1737 Hie to your chamber. I'll find Romeo
1738 To comfort you: I wot well where he is.
1739 Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:
1740 I'll to him; he is hid at Lawrence' cell.
Juliet
1741 O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,
1742 And bid him come to take his last farewell.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1597classical allusion
“such a waggoner As Phaeton would whip you to the west”
Phaethon was the mortal son of the sun-god Phoebus Apollo. He begged to drive his father's fiery chariot for a single day but lost control of the horses; they scorched the earth until Zeus struck him dead with a thunderbolt. Juliet wishes a reckless driver would race the sun out of the sky to bring night and Romeo faster.
classical Phaethon and the chariot of the sun
TLN 1609archaic vocab
“Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks”
Both words come from falconry. An 'unmann'd' hawk has not yet been tamed by a falconer (so it is wild, unruly). 'Bating' means the hawk flutters and beats its wings in agitation when it cannot fly free. Juliet asks night to hood her uncontrolled, fluttering blood — to calm the blush rising in her cheeks — as a falconer hoods an excited bird.
TLN 1616rhetorical device
“when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars”
Juliet imagines Romeo's death transforming him into a constellation that outshines all others, making the night sky so beautiful that the world would lose interest in the sun. The figure is a hyperbole — a deliberately extravagant exaggeration for effect — and also echoes the classical practice of catasterism: placing a beloved or heroic person among the stars after death.
TLN 1621wordplay
“I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess'd it; and, though I am sold”
Juliet uses the language of property law: she has 'bought' Romeo (accepted him as husband) but not yet taken 'possession' of him (consummated the marriage). At the same time she is herself 'sold' — given in marriage — but not yet 'enjoyed' (possessed by Romeo). The conceit turns the lovers into both buyers and goods simultaneously, capturing the mutual nature of their commitment.
TLN 1643cultural context
“bare vowel I shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice”
The cockatrice (also called a basilisk) was a legendary beast — a serpent hatched from a cock's egg — whose glance was said to kill instantly. Juliet means that simply hearing the word 'I' (meaning 'ay,' confirming Romeo is dead) would be more deadly to her than the cockatrice's fatal stare.
TLN 1650archaic vocab
“God save the mark”
'God save the mark' was a common Elizabethan exclamation used to ward off evil or bad luck after mentioning something disturbing or disgusting — much like modern 'God forbid' or 'touch wood.' The Nurse uses it as she describes Romeo's wound, seeking a ritual protection after speaking of bloodshed.
TLN 1654archaic vocab
“poor bankrout, break at once”
'Bankrout' is an older spelling of 'bankrupt' — someone who has run out of financial resources and can no longer pay their debts. Juliet tells her heart to break all at once rather than go on diminished. The word continues the legal and commercial language she has used throughout this soliloquy (bought, possessed, sold) — now her emotional capital is also exhausted.
TLN 1664biblical allusion
“dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom! For who is living, if those two are gone”
The 'general doom' is the Last Judgment — the Christian end of the world when a trumpet summons the dead from their graves to face God's verdict. Juliet, believing both Romeo and Tybalt are dead, cries that with them gone it might as well be the end of everything. The image comes from 1 Corinthians 15:52 and Revelation 8-11, where trumpets announce the Apocalypse.
TLN 1670rhetorical device
“O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave”
These two lines open a run of oxymorons — contradictions fused in a single image — in which Juliet tries to express that Romeo looks beautiful but has acted viciously. A serpent hidden in flowers comes directly from Genesis 3, where Satan takes the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden, beautiful and deadly. A dragon guarding a fair cave inverts the expected order: the treasure is the cave's lovely exterior, the monster is inside.
biblical The serpent in the Garden of Eden
TLN 1686archaic vocab
“Give me some aqua vitae”
'Aqua vitae' is Latin for 'water of life' — the Elizabethan term for distilled spirits (brandy, whisky, or similar strong liquor) used medicinally as a stimulant and restorative. The Nurse, overwhelmed by grief, calls for a stiff drink to steady herself, which is a comic, earthy contrast to Juliet's high-flown lament.
TLN 1719archaic vocab
“Which modern lamentation might have mov'd”
Here 'modern' does not mean 'current' but 'ordinary' or 'commonplace' — the standard Elizabethan sense. Juliet is saying that the death of a father or mother would have prompted ordinary, expected grief; 'Romeo is banished' is something worse than ordinary sorrow.
TLN 1720archaic vocab
“with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death, 'Romeo is banished'”
A 'rear-ward' (or 'rearguard') is the division of an army that marches at the back, behind the main body and the vanguard. Juliet imagines grief as an advancing army: the death of a parent would have been the main force ('the vanguard'), but 'Romeo is banished' comes as the rear-guard — a second assault after the first has already done its damage.