Act 3, Scene 5

An open Gallery to Juliet's Chamber, overlooking the Garden.

[Enter Romeo and Juliet.]
Juliet
1960 Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
1961 It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
1962 That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear;
1963 Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree:
1964 Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
Romeo
1965 It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
1966 No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
1967 Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
1968 Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
1969 Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
1970 I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Juliet
1971 Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I:
1972 It is some meteor that the sun exhales
1973 To be to thee this night a torch-bearer
1974 And light thee on the way to Mantua:
1975 Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not to be gone.
Romeo
1976 Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
1977 I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
1978 I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye,
1979 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
1980 Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
1981 The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
1982 I have more care to stay than will to go.—
1983 Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.—
1984 How is't, my soul? let's talk,—it is not day.
Juliet
1985 It is, it is!—hie hence, be gone, away!
1986 It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
1987 Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
1988 Some say the lark makes sweet division;
1989 This doth not so, for she divideth us:
1990 Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
1991 O, now I would they had chang'd voices too!
1992 Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
1993 Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day.
1994 O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.
Romeo
1995 More light and light,—more dark and dark our woes!
[Enter Nurse.]
Nurse
1996 Madam!
Juliet
1997 Nurse?
Nurse
1998 Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:
1999 The day is broke; be wary, look about.
[Exit.]
Juliet
2000 Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
Romeo
2001 Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.
[Descends.]
Juliet
2002 Art thou gone so? my lord, my love, my friend!
2003 I must hear from thee every day i' the hour,
2004 For in a minute there are many days:
2005 O, by this count I shall be much in years
2006 Ere I again behold my Romeo!
Romeo
2007 Farewell!
2008 I will omit no opportunity
2009 That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
Juliet
2010 O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
Romeo
2011 I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
2012 For sweet discourses in our time to come.
Juliet
2013 O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
2014 Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
2015 As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
2016 Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
Romeo
2017 And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
2018 Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!
[Exit below.]
Juliet
2019 O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
2020 If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
2021 That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
2022 For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long
2023 But send him back.
[Within.]
Lady Capulet
2024 Ho, daughter! are you up?
Juliet
2025 Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother?
2026 Is she not down so late, or up so early?
2027 What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?
[Enter Lady Capulet.]
Lady Capulet
2028 Why, how now, Juliet?
Juliet
2029 Madam, I am not well.
Lady Capulet
2030 Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
2031 What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
2032 An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
2033 Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love;
2034 But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
Juliet
2035 Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
Lady Capulet
2036 So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
2037 Which you weep for.
Juliet
2038 Feeling so the loss,
2039 I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
Lady Capulet
2040 Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death
2041 As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.
Juliet
2042 What villain, madam?
Lady Capulet
2043 That same villain Romeo.
Juliet
2044 Villain and he be many miles asunder.—
2045 God pardon him! I do, with all my heart;
2046 And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
Lady Capulet
2047 That is because the traitor murderer lives.
Juliet
2048 Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.
2049 Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!
Lady Capulet
2050 We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:
2051 Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,—
2052 Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,—
2053 Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram
2054 That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
2055 And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.
Juliet
2056 Indeed I never shall be satisfied
2057 With Romeo till I behold him—dead—
2058 Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd:
2059 Madam, if you could find out but a man
2060 To bear a poison, I would temper it,
2061 That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
2062 Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
2063 To hear him nam'd,—and cannot come to him,—
2064 To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt
2065 Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!
Lady Capulet
2066 Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
2067 But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
Juliet
2068 And joy comes well in such a needy time:
2069 What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
Lady Capulet
2070 Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
2071 One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
2072 Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy
2073 That thou expect'st not, nor I look'd not for.
Juliet
2074 Madam, in happy time, what day is that?
Lady Capulet
2075 Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn
2076 The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
2077 The County Paris, at St. Peter's Church,
2078 Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
Juliet
2079 Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too,
2080 He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
2081 I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
2082 Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
2083 I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
2084 I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear
2085 It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
2086 Rather than Paris:—these are news indeed!
Lady Capulet
2087 Here comes your father: tell him so yourself,
2088 And see how he will take it at your hands.
[Enter Capulet and Nurse.]
Capulet
2089 When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
2090 But for the sunset of my brother's son
2091 It rains downright.—
2092 How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
2093 Evermore showering? In one little body
2094 Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind:
2095 For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
2096 Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
2097 Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
2098 Who,—raging with thy tears and they with them,—
2099 Without a sudden calm, will overset
2100 Thy tempest-tossed body.—How now, wife!
2101 Have you deliver'd to her our decree?
Lady Capulet
2102 Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
2103 I would the fool were married to her grave!
Capulet
2104 Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.
2105 How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?
2106 Is she not proud? doth she not count her bles'd,
2107 Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
2108 So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
Juliet
2109 Not proud you have; but thankful that you have:
2110 Proud can I never be of what I hate;
2111 But thankful even for hate that is meant love.
Capulet
2112 How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this?
2113 Proud,—and, I thank you,—and I thank you not;—
2114 And yet not proud:—mistress minion, you,
2115 Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
2116 But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next
2117 To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,
2118 Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
2119 Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!
2120 You tallow-face!
Lady Capulet
2121 Fie, fie! what, are you mad?
Juliet
2122 Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
2123 Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
Capulet
2124 Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
2125 I tell thee what,—get thee to church o' Thursday,
2126 Or never after look me in the face:
2127 Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
2128 My fingers itch.—Wife, we scarce thought us bles'd
2129 That God had lent us but this only child;
2130 But now I see this one is one too much,
2131 And that we have a curse in having her:
2132 Out on her, hilding!
Nurse
2133 God in heaven bless her!—
2134 You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
Capulet
2135 And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,
2136 Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Nurse
2137 I speak no treason.
Capulet
2138 O, God ye good-en!
Nurse
2139 May not one speak?
Capulet
2140 Peace, you mumbling fool!
2141 Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,
2142 For here we need it not.
Lady Capulet
2143 You are too hot.
Capulet
2144 God's bread! it makes me mad:
2145 Day, night, hour, time, tide, work, play,
2146 Alone, in company, still my care hath been
2147 To have her match'd, and having now provided
2148 A gentleman of noble parentage,
2149 Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
2150 Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
2151 Proportion'd as one's heart would wish a man,—
2152 And then to have a wretched puling fool,
2153 A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
2154 To answer, 'I'll not wed,—I cannot love,
2155 I am too young,—I pray you pardon me:'—
2156 But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
2157 Graze where you will, you shall not house with me:
2158 Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
2159 Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:
2160 An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
2161 An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i' the streets,
2162 For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
2163 Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
2164 Trust to't, bethink you, I'll not be forsworn.
[Exit.]
Juliet
2165 Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
2166 That sees into the bottom of my grief?
2167 O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
2168 Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
2169 Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
2170 In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
Lady Capulet
2171 Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word;
2172 Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
[Exit.]
Juliet
2173 O God!—O nurse! how shall this be prevented?
2174 My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
2175 How shall that faith return again to earth,
2176 Unless that husband send it me from heaven
2177 By leaving earth?—comfort me, counsel me.—
2178 Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
2179 Upon so soft a subject as myself!—
2180 What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
2181 Some comfort, nurse.
Nurse
2182 Faith, here 'tis; Romeo
2183 Is banished; and all the world to nothing
2184 That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
2185 Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
2186 Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
2187 I think it best you married with the county.
2188 O, he's a lovely gentleman!
2189 Romeo's a dishclout to him; an eagle, madam,
2190 Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
2191 As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
2192 I think you are happy in this second match,
2193 For it excels your first: or if it did not,
2194 Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
2195 As living here, and you no use of him.
Juliet
2196 Speakest thou this from thy heart?
Nurse
2197 And from my soul too;
2198 Or else beshrew them both.
Juliet
2199 Amen!
Nurse
2200 What?
Juliet
2201 Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
2202 Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,
2203 Having displeas'd my father, to Lawrence' cell,
2204 To make confession and to be absolv'd.
Nurse
2205 Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
[Exit.]
Juliet
2206 Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
2207 Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
2208 Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
2209 Which she hath prais'd him with above compare
2210 So many thousand times?—Go, counsellor;
2211 Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.—
2212 I'll to the friar to know his remedy;
2213 If all else fail, myself have power to die.
[Exit.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1961cultural context
“It was the nightingale, and not the lark”
Juliet and Romeo argue over whether the birdsong they hear is a nightingale (a night-bird that would mean it is still dark) or a lark (the bird that heralds dawn). The nightingale was proverbially a nocturnal singer; the lark was the recognized 'herald of the morn.' Romeo knows it is the lark and that he must go, but Juliet refuses to accept the morning.
TLN 1968archaic vocab
“Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day”
'Night's candles' are the stars, imagined as candles lighting the dark sky that gutter out at sunrise. 'Jocund' means cheerful or lively. Romeo is saying the stars have gone out and a merry dawn is tiptoeing up onto the mountaintops — all signs he must leave.
TLN 1972historical topical
“It is some meteor that the sun exhales”
In Elizabethan natural philosophy, meteors were not stones from space but glowing vapors breathed (exhaled) upward from the earth by the sun's heat and then ignited in the upper air. Juliet argues that the streak of light Romeo sees is one of these short-lived vapors sent by the sun to light Romeo's way to Mantua, not the sun itself rising.
TLN 1979classical allusion
“pale reflex of Cynthia's brow”
'Cynthia' was a poetic name for the moon goddess (identified with Diana and Hecate). Romeo claims the gray light in the east is only the pale reflection ('reflex') of Cynthia's forehead, not the sun rising. He is playing along with Juliet's wish, pretending it is still night.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 1986rhetorical device
“lark that sings so out of tune”
Juliet now reverses herself and abuses the lark that she had earlier pretended was a nightingale. She says the lark sings 'harsh discords and unpleasing sharps,' divides ('divideth') the lovers by separating them, and that its voice causes them fright ('affray'). The speech is a compressed piece of bitter wordplay: 'division' in music means a rapid, ornamental run, but for Juliet it means the literal dividing of two people.
TLN 2000wordplay
“let day in, and let life out”
Juliet personifies the window as a gate: she opens it to let the day (and Romeo's departure) in, and as she does so she 'lets her life out,' since her life is Romeo. The paradox compresses the scene's central contradiction — daylight means survival for Romeo but death for Juliet.
TLN 2013archaic vocab
“I have an ill-divining soul”
To 'divine' is to predict or foresee; 'ill-divining' means forecasting evil. Juliet says her soul is giving her a bad omen as she watches Romeo descend below: he looks like a corpse at the bottom of a tomb. The moment is one of the play's sharpest pieces of dramatic irony — she is describing, in precise detail, exactly what will happen in Act 5.
TLN 2019classical allusion
“O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle”
Fortune was imagined in classical and medieval tradition as a goddess who spun a great wheel, raising the low and casting down the high, giving and withdrawing her favors at random. Juliet addresses her directly: because Fortune is fickle, she should not keep a faithful man like Romeo for long and will send him back. The appeal plays on the idea that Fortune's very inconstancy could work in Juliet's favor.
classical Fortune and her wheel
TLN 2026syntax grammar
“Is she not down so late, or up so early? What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither”
Juliet's aside unpacks a real puzzle: is Lady Capulet still up from the night before ('not down so late') or already awake unusually early ('up so early')? 'Procures her hither' means 'brings her here,' with 'procure' carrying its older sense of 'to bring about, to cause.' The question signals that a mother coming to her daughter's room at this hour is abnormal and therefore ominous.
TLN 2052archaic vocab
“banish'd runagate doth live”
A 'runagate' is a runaway, a fugitive, or an apostate — someone who has abandoned their proper place or allegiance. Lady Capulet uses it as a contemptuous name for Romeo: a disgraced exile who has fled justice. The word combines two senses: 'renegade' (one who has renounced their allegiance) and 'runaway.'
TLN 2053archaic vocab
“give him such an unaccustom'd dram”
A 'dram' is a small measure of liquid, here a dose of poison. 'Unaccustom'd' means unexpected, not something he would expect to receive. Lady Capulet is openly proposing to have Romeo poisoned in Mantua. The speech makes clear she plans to hire an assassin.
TLN 2056wordplay
“never shall be satisfied With Romeo till I behold him—dead—”
Juliet constructs a sentence her mother hears one way while the audience understands it another. Lady Capulet hears: 'I will never be satisfied until I see Romeo dead.' But Juliet's real meaning, cut off by the dash, is: 'I will never be satisfied with Romeo until I behold him -- (my heart is) dead (for grief at a kinsman's loss).' The staged pause around 'dead' lets Juliet deceive her mother with the truth.
TLN 2060archaic vocab
“I would temper it”
'Temper' here means to mix, dilute, or compound a substance — specifically to prepare a poison or medicine. Juliet tells her mother she would mix ('temper') the poison herself to make sure Romeo 'soon sleep in quiet.' Her mother understands this as eager revenge; Juliet means the opposite, that she would make the dose harmless or dilute it.
TLN 2092historical topical
“a conduit, girl? what, still in tears”
A 'conduit' was a public water fountain or pipe in an Elizabethan town, often a stone structure that flowed continuously. Capulet mocks Juliet by calling her a conduit — a non-stop gusher of tears — then extends the joke into a miniature allegory: her eyes are the sea, her body a bark (a small ship), her sighs the winds, all tossing together in a storm.
TLN 2112archaic vocab
“chop-logic”
'Chop-logic' is a contemptuous term for someone who splits hairs and argues in circles, using the rules of formal logic to score pedantic points rather than plain sense. Capulet is furious that Juliet has turned his question ('Is she not proud?') into a philosophical distinction between being 'proud' and being 'thankful.' The word 'chop' means to bandy or exchange rapidly; hence one who bandies logical quibbles.
TLN 2116archaic vocab
“fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next”
'Fettle' means to put in order, to make ready — here 'prepare yourself' or 'get your limbs in shape.' 'Joints' is a contemptuous reference to Juliet's body; calling them 'fine' is sarcastic. Capulet is telling her, in blunt physical terms, to get herself ready to go to church on Thursday.
TLN 2118historical topical
“drag thee on a hurdle thither”
A hurdle was a wooden frame or sledge on which traitors and serious criminals were dragged through the streets to their public execution. To be drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn (London's main execution site) was a mark of the worst disgrace. Capulet threatens Juliet with the imagery of a condemned traitor being dragged to punishment — a vivid, violent picture that shows how completely he has lost control.
TLN 2132archaic vocab
“Out on her, hilding”
A 'hilding' is a contemptible, base, or worthless person — originally applied to a worn-out or vicious horse and then extended as a term of abuse for a good-for-nothing woman or coward. Capulet's final epithet before he exits is one of the most dismissive in his arsenal of insults.
TLN 2153archaic vocab
“A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender”
A 'mammet' (also 'maumet') is a puppet or doll, used here as an insult: a limp, whining puppet. 'In her fortune's tender' means 'when fortune makes her an offer' — when she is offered the match with Paris. Capulet is saying that instead of a real woman grateful for a good marriage, he has a whining puppet who can only say 'I cannot love, I am too young, I pray you pardon me.'
TLN 2174cultural context
“My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven”
Juliet argues that her marriage vow ('faith') was sworn before God and is now kept in heaven — meaning it cannot be broken while both parties live. 'Unless that husband send it me from heaven / By leaving earth' means the vow can only return to her (freeing her to remarry) if Romeo dies. Juliet is saying she is already married and no earthly power can undo it except her husband's death.
historical Shrift: the sacrament of confession
TLN 2206biblical allusion
“Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend”
Once the Nurse is gone Juliet turns on her in full fury. 'Ancient damnation' is a compressed curse: the Nurse is old ('ancient') and damned ('damnation'). The word 'fiend' in Elizabethan usage denoted a devil or agent of Satan. Juliet's charge is that the Nurse is trying to make her commit perjury ('forsworn') by betraying her marriage oath to Romeo, which would endanger Juliet's soul.