Romeo and Juliet Act 3 Scene 5

Are you leaving? It's nowhere near daylight.

That was the nightingale, not the lark,

that pierced your nervous ear.

She sings on that pomegranate tree every night.

Believe me, love — it was the nightingale.

It was the lark, the messenger of morning,

not the nightingale. Look, love — see those spiteful streaks

lacing the parting clouds in the east.

Night's candles have burned out, and cheerful day

stands on tiptoe on the misty mountaintops.

I have to go and live, or stay and die.

That light isn't daylight — I know it isn't.

It's some meteor the sun breathed out

to be your torchbearer tonight

and light your way to Mantua.

So stay a little longer. You don't have to go.

Then let me be captured, let me be executed.

I don't mind, if that's what you want.

I'll say that grey light isn't the eye of morning,

just the pale glow of the moon's forehead.

And that isn't the lark whose notes are striking

the arched sky so far above our heads.

I want to stay far more than I want to go.

Come, death — you're welcome! Juliet wants it this way.

How are you, my soul? Let's talk. It isn't day.

It is, it is! Hurry, go, get away!

It IS the lark singing so out of tune,

forcing out harsh notes and horrible sharps.

People say the lark sings beautiful runs of notes.

This one doesn't — it's dividing us.

They say the lark and the hated toad swapped eyes.

Oh, I wish they'd swapped voices too,

since that voice is tearing us out of each other's arms,

hunting you away with a morning hunting call.

Oh, go now — it's getting lighter and lighter.

Lighter and lighter — and darker and darker our sorrows.

Madam!

Nurse?

Your mother is on her way to your room.

It's daybreak. Be careful — keep watch.

Then, window, let the daylight in and let my life out.

Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I'll climb down.

Are you gone already? My love, my lord, my husband, my friend!

I need to hear from you every hour of every day —

there are many days in a single minute.

Oh, at this rate I'll be an old woman

before I see my Romeo again.

Farewell!

I won't miss a single chance

to send my love to you.

Oh — do you think we'll ever meet again?

I've no doubt of it. And all this misery will become

sweet conversation in the years ahead.

Oh God — my soul senses something terrible!

Now that you're down there, I think I see you

as a dead man at the bottom of a tomb.

Either my eyes are failing, or you look pale. (They will meet again, in a tomb. She has just seen it.)

And believe me, love, you look pale to me too.

Parching sorrow is drinking our blood. Goodbye, goodbye!

Oh, Fortune, Fortune! Everyone calls you fickle.

If you're fickle, what are you doing with a man

famous for faithfulness? Be fickle, Fortune —

then I hope you won't keep him long

and you'll send him back to me.

(offstage) Daughter! Are you up?

Who's calling? Is that my mother?

Is she up this late, or awake this early?

What unusual reason brings her here?

Well now, Juliet!

Madam, I'm not well.

Still crying over your cousin's death?

What, are you going to wash him out of his grave with tears?

And even if you could, you couldn't bring him back to life.

So stop. A little grief shows love,

but too much grief shows a lack of sense.

Still, let me cry for such a painful loss.

Then you'll feel the loss but won't get back

the person you're crying for.

Feeling the loss so keenly,

I can't help crying for him forever.

Well, girl, you're not crying so much over his death

as over the fact that the villain who killed him is still alive.

What villain, madam?

That villain Romeo.

(to herself) 'Villain' and he are miles apart. —

God forgive him! I do, with all my heart.

And yet no man grieves my heart like he does. (Every word she says from here is true — and means the opposite of what her mother hears.)

That's because the traitorous murderer is still alive.

Yes, madam — out of reach of these hands of mine.

I wish no one but me could avenge my cousin's death!

We'll have our revenge, don't you worry.

So stop crying. I'll send word to someone in Mantua,

where that banished runaway is living,

who'll give him such an unusual drink

that he'll soon be keeping Tybalt company.

And then, I hope, you'll be satisfied.

Honestly, I'll never be satisfied

with Romeo until I see him — dead —

is my poor heart, so troubled for a relative. (Read the pause. She means 'until I see him, my poor dead heart will be troubled.' Her mother hears a death wish.)

Madam, if you could just find a man

to carry a poison, I'd mix it myself —

so that Romeo, on receiving it,

would soon sleep peacefully. Oh, how my heart hates

hearing his name and not being able to go to him,

to pour out the love I bore my cousin

onto the body of the man who killed him!

You find the poison and I'll find the man.

But now let me tell you some joyful news, girl.

Joy is welcome at a time like this.

What is it, if you please, my lady?

Well, well — you have a caring father, child.

To lift you out of your gloom,

he's arranged a sudden day of celebration

that you weren't expecting and I wasn't either.

How fortunate, madam. What day is that?

Why, my child, early on Thursday morning

the gallant, young, noble gentleman

Count Paris will happily make you

a joyful bride at Saint Peter's Church.

By Saint Peter's Church and Saint Peter himself,

he will not make me a joyful bride there.

I'm astonished at the rush — that I have to marry

before the man who's meant to be my husband has even courted me.

Please tell my lord and father, madam,

that I won't marry yet. And when I do, I swear

it will be Romeo — whom you know I hate —

rather than Paris. Now THAT is news!

Here comes your father. Tell him yourself,

and see how well he takes it from you.

When the sun sets, the air drizzles dew;

but for the setting of my nephew's sun

it's pouring rain.

What's this — a water pipe, girl? Still crying?

Still pouring? In one little body

you're imitating a boat, a sea, and a wind.

Your eyes, which I'll call the sea,

ebb and flow with tears; your body is the boat

sailing in that salt flood; the winds are your sighs.

And raging together, tears and sighs,

unless there's a sudden calm, will capsize

your storm-tossed body. — Well, wife?

Have you given her our decision?

Yes, sir — but she refuses, with thanks.

I wish the fool were married to her grave!

Wait — let me understand you, wife, let me understand.

What? She refuses? She isn't grateful?

She isn't proud? Doesn't she count herself blessed —

unworthy as she is — that we've arranged

such a worthy gentleman to be her husband?

I'm not proud that you have, but grateful that you did.

I can never be proud of something I hate,

but I'm thankful even for the hateful thing, since it was meant kindly.

What's this, what's this — hair-splitting? What is this?

'Proud,' and 'thank you,' and 'no thank you,'

and 'not proud' — you spoiled little madam!

Don't thank me with thankings or proud me with prouds.

Just get your fine limbs ready for Thursday

to go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,

or I'll drag you there tied to a cart.

Get out, you sickly corpse! Out, you worthless thing!

You pasty-faced creature!

Stop it! Have you gone mad?

Good father, I beg you on my knees —

just hear me patiently for one word.

Damn you, you young nothing! Disobedient wretch!

I'll tell you what: get to church on Thursday

or never look me in the face again.

Don't speak, don't reply, don't answer me —

my hands are itching. Wife, we thought ourselves barely blessed

that God gave us only this one child.

Now I see that even one is one too many,

and that having her is a curse.

To hell with her, the good-for-nothing!

God in heaven bless her!

You're wrong, my lord, to scold her like that.

And why, Lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,

Madam Prudence. Go chatter with your gossiping friends.

I'm not saying anything treasonous.

Oh — good day to you.

Is one not allowed to speak?

Be quiet, you mumbling fool!

Save your wisdom for a bowl of gossip with your friends.

We don't need it here.

You're too worked up.

By God's bread, it drives me mad!

Day, night, hour, season, time, work, play,

alone or in company — my whole concern has been

to get her married. And now that I've found

a gentleman of noble family,

with fine estates, young, well brought up,

packed, as they say, with honourable qualities,

built exactly as you'd wish a man to be —

and then to have a wretched whimpering fool,

a whining puppet, when her fortune is offered to her,

answer 'I won't marry, I can't love,

I'm too young, please forgive me'!

Well — since you won't marry, I'll pardon you all right.

Graze wherever you like; you won't live under my roof.

Watch out, think about it — I don't make jokes.

Thursday is close. Put your hand on your heart and think.

If you're my daughter, I'll give you to my friend.

If you're not — then hang, beg, starve, die in the streets.

Because on my soul, I'll never acknowledge you,

and nothing of mine will ever benefit you.

Believe it. Think it over. I don't break my word.

Is there no pity up in the clouds

that can see to the bottom of my grief?

Oh, my sweet mother, don't cast me off!

Delay this marriage a month, a week.

Or if you won't, then make my wedding bed

in the dark tomb where Tybalt lies.

Don't talk to me — I won't say a word.

Do what you like. I'm finished with you.

Oh God! — Nurse, how can this be stopped?

My husband is on earth, my marriage vow is in heaven.

How can that vow come back to earth

unless my husband sends it to me from heaven

by dying? Comfort me, advise me.

It's cruel that heaven should play such tricks

on someone as defenceless as me.

What do you say? Haven't you one word of comfort?

Some comfort, Nurse.

Well, here it is.

Romeo is banished — and I'd bet the world to nothing

that he'll never dare come back to claim you.

Or if he does, it'll have to be in secret.

So, given how things stand now,

I think you'd best marry the Count.

Oh, he's a lovely gentleman!

Romeo's a dishrag next to him. An eagle, madam,

hasn't as bright, as sharp, as fine an eye

as Paris has. Curse my heart —

I think you're lucky in this second match.

It's better than your first. And if it weren't,

your first is as good as dead — or might as well be,

alive somewhere else and no use to you here.

Do you mean that, from the heart?

From my soul too,

or curse them both.

Amen!

What?

Well — you've comforted me wonderfully.

Go inside and tell my mother I've gone,

having upset my father, to Friar Laurence's cell

to confess and be forgiven.

I will — and this is wisely done.

Damned old woman! Oh, you wicked devil!

Which is the greater sin — wishing me to break my vow,

or insulting my husband with the same tongue

that praised him beyond compare

so many thousand times? Go on, adviser —

from now on you and my heart are strangers.

I'll go to the Friar and find out his solution.

And if everything else fails, I have the power to end my own life.