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  • Title: Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 2, 1599)
  • Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
  • ISBN: 1-55058-299-2

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
    Peer Reviewed

    Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 2, 1599)

    The most lamentable Tragedie
    She shall be married to this noble Earle:
    Will you be ready? do you like this haste?
    Well, keepe no great ado, a friend or two,
    For harke you, Tybalt being slaine so late,
    2020It may be thought we held him carelesly
    Being our kinsman, if we reuell much:
    Therefore weele haue some halfe a doozen friends,
    And there an end, but what say you to Thursday?
    Paris. My Lord, I would that thursday were to morrow.
    Ca. Well get you gone, a Thursday be it then:
    Go you to Iuliet ere you go to bed,
    Prepare her wife, against this wedding day.
    Farewell my Lord, light to my chamber ho,
    2030Afore mee, it is so very late that wee may call it early by and by,
    Goodnight.
    Exeunt.
    Enter Romeo and Iuliet aloft.
    Iu. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet neare day:
    It was the Nightingale, and not the Larke,
    2035That pierst the fearefull hollow of thine eare,
    Nightly she sings on yond Pomgranet tree,
    Beleeue me loue, it was the Nightingale.
    Rom. It was the Larke the herauld of the morne,
    No Nightingale, looke loue what enuious streakes
    2040Do lace the seuering cloudes in yonder East:
    Nights candles are burnt out, and iocand day
    Stands tipto on the mystie Mountaine tops,
    I must be gone and liue, or stay and die.
    Iu. Yond light is not daylight, I know it I:
    2045It is some Meteor that the Sun exhale,
    To be to thee this night a Torch-bearer,
    And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
    Therefore stay yet, thou needst not to be gone.
    Ro. Let me be tane, let me be put to death,
    2050I am content, so thou wilt haue it so.
    Ile say yon gray is not the the mornings eye,
    Tis