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  • Title: Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)
  • 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
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)

    Enter Romeo alone.
    Ro: Shall I goe forward and my heart is here?
    Turne backe dull earth and finde thy Center out.
    750Enter Benuolio Mercutio.
    Ben: Romeo, my cosen Romeo.
    Mer: Doest thou heare he is wise,
    Vpon my life he hath stolne him home to bed.
    Ben: He came this way, and leapt this Orchard wall.
    755Call good Mercutio.
    Mer: Call, nay Ile coniure too.
    Romeo, madman, humors, passion, liuer, appeare thou in
    likenes of a sigh: speek but one rime & I am satisfied, cry
    760but ay me. Pronounce but Loue and Doue, speake to
    my gossip Venus one faire word, one nickname for her
    purblinde sonne and heire young Abraham:Cupid hee
    that shot so trim when young King Cophetua loued the
    begger wench. Hee heares me not. I coniure thee by
    Rosalindes bright eye, high forehead, and scarlet lip, her
    prettie foote, straight leg, and quiuering thigh, and the
    770demaines that there adiacent lie , that in thy likenesse
    thou appeare to vs.
    Ben:If he doe heare thee thou wilt anger him.
    Mer: Tut this cannot anger him, marrie if one shuld
    raise a spirit in his Mistris circle of some strange fashion,
    775making it there to stand till she had laid it, and coniurde
    it downe, that were some spite. My inuocation is faire
    and honest, and in his Mistris name I coniure onely but
    to raise vp him.
    780Ben: Well he hath hid himselfe amongst those trees,
    To be conforted with the humerous night,
    Blinde in his loue, and best befits the darke.
    Mer:
    of Romeo and Iuliet.
    Mer: If loue be blind, loue will not hit the marke,
    Now will he sit vnder a Medler tree,
    785And wish his Mistris were that kinde of fruite,
    As maides call Medlers when they laugh alone.
    Ah Romeo that she were, ah that she were
    An open Et cetera, thou a poprin Peare.
    Romeo God night, il'e to my trundle bed:
    790This field bed is too cold for mee.
    Come lets away, for tis but vaine,
    To seeke him here that meanes not to be found.