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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)

    Enter Romeo alone.
    Ro. Can I go forward when my heart is here,
    Turne backe dull earth and find thy Center out.
    750 Enter Benuolio with Mercutio.
    Ben. Romeo, my Cosen Romeo, Romeo.
    Mer. He is wise, and on my life hath stolne him home to bed.
    Ben. He ran this way and leapt this Orchard wall.
    755Call good Mercutio:
    Nay Ile coniure too.
    Mer. Romeo, humours, madman, passion louer,
    Appeare thou in the likenesse of a sigh,
    Speake but on rime and I am satisfied:
    760Crie but ay me, prouaunt, but loue and day,
    Speake to my goship Venus one faire word,
    One nickname for her purblind sonne and her,
    D Young
    The most lamentable Tragedie
    Young Abraham: Cupid he that shot so true,
    When King Cophetua lou'd the begger mayd.
    765He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moueth not,
    The Ape is dead, and I must coniure him.
    I coniure thee by Rosalines bright eyes,
    By her high forehead, and her Scarlet lip,
    By her fine foot, straight leg, and quiuering thigh,
    770And the demeanes, that there adiacent lie,
    That in thy likenesse thou appeare to vs.
    Ben. And if he heare thee thou wilt anger him.
    Mer. This cannot anger him, twould anger him
    To raise a spirit in his mistresse circle,
    775Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
    Till she had laid it, and coniured it downe,
    That were some spight.
    My inuocation is faire & honest, in his mistres name,
    I coniure onely but to raise vp him.
    780 Ben. Come, he hath hid himselfe among these trees
    To be consorted with the humerous night:
    Blind is his loue, and best befits the darke.
    Mer. If loue be blind, loue cannot hit the marke,
    Now will he sit vnder a Medler tree,
    785And wish his mistresse were that kind of fruite,
    As maides call Medlers, when they laugh alone.
    O Romeo that she were, ô that she were
    An open, or thou a Poprin Peare.
    Romeo goodnight, ile to my truckle bed,
    790This field-bed is too cold for me to sleepe,
    Come shall we go?
    Ben. Go then, for tis in vaine to seeke him here
    That meanes not to be found. Exit.