Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day

That I have worn a visor, and could tell

A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,

Such as would please; ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone,

You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.

A hall, a hall, give room! And foot it, girls.


 [Music plays, and they dance.]


More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,

And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.

Ah sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.

Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,

For you and I are past our dancing days;

How long is’t now since last yourself and I

Were in a mask?


CAPULET’S COUSIN.

By’r Lady, thirty years.
CAPULET.

What, man, ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much:

’Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,

Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,

Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d.


CAPULET’S COUSIN.

’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir;

His son is thirty.


CAPULET.

Will you tell me that?

His son was but a ward two years ago.


ROMEO.

What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand

Of yonder knight?


SERVANT.

I know not, sir.


ROMEO.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows

As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.

The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,

And touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!

For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.


TYBALT.

This by his voice, should be a Montague.

Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave

Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,

To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?

Now by the stock and honour of my kin,

To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.


CAPULET.

Why how now, kinsman!

Wherefore storm you so?


TYBALT.

Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;