Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.


NURSE.

What’s this? What’s this?


JULIET.

A rhyme I learn’d even now

Of one I danc’d withal.


 [One calls within, ‘Juliet’.]
NURSE.

Anon, anon!

Come let’s away, the strangers all are gone.


 [Exeunt.]


ACT II
 Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.

Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,

And young affection gapes to be his heir;

That fair for which love groan’d for and would die,

With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair.

Now Romeo is belov’d, and loves again,

Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;

But to his foe suppos’d he must complain,

And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks:

Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;

And she as much in love, her means much less

To meet her new beloved anywhere.

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,

Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.


 [Exit.]
SCENE I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.
 Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.

Can I go forward when my heart is here?

Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.


 [He climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]
 Enter Benvolio and

Mercutio.
BENVOLIO.

Romeo! My cousin Romeo! Romeo!


MERCUTIO.

He is wise,

And on my life hath stol’n him home to bed.


BENVOLIO.

He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:

Call, good Mercutio.


MERCUTIO.

Nay, I’ll conjure too.

Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover!

Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,

Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;

Cry but ‘Ah me!’ Pronounce but Love and dove;

Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,

One nickname for her purblind son and heir,

Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim

When King Cophetua lov’d the beggar-maid.

He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;

The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.

I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,