Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.


BENVOLIO.

Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.


ROMEO.

O teach me how I should forget to think.


BENVOLIO.

By giving liberty unto thine eyes;

Examine other beauties.


ROMEO.

’Tis the way

To call hers, exquisite, in question more.

These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,

Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair;

He that is strucken blind cannot forget

The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.

Show me a mistress that is passing fair,

What doth her beauty serve but as a note

Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair?

Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.


BENVOLIO.

I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.


 [Exeunt.]
SCENE II. A Street.
 Enter Capulet, Paris and

Servant.
CAPULET.

But Montague is bound as well as I,

In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,

For men so old as we to keep the peace.


PARIS.

Of honourable reckoning are you both,

And pity ’tis you liv’d at odds so long.

But now my lord, what say you to my suit?


CAPULET.

But saying o’er what I have said before.

My child is yet a stranger in the world,

She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;

Let two more summers wither in their pride

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.


PARIS.

Younger than she are happy mothers made.


CAPULET.

And too soon marr’d are those so early made.

The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,

She is the hopeful lady of my earth:

But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,

My will to her consent is but a part;

And she agree, within her scope of choice

Lies my consent and fair according voice.

This night I hold an old accustom’d feast,

Whereto I have invited many a guest,

Such as I love, and you among the store,

One more, most welcome, makes my number more.

At my poor house look to behold this night

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light: