This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.


ROMEO.

And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall.

Within this hour my man shall be with thee,

And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,

Which to the high topgallant of my joy

Must be my convoy in the secret night.

Farewell, be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains;

Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.


NURSE.

Now God in heaven bless thee. Hark you, sir.


ROMEO.

What say’st thou, my dear Nurse?


NURSE.

Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say,

Two may keep counsel, putting one away?


ROMEO.

I warrant thee my man’s as true as steel.


NURSE.

Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! When ’twas a

little prating thing,—O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that

would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very

toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the

properer man, but I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as

any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a

letter?


ROMEO.

Ay, Nurse; what of that? Both with an R.


NURSE.

Ah, mocker! That’s the dog’s name. R is for the—no, I know it

begins with some other letter, and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of

you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.


ROMEO.

Commend me to thy lady.


NURSE.

Ay, a thousand times. Peter!


 [Exit Romeo.]
PETER.

Anon.


NURSE.

Before and apace.


 [Exeunt.]
SCENE V. Capulet’s Garden.
 Enter Juliet.
JULIET.

The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse,

In half an hour she promised to return.

Perchance she cannot meet him. That’s not so.

O, she is lame. Love’s heralds should be thoughts,

Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,

Driving back shadows over lowering hills:

Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,

And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.