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This is a scene of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” which most of you know well.
Romeo confesses to Friar Laurence his love to Juliet, the daughter of the archenemy of his loved father.
FRIAR LAURENCE
The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,
Checkring the Eastern Clouds with streakes of light,
And flecked darknesse like a drunkard reeles
From forth daies path and Titans fierie wheeles:
Now, ere the sunne aduance his burning eye,
The day to cheare and nights danke dew to dry,
I must vpfill this Osier Cage of ours
With balefull weedes and precious Iuiced flowers.
The earth that's Natures mother, is her Tombe,
What is her burying graue that is her wombe:
And from her wombe children of diuers kind
We sucking on her naturall bosome find:
Many for many vertues excellent:
None but for some, and yet all different.
Omickle is the powerfull grace that lyes
In Hearbes, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth liue
But to the earth some speciall good doth give,
Nor ought so good but strain’d from that faire vse
Reuolts to vice and stumbles on abuse:
Vertue it selfe turnes vice, being misapplyed;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rin’d of this weake flower
Poyson hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheares each part;
Being tasted slaies all senses with the hart.
Two such opposed foes encampe them still
In man as well as Hearbes, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soone the Canker death eates vp that Plant.
Enter ROMEO
ROMEO
Good morrow to my Gosthly Confessor Father.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Benedecite!
What earlie tongue so soone saluteth me?
Yong sonne, it argues a distempered head
So soone to bid goodmorrow to thy bed:
Care keepes his watch in euerie old mans eye,
And where Care lodgeth, sleepe will neuer lye;
But where vnbrused youth with vnstuft braine
Doth couch his limmes, there, golden sleepe doth raigne:
Therefore thy earlinesse doth me assure
Thou art vprows’d by some distemprature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not beene in bed to-night.
ROMEO
That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
FRIAR LAURENCE
God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?
ROMEO
With Rosaline, my Ghostly Father? No;
I haue forgot that name, and that names woe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
That’s my good sonne: but where hast thou beene, then?
ROMEO
Ile tell thee ere thou aske it me agen.
I haue bin feasting with mine enemie,
Where on the sodaine one hath wounded mee,
Thats by me wounded: both our remedies
With in thy helpe and holy phisicke lyes:
I beare no hatred, blessed man, for loe,
My intercesion likewise steades my foe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Be plaine, my sonne, and homely in thy drift;
Ridling confesion findes but ridling shrift.
ROMEO
Then plainely know my harts deare Loue is set
On the faire daughter of rich Capulet:
As mine on hers, so hers likewise on mine;
And all combin’d, saue what thou must combine
By holy marriage: when and where and how
We met, we wooed and made exchange of vow,
Ile tell thee as we passe ; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marrie vs to day.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Holy Saint Francis, what a change is heere !
Is Rosaline, whome thou didst Loue so deare ,
So Loue then lyes
Not trulie in their harts , but in their eyes.
Iesu Maria , what a deale of brine
Hath washt thy sallow cheekes for Rosaline!
How much salt water throwne away in wast,
To season loue, that of it doth not tast!
The sunne not yet thy sighes from heauen cleares,
Thy old grones yet ringing in my ancient eares;
Lo, here vpon thy cheeke the staine doth sit
Of an old teare that is not washt off yet:
If ere thou wast thy selfe and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes, were all for Rosaline:
And art thou chang’d? pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fal, when ther's no strength in men.
ROMEO
Thou chid’st me oft for louing Rosaline.
FRIAR LAURENCE
For doating, not for louing, pupill mine.
ROMEO
And bad’st me burie loue.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Not in a graue,
To lay one in, another out to haue.
ROMEO
I pree thee chide not; she whome I Loue now
Doth grace for grace and loue for loue allow;
The other did not so.
FRIAR LAURENCE
O, she knew well
Thy Loue did read by rote and could not spell.
But come, yong wauerer, come, go with mee,
In one respect Ile thy assistant bee;
For this alliaunce may so happy proue,
To turne your Households' rancour to pure Loue.