Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Friar Lawrence alone with a basket. FRIAR LAWRENCE
The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Check’ring the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels.
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye, 5
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juicèd flowers.
The Earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb; 10
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies 15
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught so vile that on the Earth doth live
But to the Earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. 20
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime by action dignified. Enter Romeo. Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each 25
part;
Being tasted, stays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposèd kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant, 30
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. | Friar Lawrence is out foraging for medicinal plants and herbs for one of his concoctions...and talking to himself about their uses. He delivers a lengthy speech about how herbs and plants have the potential to be healing and medicinal, but if they're misused, they can be deadly poison. (Get your highlighters out, because this is important. Check out "Symbols" if you want to know more.) |
ROMEO
Good morrow, father. FRIAR LAWRENCE Benedicite.
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distempered head 35
So soon to bid “Good morrow” to thy bed.
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And, where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruisèd youth with unstuffed brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth 40
reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art uproused with some distemp’rature,
Or, if not so, then here I hit it right:
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight. 45 | Romeo wanders in and Friar Lawrence does a little Sherlock routine. He puts a few clues together and deduces that Romeo never went to bed last night. |
ROMEO
That last is true. The sweeter rest was mine. FRIAR LAWRENCE
God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline? ROMEO
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name and that name’s woe. FRIAR LAWRENCE
That’s my good son. But where hast thou been 50
then? | Romeo says the Friar's right—he had a sweeter rest than sleep last night. The Friar takes this to mean that Romeo has finally hooked up with Rosaline, but Romeo is like, "Rosaline who?" He's not into her anymore. |
ROMEO
I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies 55
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessèd man, for, lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe. FRIAR LAWRENCE
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift.
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. 60 | When the Friar asks where Romeo's been all night, Romeo starts talking in riddles. He says he's been partying with his enemies, and that he's been wounded by someone who was also wounded by him. But...they can both be cured by the Friar, if only he'll help. "Um...what?" The Friar tells Romeo to stop beating around the bush and just tell him what's going on already. |
ROMEO
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When and where and how 65
We met, we wooed, and made exchange of vow
I’ll tell thee as we pass, but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us today. | Romeo gets straight to the point: He and Juliet Capulet are in love and they want Friar Lawrence to marry them. Today. |
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear, 70
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste 75
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans yet ringing in mine ancient ears.
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not washed off yet. 80
If e’er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.
And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence
then:
Women may fall when there’s no strength in men. 85 ROMEO
Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline. FRIAR LAWRENCE
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. ROMEO
And bad’st me bury love. FRIAR LAWRENCE Not in a grave
To lay one in, another out to have. 90 ROMEO
I pray thee, chide me not. Her I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so. | The Friar is appropriate surprised by this turn of events, and he provides a much-needed reality check: Romeo has been switching girls like highway lanes. |
FRIAR LAWRENCE O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell. 95
But come, young waverer, come, go with me.
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be,
For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households’ rancor to pure love. ROMEO
O, let us hence. I stand on sudden haste. 100 FRIAR LAWRENCE
Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast. They exit. | And then, two seconds later, the Friar decides to help Romeo out, but not because he's a romantic: he's got political motives. A marriage between Romeo and Juliet just might reconcile the two warring families. So, in the name of reducing the yearly street-brawl-murder rate in Verona, Friar Lawrence skips the lecture on fidelity and commitment and goes right to agreeing with the marriage. |