Romeo and Juliet — Act 3, Scene 5in modern English, side by side

That light isn't daylight, I know it, I do.

It's some meteor that the sun sends out to be your torchbearer tonight and light your way to Mantua.

So stay a while longer — you don't need to go yet.

Let me be caught, then, let me be put to death — I'm content with that, if it's what you want.

I'll say that gray light isn't the morning's eye, it's only the pale reflection of the moon's face.

And that isn't the lark whose notes echo so high above our heads in the vaulted sky.

I want to stay far more than I want to go.

Come, death, and welcome —

Juliet wants it so.

How is it, my soul?

Let's talk.

It isn't day yet.

It is, it is!

Hurry, get away, go!

It's the lark singing so off-key, straining out harsh, unpleasant notes.

Some say the lark sings beautiful melodies — this one doesn't, since it's tearing us apart.

Some say the lark and the hateful toad traded eyes.

Oh, now I wish they'd traded voices too, since that voice is scaring us out of each other's arms, hunting you away with a morning call to the day.

Oh, go now — it's getting lighter and lighter.

Lighter and lighter outside, darker and darker our troubles.

My lady.

Nurse?

Your mother is on her way to your room.

Day has broken — be careful, watch out.

Farewell, farewell — one kiss, and I'll climb down.

Are you really leaving so soon?

My love, my lord, my husband, my friend — I must hear from you every hour of every day, because in a single minute there are so many days' worth of longing.

Oh, by that count I'll be ancient before I see my Romeo again.

Farewell!

I won't miss any chance to send my love to you.

Oh, do you think we'll ever see each other again?

I have no doubt of it — and all these troubles will become sweet stories for us to tell in the years to come.

Oh God!

I have a soul that senses disaster!

Now that you're down there, it seems to me I see you as if you were dead at the bottom of a tomb.

Either my eyes are failing me, or you look pale.

And believe me, love, you look the same to my eyes.

Grief is draining the life from both of us.

Goodbye, goodbye.

Hello, daughter — are you awake?

Who's calling?

Is it my mother?

Is she still up this late, or awake this early?

What unusual reason brings her here?

Well now, Juliet, what is it?

Madam, I'm not well.

Still weeping over your cousin's death?

What, will you wash him out of his grave with tears?

And even if you could, you couldn't bring him back to life.

So stop this — some grief shows how much you loved him, but too much grief shows a lack of good sense.

Let me still weep, though, for such a painful loss.

That way you'll feel the loss all the more, but you still won't have the friend you're weeping for.

Feeling the loss so deeply, I can't help but keep weeping for my friend.

Well, girl, you're not crying so much over his death as over the fact that the villain who killed him is still alive.

What villain, madam?

That same villain, Romeo.

That villain and 'he' are worlds apart to me.

God forgive him —

I do, with all my heart.

And yet no one grieves my heart the way he does.

That's because that murdering traitor is still alive.

Yes, madam — alive, and out of reach of these hands of mine.

I wish only I could avenge my cousin's death myself.

We'll get vengeance for it, don't worry.

So stop crying.

I'll send word to someone in Mantua, where that banished fugitive is living now, who will give him such an unusual dose of poison that he'll soon be keeping Tybalt company in the grave.

And then I hope you'll be satisfied.

I truly will never be satisfied with Romeo until I see him — dead — is how much my poor heart grieves for a cousin.

Madam, if you could just find a man to carry a poison, I would prepare it myself, so that Romeo, upon receiving it, would soon fall into a quiet sleep.

Oh, how my heart hates hearing his name spoken and not being able to reach him, to take out on his body the love I bore for my cousin, on the man who killed him.

You find the means, and I'll find the man.

But now let me tell you some happy news, girl.

And joy is certainly welcome in such a difficult time.

What is it, if I may ask?

Well, well — you have a devoted father, child, one who, to lift you out of your sadness, has arranged a sudden day of celebration that you weren't expecting, and neither was I.

Madam, what a good time for it — what day is that?

Well, my child, early next Thursday morning, the gallant, young, noble gentleman Count Paris will happily make you a joyful bride at Saint Peter's Church.

By Saint Peter's Church, and by Saint Peter himself, he will not make me a joyful bride there.

I'm amazed at this rush — that I'm expected to marry before the man who's supposed to be my husband has even come to court me.

Please tell my lord and father, madam, that I won't marry yet — and when I do, I swear it will be Romeo, whom you know I'm supposed to hate, rather than Paris.

This is quite the news indeed.

Here comes your father — tell him yourself, and see how he takes it from you.

When the sun sets, the air drizzles dew, but when my brother's son 'set,' it poured down rain outright.

How now —

a fountain, girl?

Still in tears?

Endlessly showering?

In one small body you're imitating a ship, a sea, and a storm all at once — your eyes, which I might call the sea, keep rising and falling with tears; your body is the ship sailing on this salty flood; your sighs are the winds; and unless there's a sudden calm, the raging of your tears and sighs together will capsize your storm-tossed little body.

How now, wife?

Have you told her our decision?

Yes, sir — but she wants none of it, she says, with thanks.

I wish the fool were married to her own grave instead.

Wait.

Explain that to me, explain that to me, wife.

What, she wants none of it?

Doesn't she thank us?

Isn't she proud,

doesn't she consider herself blessed, unworthy as she is, that we've arranged for her to marry so worthy a gentleman?

Not proud that you've done it, but thankful that you have.

I can never be proud of something I hate, but I can be thankful even for hatred that was meant as love.

Now, now, clever wordplay?

What's this — 'proud,' and 'I thank you,' and 'I don't thank you,' and yet 'not proud'?

Listen here, my fine little madam: don't thank me your thankings, and don't proud me your prouds, but get your pretty joints ready for Thursday to go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church, or I'll drag you there myself on a hurdle.

Get out, you sickly little wretch!

Get out, you baggage!

You pale-faced thing!

For shame!

Have you lost your mind?

Good father, I beg you on my knees, hear me out patiently, just for a moment.

Hang yourself, you disobedient little wretch!

I'll tell you what — get yourself to church on Thursday, or never look me in the face again.

Don't speak, don't answer, don't say a word back to me.

My hands are itching to strike you.

Wife, we hardly thought ourselves blessed that God gave us only this one child — but now I see this one is one too many, and that having her is a curse.

Get away from her, you worthless girl.

God in heaven bless her.

You're wrong, my lord, to scold her like this.

And why is that, my lady wise-one?

Hold your tongue, good Mrs. Prudence — go gossip with your friends.

I'm not saying anything treasonous.

Oh, good evening to you too!

Can't a person even speak?

Quiet, you babbling fool!

Save your wisdom for a gossip session over drinks, because we don't need it here.

You're being too harsh.

God's blood, this is driving me mad!

Day, night, hour, ride, work, play — alone or in company — my constant concern has always been to see her married well. And now, having found a gentleman of noble birth, with fine estates, young, well-connected, stuffed, as they say, with honorable qualities, shaped exactly as anyone would wish a man to be — and then to have a pathetic, whining fool, a sniveling baby doll, when her fortune is being handed to her, answer 'I won't marry, I can't love, I'm too young, please forgive me' — well, if you won't marry, I'll forgive you, all right: go graze wherever you like, you won't live under my roof.

Think about it, consider it carefully — I don't make idle threats.

Thursday is close; put your hand on your heart and think it over.

If you're my daughter, I'll give you to my friend Paris. If you're not, then go hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, for I swear on my soul I'll never acknowledge you again, and nothing of mine will ever do you any good.

Trust me on that, think it over — I won't go back on my word.

Is there no pity sitting up in the clouds that can see all the way down into the depths of my grief?

Oh, my sweet mother, don't cast me aside — delay this marriage for a month, a week, or if you won't, then make my wedding bed in that dark tomb where Tybalt lies.

Don't speak to me — I won't say another word.

Do as you like, because I'm done with you.

Oh God!

Oh, Nurse, how can this be stopped?

My husband is alive on earth, and my marriage vow is registered in heaven.

How can that vow return to earth unless my husband sends it back to me from heaven by leaving the earth himself?

Comfort me, give me advice.

Oh, how terrible that heaven should play such tricks on someone as helpless as me.

What do you say?

Don't you have even one word of comfort?

Some comfort, Nurse.

Well, here it is: Romeo is banished, and it's a safe bet that he'll never dare come back to challenge anyone for you.

And if he does, it will have to be in secret.

So, given how things stand now, I think it's best you marry the Count.

Oh, he's a lovely gentleman!

Romeo's a dishrag next to him.

An eagle, madam, doesn't have as bright, as sharp, as beautiful an eye as Paris has.

Curse my own heart, but I think you're lucky in this second match, because it's better than your first — or even if it weren't, your first husband is as good as dead, since he's living far away and you get no use out of him at all.

Are you speaking from your heart?

And from my soul too — or may they both be cursed.

Amen.

What?

Well, you've comforted me tremendously.

Go inside, and tell my mother that, having upset my father, I've gone to Friar Lawrence's cell to make confession and be absolved.

Yes, I'll go — and this is a wise thing to do.

You wicked old fiend!

You wretched devil!

Which is the greater sin — wishing me to break my marriage vow this way, or slandering my husband with the same tongue that has praised him beyond comparison so many thousands of times?

Get away from me, adviser.

From now on, you and my heart are separate.

I'll go to the Friar to find out what he can do.

If everything else fails, I still have the power to end my own life.