Prologue[edit]

 Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows,
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage.
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Act I[edit]
 Sampson: My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will back thee.
Gregory: How! turn thy back and run?
Sampson: Fear me not.
Gregory: No, marry; I fear thee!
o Scene i

 Abraham: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

Sampson: I do bite my thumb, sir.
Abraham: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sampson (to Gregory): Is the law of our side if I say ay?
Gregory: No.
Sampson: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.
Gregory: Do you quarrel, sir?
Abraham: Quarrel, sir? No, sir.
Sampson: If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.
Abraham: No better.
Sampson: Well, sir.
Gregory: (to Sampson) Say 'better'; here comes one of my master's kinsmen.
Sampson: Yes, better, sir.
Abraham: You lie.
Sampson: Draw, if you be men! Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.
(They fight)
o Scene i

 Benvolio: Part, fools!

Put up your swords; you know not what you do.
(Tybalt enters)
 Tybalt: What, art thou drawn among these hartless hinds?
Turn thee, Benvolio; look upon thy death.
Benvolio: I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.
Tybalt: What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
Have at thee, coward!
o Scene i

 Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,

Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel, —
Will they not hear? — What, ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins!
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved Prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away.
You, Capulet, shall go along with me —
And Montague, come you this afternoon —
To know our further pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
o Prince, scene i

 Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
Benvolio: In love?
Romeo: Out-
Benvolio: Of love?
Romeo: Out of her favour, where I am in love.
o Scene i

 Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!

O any thing, of nothing first created;
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
o Romeo, scene i
 Romeo: Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
Mercutio: If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
o Scene iv

 Romeo: I dream'd a dream to-night.

Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: Well, what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
o Scene iv

 O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep.
o Mercutio, scene iv

 Romeo: Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Thou talk'st of nothing.
Mercutio: True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
Benvolio: This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves;
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
o Scene iv

 Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
o Romeo, scene v

 You kiss by th' book.

o Juliet, scene v
 My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
o Juliet, scene v

Act II[edit]
 This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it and conjured it down;
That were some spite: my invocation
Is fair and honest, and in his mistress' name
I conjure only to raise up him.
o Mercutio, scene I

 But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
o Romeo, scene II

 O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
o Juliet, scene ii

 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; —

Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title: — Romeo, doff thy name;
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
o Juliet, scene ii, a variant in many publis