LADY CAPULET         Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,                                     Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,                                     Are made already mothers. By my count,                                     I was your mother much upon these years                                     That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:                                     The valiant Paris seeks you for his love. NURSE                        […]

NURSE                        Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace,                                     Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed.                                     And I might live to see thee married once,                                     I have my wish. LADY CAPULET         Marry, that ‘marry’ is the very theme                                     I came to talk of. Tell me, my daughter […]

LADY CAPULET         Enough of this, I pray thee hold thy peace. NURSE                        Yes, madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh,                                     To think it should leave crying and say ‘Ay’:                                     And yet I warrant it had upon it brow                                     A bump as big as a young cock’rel’s stone,                                     A perilous knock, and […]

NURSE            ‘Shake!’ quoth the dove-house; ’twas no need, I trow,                         To bid me trudge.                         And since that time it is eleven years,                         For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th’rood,                         She could have run and waddled all about;                         For even the day before, she broke her brow,                         And […]

NURSE            ’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years,                         And she was weaned – I never shall forget it –                         Of all the days of the year, upon that day;                         For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,                         Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall.                         My lord and you […]

NURSE                        How long is it now                                     To Lammas-tide? LADY CAPULET                                             A fortnight and odd days. NURSE                        Even or odd, of all days in the year,                                     Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.                                     Susan and she – God rest all Christian souls! –                                     Were of an age. Well, Susan is with […]

LADY CAPULET         This is the matter. Nurse, give leave a while,                                     We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again,                                     I have remembered me, thou s’ hear our counsel.                                     Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age. NURSE                        Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. LADY CAPULET         She’s not fourteen. […]

Enter CAPULET’S WIFE and NURSE LADY CAPULET         Nurse, where’s my daughter? call her forth to me. NURSE                        Now by my maidenhead at twelve year old, I bade her come. What, lamb! What, ladybird God forbid, where’s this girl? What, Juliet! Enter JULIET JULIET                                    How now, who calls? NURSE                        Your mother. JULIET                                    Madam, I am here, […]

The scene division is editorial, and it’s clear that the action is continuous between 1.1 and 1.2; it’s not implausible to imagine it as having happened in real time, given that Capulet goes with the Prince to be admonished half way through 1.1, and then is reporting this to Paris as they enter at the […]

BENVOLIO      Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,                         Herself poised with herself in either eye;                         But in that crystal scales let there be weighed                         Your lady’s love against some other maid                         That I will show you shining at this feast,                         And she shall scant show well that now […]