No Fear Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 2, Scene 1
Original Text | Modern Text | |
Enter ROMEO alone |
ROMEO enters
alone. | |
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ROMEO
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out.
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ROMEO
Can I go away while my heart stays here? I have to go back to
where my heart is.
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Moves away Enter BENVOLIO with
MERCUTIO
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ROMEO moves away.
BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO
enter. | |
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BENVOLIO
Romeo, my cousin Romeo! Romeo!
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BENVOLIO
(calling) Romeo, my cousin, Romeo,
Romeo!
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MERCUTIO
He
is wise,
And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.
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MERCUTIO
He’s a smart boy. I bet he slipped away and went home to
bed.
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5 |
BENVOLIO
He ran this way and leapt this orchard wall.
Call, good Mercutio.
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BENVOLIO
He ran this way and jumped over this orchard wall. Call to him,
Mercutio.
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10 15 20 |
MERCUTIO
Nay,
I’ll conjure too!
Romeo! Humours, madman, passion, lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh!
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied.
Cry but “Ay me!” Pronounce but
“love” and “dove.”
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so true
When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid.—
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not.
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.—
I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.
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MERCUTIO
I’ll conjure him as if I were summoning a spirit. Romeo!
Madman! Passion! Lover! Show yourself in the form of a sigh. Speak
one rhyme, and I’ll be satisfied. Just cry out,
“Ah me!” Just say
“love” and “dove.”
Say just one lovely word to my good friend Venus. Just say the nickname of her blind son Cupid, the one who
shot arrows so well in the old story.—Romeo
doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t stir. He
doesn’t move. The silly ape is dead, but I must make him
appear.—I summon you by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
by her high forehead and her red lips, by her fine feet, by her
straight legs, by her trembling thighs, and by the regions right
next to her thighs. In the name of all of these things, I command
you to appear before us in your true form.
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