Romeo. Juliet. From the feuding Montague and Capulet family. Is there anything else more tragic and dramatic than the story of this young love? The prologue explains it all. The audiobook is a sure winner, the best form to enjoy Shakespeare for a novice like me.
PROLOGUE
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-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventures piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
That fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parent's 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. (opening lines)
ROMEO Alas that Love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! what fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all:
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O any thing of nothing first create! (Act I Scene 1)
NURSE His name is Romeo, and a Montague,
The only son of your great enemy.
JULIET My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy. (Act I Scene 5)
ROMEO He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, since she in envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. (Act II Scene 2)
JULIET O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse thy name;
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
JULIET '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 word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain thar 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. (Act II Scene 2)
JULIET Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow. (Act II Scene 2)
MERCUTIO Without his roe, like a dried herring:
O flesh, flesh, how art thou finished!
Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in.
Laura to his lady was a kitchen wench
(marry, she had a better love than to berhyme her),
Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gipsy,
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots,
This be a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose.
Signior Romeo, 'bon jour'! there's a French salutation to your French slop.
You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night. (Act II Scene 4)
FRIAR LAWRENCE These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately, long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. (Act II Scene 6)
JULIET 'Romeo is banished' : to speak that word,
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death, no words can that woe sound. (Act III Scene 2)
JULIET O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle;
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, Fortune:
But send him back. (Act III Scene 5)
FRIAR LAWRENCE Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
That letter was not nice but full of charge
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,
Give me an iron crow and bring it straight
Unto my cell. (Act V Scene 2)
PRINCE Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague?
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished. (Act V Scene 3)
PRINCE For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. (Closing lines)
BBC Audiobooks America audiobook edition
Fully Dramatized Recording
Audiobook borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
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