Romeo and Juliet Play/Story

Chapter two

MONTAGUE
Who started this old fight ups again? Speak, nephew. Where were you when it started?

BENVOLIO
Your servants were fighting your enemy's servants before I got here. I drew my sword to part them. Right then, that hothead Tybalt showed up with his sword ready. He taunted me and waved his sword around, making the air hiss.  As we were trading blows, more and more people showed up to join the fight, until the prince came and broke everyone up.

LADY MONTAGUE
Oh, where's Romeo? Have you seen him today? I'm glad he wasn't here for this fight.

BENVOLIO
(smiles politely) Madam, I had a lot on my mind an hour before dawn this morning, so I went for a walk. Underneath the Sycamore grieve that grows on the west side of the city, I saw your son taking an early-morning walk. I headed toward him, but he saw me coming and his in the woods. I thought he must be feelings the same way I was—wanting to be alone and tired of his own company. I figured he was avoiding me, and I was perfectly happy to leave him alone and keep to myself.

MONTAGUE
(sighs) He's been seen there many mornings, crying tears that add drops to the morning few and making a cloudy day cloudier with his sighs. But as soon as the sun rises in the east, my sad son comes home to escape the light.

He locks himself up alone in his bedroom, shuts his windows to keep out the beautiful daylight, and makes himself an artificial night. This "mood" of his is going to bring bad news, unless someone smart can fix what's bothering him.

BENVOLIO
My noble uncle, do you know why he acts this way?

MONTAGUE
I don't k ow, and he won't tel me.

BENVOLIO
Have you done everything you could to make him tell you the reason?

MONTAGUE
I've tried, and many of our friends have tried to make him talk, but he keeps his thoughts to himself. He doesn't want any friend but himself, and though I don't know whether he's a good friend to himself, he certainly keeps his own secrets. He's like a flower bud that won't open itself up to the world because it's been poisoned from within by parasites. If we could only find out why he's sad, we'd be as eager to help him as we were to learn the reason for his sadness.

——(ROMEO walks up to the three.)——

BENVOLIO
Look—here he comes. If you don't mind, please step aside. He'll either have to tel me what's wrong or else tell me no over and over.

MONTAGUE
I hope you're lucky enough to hear the true story by sticking around. (to his wife—) Come, Madam, let's go.

——(MONTAGUE AND LADY MONTAGUE leave BENVOLIO with ROMEO.)——

BENVOILO
(stern polite) Good morning, cousin.

ROMEO
Is it that early in the day?

BENVOLIO
It's only jsut now nine o'clock.

ROMEO
Oh my, time goes by slowly when you're sad. Was that my father who left here, in such a hurry?

BENVOLIO
It was. What's making you so sad and your hours so long?

ROMEO
(sighs dramatically) I don't have the thing that makes time fly...

BENVOLIO
You're in love?

ROMEO
Out.

BENVOLIO
Out of love?

ROMEO
I love someone. She does not love me.

BENVOLIO
It's sad. Love looks like a nice thing, Hru it's actually very tough when you experience it.

ROMEO
What's sad is that life is supposed to be blind, but it can still make you do whatever it wants. So, where should we eat?
(sees blood)
Oh my! What fight happened here? No, don't tell me—I know all about it. This fight has a lot to do with hatred, but it has more to do with love. Oh brawling love! Oh loving hate! Love that comes from nothing! Sad happiness. Serious foolishness. Beautiful things muddled together into an ugly mess! Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake—it's everything except what it is! This is the love I feel f thought no one loves me back.
Are you laughing?

BENVOLIO
No, cousin, I'm crying.

ROMEO
Good man, why?

BENVOLIO
I'm crying because of how sad you are...

ROMEO
Yes, this is what love does. My sadness sits heavy in my chest, and you want to add your own sadness to mine so there's even more. I have too much sadness already, and now you're going ti make me sadder by feeling sorry for me. Here's what love is:

A smoke made out of lover's sighs. When the smoke clears, love is a fire burning in your lover's eyes. If you frustrate love, you get an ocean made out of your lover's tears. What else is love? It's a wise form of madness. It's a sweet lozenge that you choke on. Goodbye, cousin.

BENVOLIO
(speechless) Wait. I'll come with you. If you leave me like this, you're doing me wrong.

ROMEO
I'm not myself. I'm not here. This isn't Romeo—he's somewhere else.

BENVOLIO
Tell me seriously, who is the one you love?

ROMEO
Seriously? You mean I should groan and tell you?

BENVOLIO
Groan? No. But tel me seriously who it is.

ROMEO
You wouldn't tell a sick man he "seriously" has to make his will—it would just make him worse. Seriously, cousin, I love a woman.

BENVOLIO
(frustrated) I guessed that already, when you told me you were in love.

ROMEO
Then you were right on target. The woman I love is beautiful.

BENVOLIO
A beautiful target is the one that gets hit the fastest.

ROMEO
Well, you're not on target there, she refuses to be hit my Cupid's arrow. She's as clever as Diana, and shielded by the armor of chastity. She can't be touched by the weak and childish arrows of love. She won't listen to words of love, or let you look at her with loving eyes, or open her lap to receive gifts of gold. She's rich in beauty, but she's also poor, because when she dies her beauty will be destroyed with her.

BENVOLIO
(...) So...she's made a vow to be a virgin forever?

ROMEO
Yes she has, and by keeping her celibate, she wastes her beauty. If you starve yourself of sex you can't ever have children, and so your beauty is lost to future generations. She's too beautiful and wise to deserve heaven's blessing by making me despair. She's sworn off love, and that promise has left me alive but dead, living but only to talk about it now.

BENVOLIO
Take my advice. Don't think about her.

ROMEO
Teach me to forget to think!

BENVOLIO
Do it by letting your eyes wander freely. Look at other beautiful girls.

ROMEO
That will only make me think more about how beautiful she is. Beautiful women liek to wear black masks over their faces—those black masks only make us think about how beautiful they are underneath. A man who goes blind cannot forget the precious eyesight he lost. Show me a really beautiful girl. Her beauty is like a not telling me where I can see someone even more beautiful. Goodbye. You can't teach me to forget.

BENVOLIO
I'll show you how to forget, or else I'll die owing you that lesson.

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