Romeo & Juliet - Act 2 Scene 3
Friar Laurence's cell.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a basket
This speech picks up the rhyming couplets of the previous scene, but provides a much slower rhythm, introducing the Friar as a calming, reasonable influence to counterpoint the lovers' passion.
This speech reinforces the play's concern with duality, and the notion that anything (and anyone) can either help or harm, even with good intentions. It also establishes the Friar's facility with plants and herbs which will prove important in later scenes.
FRIAR LAURENCE
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And fleckèd darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels.
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juicèd flowers.
The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb,
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find;
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposèd kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs: grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Enter ROMEO
ROMEO
Good morrow, father.
Depending on the Friar's relationship with Romeo, he may be sternly accusing here, or understandingly playful, suggesting his own familiarity with (and tolerance for) a certain amount of youthful indiscretion.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distempered head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruisèd youth with unstuffed brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.
ROMEO
That last is true, the sweeter rest was mine.
FRIAR LAURENCE
God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?
ROMEO
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No;
I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
That's my good son; but where hast thou been, then?
ROMEO
I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That's by me wounded; both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessèd man, for, lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
Romeo's fast, frantic rhythms conflict with the Friar's slower pace, which can create both tension and comedy.
ROMEO
Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage; when and where and how
We met, we wooed and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray:
That thou consent to marry us today.
Friar Lawrence has clearly heard Romeo go on at length about Rosaline. He serves as a surrogate father-figure to Romeo, removed enough that he can be trusted with this information, and can also upbraid Romeo for his sudden change in affections.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not washed off yet.
If e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.
And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence then
Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.
ROMEO
Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline.
FRIAR LAURENCE
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
ROMEO
And bad’st me bury love.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Not in a grave,
To lay one in, another out to have.
An important difference, for Romeo, between Rosaline and Juliet: one ignored him, while the other returns his love.
ROMEO
I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
The other did not so.
FRIAR LAURENCE
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be:
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households' rancour to pure love.
Friar Lawrence seems unimpressed with Romeo's professions of love, but interferes in hopes of ending the feud. This will prove to be a return to the notion of terrible consequences issuing from good intentions.
ROMEO
O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
Exeunt