Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ 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.
[Exit.]
Act I
Scene I
A public place. Enter Sampson and Gregory armed with swords and bucklers.
Sampson
Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry coals.
Gregory
No, for then we should be colliers.
Sampson
I mean, if we be in choler, we’ll draw.
Gregory
Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar.
Sampson
I strike quickly, being moved.
Gregory
But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
Sampson
A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
Gregory
To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn’st away.
Sampson
A dog of that house shall move me to stand.
I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.
Gregory
That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.
Sampson
True, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.
Gregory
The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.
Sampson
’Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads.
Gregory
The heads of the maids?
Sampson
Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.
Gregory
They must take it in sense that feel it.
Sampson
Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.