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Good morrow, cousin

Benvolio
Good morrow, cousin.
Romeo
Is the day so young?
Benvolio
But new struck nine.
Romeo
Ay me, sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?
Benvolio
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?
Romeo
Not having that which, having, makes them short.

He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.

Benvolio
In love?
Romeo
Out—
Benvolio
Of love?
Romeo
Out of her favor where I am in love.
Benvolio
Alas that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
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,Oxymorons
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!Oxymorons

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.Chiasmus
Dost thou not laugh?
Benvolio
No, coz, I rather weep.
Romeo
Good heart, at what?
Benvolio
At thy good heart’s oppression.
Romeo
Why, such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.
Benvolio
Soft, I will go along.
An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
Romeo
Tut, I have lost myself. I am not here.
This is not Romeo. He’s some other where.
Benvolio
Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?
Romeo
What, shall I groan and tell thee?
Benvolio
Groan? Why, no. But sadly tell me who.
Romeo
A sick man in sadness makes his will—
A word ill urged to one that is so ill.
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
Benvolio
I aimed so near when I supposed you loved.
Romeo
A right good markman! And she’s fair I love.
Benvolio
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
Romeo
Well in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit,
And, in strong proof of chastity well armed,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty, only poor
That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.
Benvolio
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
Romeo
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starved with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.
Benvolio
Be ruled by me. Forget to think of her.
Romeo
O, teach me how I should forget to think!
Benvolio
By giving liberty unto thine eyes.
Examine other beauties.
Romeo
’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair;
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
Where I may read who passed that passing fair?
Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.
Benvolio
I’ll pay that doctrine or else die in debt.
 They exit.

Source:
Act 1
Scene 1
Line 163

Source Type:

Spoken by:
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Figures of Speech:
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