TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

(2ND YEAR)

SUBJECT: LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

(CHILDHOOD-ORIENTED)
-LITERATURA EN LENGUA INGLESA Y NIÑEZ-

TEACHER: LIC. MARIA SOL BOGLIOTTI

COLEGIO WARD

1
Posted on September 13, 2010 by sccsenglish

Why Study Literature At All?

Short Stories for Students is designed to provide readers with information and discussion about a wide range of
important contemporary and historical works of short fiction, and it does that job very well. However, I want to
use this guest foreword to address a question that it does not take up. It is a fundamental question that is often
ignored in high school and college English classes as well as research texts, and one that causes frustration
among students at all levels, namely—why study literature at all? Isn’t it enough to read a story, enjoy it, and go
about one’s business? My answer (to be expected from a literary professional, I suppose) is no. It is not enough.
It is a start; but it is not enough. Here’s why.

First, literature is the only part of the educational curriculum that deals directly with the actual world of lived
experience. All the other content areas of the modern American educational system avoid the subjective, present
reality of everyday life. Science (both the natural and the social varieties) objectifies, the fine arts create and/or
perform, history reconstructs. Only literary study persists in posing those questions we all asked before our
schooling taught us to give up on them. Only literature gives credibility to personal perceptions, feelings, dreams,
and the “stream of consciousness” that is our inner voice. Literature wonders about infinity, wonders why God
permits evil, wonders what will happen to us after we die. Literature admits that we get our hearts broken, that
people sometimes cheat and get away with it, that the world is a strange and probably incomprehensible place.
Literature, in other words, takes on all the big and small issues of what it means to be human. —we should read
literature and study it and take it seriously because it enriches us as human beings. We develop our moral
imagination, our capacity to sympathize with other people, and our ability to understand our existence through
the experience of fiction.

My second answer is more practical. By studying literature we can learn how to explore and analyze texts.
Fiction may be a construct of words put together in a certain order by an artist using the medium of language. By
examining and studying those constructions, we can learn about language as a medium. We can become more
sophisticated about word associations and connotations, about the manipulation of symbols, and about style and
atmosphere. We can grasp how ambiguous language is and how important context and texture is to meaning. In
our first encounter with a work of literature, of course, we are not supposed to catch all of these things. We are
spellbound, just as the writer wanted us to be. It is as serious students of the writer’s art that we begin to see how
the tricks are done.

Seeing the tricks, which is another way of saying “developing analytical and close reading skills,” is important
above and beyond its intrinsic literary educational value. These skills transfer to other fields and enhance critical
thinking of any kind. Understanding how language is used to construct texts is powerful knowledge. It makes
engineers better problem solvers, lawyers better advocates and courtroom practitioners, politicians better
rhetoricians, marketing and advertising agents better sellers, and citizens more aware consumers as well as better
participants in democracy. This last point is especially important, because rhetorical skill works both ways—
when we learn how language is manipulated in the making of texts the result is that we become less susceptible
when language is used to manipulate us.

My third reason is related to the second. When we begin to see literature as created artifacts of language, we
become more sensitive to good writing in general. We get a stronger sense of the importance of individual words,
even the sounds of words and word combinations. We begin to understand Mark Twain’s delicious proverb—
”The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a
lightning bug.” Getting beyond the “enjoyment only” stage of literature gets us closer to becoming makers of
word art ourselves. I am not saying that studying fiction will turn every student into a Faulkner or a Shakespeare.

2
But it will make us more adaptable and effective writers, even if our art form ends up being the office memo or
the corporate annual report.

Studying short stories, then, can help students become better readers, better writers, and even better human
beings. But I want to close with a warning. If your study and exploration of the craft, history, context,
symbolism, or anything else about a story starts to rob it of the magic you felt when you first read it, it is time to
stop. Take a break, study another subject, shoot some hoops, or go for a run. Love of reading is too important to
be ruined by school.

Thomas E. Barden
Professor of English and
Director of Graduate English Studies
The University of Toledo

3
 02

4
 03

5
 04

6
 05

7
 06

8
 07

9
 08

10
 09

11
 10

12
 11

13
 12

14
 13

15
 14

16
 15

17
 16

18
 17

19
 18

20
 19

21
 20

22
 21

23
 22

24
 23

25
 24

26
 25

27
 26

28
 27

29
 28

30
Children’s Literature ( Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literary-movements/childrens-literature/characteristics)

Characteristics

 Repetition: In children's literature authors repeat things so they stick with the kids.

 Didacticism: Children's literature isn't just written to entertain kids—it's written to teach them.

 Illustration: Illustrations help keep kids' attention and stimulate their imagination. They help them
understand the stories. Before kids can read, illustrations dramatize and reinforce the story that's being
told so they can follow along even if they don't understand the words.

 Optimism: Notice how things always end with "happily ever after" in children's books? That optimistic
perspective is a big part of what we consider to be children's literature.

 Fantastic: In children's literature, people fly. They grow into giants. They talk to animals. They cast spells
and transform into magical beings. This emphasis on the fantastic, of course, reflects the imagination of
children.

 Children: Children are everywhere in children's literature—in fact, they're usually the protagonists. Given
that this literature is written for kids, it's not surprising that it reflects the identity of its readers. Part of
the reason it's so appealing to children is because it mirrors their concerns and their perspective on the
world through the characters that it depicts.

 Innocence: The exploration of innocence is one of the defining characteristics of children's literature.

 Action: Connection with feelings and senses.

 Children’s Rights Movement: The Children's Rights Movement really got going during the Industrial
Revolution in Britain (1760-1840), when loads of kids worked in factories. Yep: tiny little kids, as young as
six, were forced to labor for long hours each day. Finally social reformers began speaking up and saying
that it just wasn't right. Kids, they argued, aren't adults; they're just not cut out to work all day in terrible
conditions, lifting heavy loads and performing tasks that are suited for adults. The Children's Rights
Movement played a big part in establishing a distinction between "children" and "adults."
 Concept of Childhood: The idea that children were a separate category of people from adults only began
to emerge during the 18th century. (Rousseau and Locke). It was then that "childhood" came to be
defined as a unique period in the development of a person, and "children" were, for the first time, talked
about as a separate category of people. Then, of course, the Children's Rights Movement came along and
reinforced this new idea that children aren't mini-adults walking around.

31
Teaching tips at how to adapt materials for different age groups.

Introduction
There are times when you may have to adapt materials because of the age of your students. In order to look at this
topic I will divide it into the two possible scenarios:

Using materials aimed at older students with younger students

In the world of young learners we often find that students’ linguistic ability is way beyond the typical course book that
is designed for their age. Therefore some adaptation is often necessary. To give an example, I am currently teaching a
group of 11-15 year olds on a First Certificate (upper-intermediate) level course. We are using a course book designed
for older teenagers and adults so adaptation is an important part of lesson planning. The main thing to bear in mind
when adapting tasks is to think about how you can make the task more real for the student. Last week we were writing
formal letters, something which none of the students had ever done in their lifetime and therefore they needed a lot of
support. After looking at several models of formal letters we turned to the task in the book which was a letter to
complain about the service received from a tour operator on a recent holiday. This was obviously something they
would be very unlikely to do even in their own language. However, I knew that some of the students had recently
gone to a concert and had been disappointed by the performance. So, using those students, we adapted the task
together. I asked the students what had been disappointing about the show and we made a list. These points became
the content of the task. The functional language of complaining was the same but the task became more alive as it was
more personal and closer to the students’ own experiences.

Speaking activities may often need adapting too. The job interview could become the interview to get onto a summer
course or to help out at a scout camp.

Questions to consider when preparing your lessons:

Will the students know anything about the topic?

If not, how can I introduce the topic?
Will the students be interested in the topic?
If not, how can I make it more interesting and bring it to life?
What support will the students need to tackle the task?

Using materials aimed at younger students with older students

If you find yourself using material that is aimed at younger students with older students you have to be careful.
Teenagers especially can find it insulting to be presented with childish material when they believe they are ready for
something more grown up. If you can’t find more appropriate material then use what you have as a starting point.

Games and fun activities that work well with young learners often work equally well with older teenagers or adults. If
you explain the reason for the game or activity and make it clear what the students are practising by playing it, then
most students tend to respond positively. Older students will quickly suss you out if you’re just killing time and
there’s no real point to the activity. I recently played word formation bingo with a group of adults and was amazed
that they got really excited and competitive and were all trying to win so they could become ‘Bingo King’ or ‘Bingo
Queen’ for the next round. After a hard day at work I think they enjoyed the chance to revert to their childhood for

32
twenty minutes!

Questions to consider when preparing your lessons:

Is the activity appropriate for the age group?

If not, how will I bridge the gap?
What’s the point of the activity?
What will students be learning?
Should I explain to the students why we’re doing the activity?

The main thing to bear in mind with any adaptation of materials is how you can personalise the task and make it more
relevant to the learner. If you are clear about why you are using certain material and what your objectives are then
students should feel happy with the activity as they’ll be able to see the point of it. Take time to chat to your students
and find out what they do in their free time and what they are interested in. By doing this you will be able to find more
material based on topics they’re interested in.

By Jo Budden

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/adapting-materials-different-age-groups

33
 HOW TO ANALYSE POETRY
WHAT IS POETRY?

(n.) literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of
distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature.

Poetry refers to writing that aims to express ideas or feelings, to tell a story, and to evoke an emotional
experience through using lines and stanzas with words and expressions having several layers of meaning,
symbols and images.

“A poem should be palpable and mute, wordless, motionless in time, should be equal to: not true, should
not mean but be (Archibald MacLeish)

“Poetry is the human soul entire, / squeezed like a lemon or a lime,/ drop by drop,/ into atomic words.”
(Langston Hughes)

“Poetry must be magical, musical, must be a brightness moving, must hold secrets, must be slender,
must hold fire, must have wisdom, must make God smile from its cover… “(Jose Garcia Villa)

34
When analyzing a poem, the goal is to get a deeper understanding of it. There is no single way to do a close
reading of a poem. Sometimes an impression is a way; sometimes the voice in the poem stands out;
sometimes it is a matter of knowing the genre of the poem; sometimes grouping of key words, phrases, or
images seem to be its most striking elements. However, it often takes a while to get a definite impression of
the whole poem.

There are steps you can take towards a better understanding. The first being, obviously, to read the poem
very carefully as well as specific elements you can look for and questions you can ask, always taking into
account that whenever you analyse or interpret a poem, it has to be backed up by references to the poem
itself.

Spoiler Alert!: Even if you do a close reading of a poem, you will never master it completely, and every time
you read it again, it will be like a new interpretation.

The title: A poem’s title does not always have great significance. The title might not make much sense until
you start reading the poem.

Pay close attention to what individual words mean-and especially to what you think might be keywords,
since this is where meaning can be concentrated. Consider how words may carry more than one meaning,
hence a dictionary is obviously useful.

The order of words, the use of figurative language, sounds (Rhythm/Meter/ Melody/ Rhyme), and sound
devices can also give and help you when interpreting a poem. The form of a poem (structure or shape) will
show you how it looks to you on the page. It is useful to consider the setting too. The where? and when?
(setting in time and place) may give you ideas, though often poems are not set in specific location or time.
The speaker, addressee, narrator (voices in a poem) will give you ideas about the person who is writing and
the person who is listener or reader. Last but not least, themes and ideas will pave the way to a further and
rich interpretation of a poem.

PLAN OF ANALYSIS

 CONTEXT
 The author – life and works. (biography)
 Literary movements (to have a broad idea of setting in time and place)
 Title
 Classification of the poem

 ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

• Semantic perspective: meaning of the poem, vocabulary used in the poem. Themes. Is a story
told in the poem?

35
 • Morpho-syntactic perspective: Use of exclamatory or interrogative sentences. Use of inversion
and hyperbaton. Use of imperatives. Use of vocatives. Use of punctuation and capitalisation.
Organization of the poem. Structure of the poem (sequence of ideas, length of lines)
• Phonic perspective: Presence of sound devices to achieve a desired effect. Sound of the poem
and choice of words. Rhyme and Rhythm.
• Symbolic perspective: Use of metaphors, similes, personification, imageries and other devices.

 CONCLUSION
 Personal interpretation and appreciation of the poem: What is the poet trying to
communicate to the reader?, How effective are the devices/language that the poet uses?
Your response to the poem. Did you like it? Why/Why not?.

POINTS OF VIEW IN POETRY

SPEAKER (S): All poems have a voice, which can be called a speaker or speakers, if there is more than one
person “speaking” the poem.

PERSONA: the speaker or persona is the “narrator” of the poem.

ADDRESSEE: the addressee is the one addressed to by the persona of the poem (silent or implied
reader/listener).

POET: the author who becomes the direct speaker of the poem.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Form: the appearance of the words on the page.

Line: group of words together on one line of the poem.

Stanza: a group of lines arranged together. It is a section of the poem. If it rhymes it is called a “verse”

KINDS OF STANZA

Couplet: a 2-line stanza

36
Triplet (tercet): a 3-line stanza

Quatrain: a 4-line stanza

Quintet: a 5-line stanza

Sestet: a 6-line stanza

Septet: a 7-line stanza

Octave: an 8-line stanza

LITERARY DEVICES. In poetry there are two kinds of literary devices:

• Figures of speech: An unexpressive, nonliteral use of language.

• Sound devices.

A.Figures of speech (Glossary):

• ALLEGORY: An allegory is a kind of extended metaphor (a metaphor that weaves throughout the
poem) in which objects, persons, and actions stand for another figurative meaning. Often an
allegory’s meaning is religious, political, moral, or historical in nature. (“Animal Farm”, “The Allegory
of the Cave”).

• ALLUSION: Allusion comes from the very “allude” which means “refer to;” an allusion is a reference
to something famous in history, literature, the Bible, mythology, character, or even to another poem.

• AMBIGUITY: A word, statement or situation with two or more with two or more possible meanings is
said to be ambiguous. Ambiguity is said to be one of the roots of poetry. (“A good life depends on a
liver”, “Foreigners are hunting dogs”)

• ANACHRONISM: Someone or something placed in an appropriate period of time.(If a novel set in

Medieval England featured a trip to a movie-theater, that would be an anachronism.

37
• ANAPHORA: Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses
(“To live, to love, to die”. “I have a dream” (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech).

• ANASTROPHE: The reversal of the normal order of words. (Changes in word order as in “He spoke of
times past and future, and dreamt of things to be”.)

• ANTANACLASIS: Using a word in two different senses (“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”)

• ANTITHESIS: Exact opposite. Juxtaposition of contrasting ideas or words, terms, phrases, or clauses
to give a feeling of balance (often in parallel structure as in “Give every man thy ear, but few thy
voice”// “Love builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair”.)

• APPOSITION: A grammatical relation between a word and a noun phrase that follows. Addition of an
adjacent, coordinate, explanatory element.

• CAESURA: A fancy word for a pause that occurs in the middle of a line of verse. You can create
pauses in a lot of ways, but the most obvious is to use punctuation like a period, comma, or
semicolon. A pause at the end of a line is not a caesura.

• CLIMAX: Words, phrases and clauses in order of increasing importance (often in parallel structure.)
Repetition of the final words of a sentence or line at the beginning of the next at least three times,
with the elements arranged in an order of increasing importance.

• CONTRADICTION: Two statements that don’t seem to agree with each other. “I get sober when I
drink alcohol” is a contradiction. Some contradictions are only apparent, and they become true when
you think about them in a certain way.

• DENOTATION: The literal, straightforward meaning of a word. It’s “dictionary definition.” The word
“cat” denotes an animal with four legs and a habit of coughing up furballs.

• ELLIPSIS: Ending or suppressing of parts of words or with a readily implied by context (omission).

• HYPERBOLE: Makes use of incredible, striking, and deliberate exaggeration, or overstatement, for
effect. Hyperbole usually carries the force of strong emotion. (“a flood of tears”, “waiting for ages”,
etc.).

• HYPERBATON: A figure of speech using deviation from normal or logic word order to produce an
effect as in “cheese I love”.

• IDIOM: A phrase that means something different than the meaning of the separate words.

38
 • IMAGERY: the words used in a way to create pictures in our minds. These words in turn appeal to our
senses: hear, see, taste and feel. A poet may evoke pictures through figures of speech. (“She is like
the sun”).

• IRONY: involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs. (*)

 Verbal irony: is the use of words to mean something different from what a person actually says. I
can’t wait to read the seven hundred page report.”
 Dramatic irony: this type of irony is popular in woks of arch such as movies, books, poems and
plays. It occurs when the audience is aware of something that the characters in the story are not
aware of.
 Situational irony: It involves a discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually
happens. Situational irony occurs when the exact opposite of what is meant to happen, happens.
(buying- a- gun issue)

There are two types of verbal irony:

 Overstatement: when a person exaggerates the character of something.

 Understatement: when a person undermines the character of something.

(*) Irony and Sarcasm: they can be used interchangeably. There is a clear difference between the two.
Sarcasm is used to insult or to cause harm or pain.

• LITOTES: A deliberate understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

In Litotes the speaker's words convey less emotion than is actually felt. Used in Old English poetry. (
“not a bad idea”, “not unhappy”, etc.)

• METAPHOR: A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is
another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would
be expected.

• OXYMORON: A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.
Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox. (as in
'deafening silence', “darkness visible”).

• PARADOX: An apparently self-contradictory statement that contains a measure of truth. A logical

self –contradiction as in “I'm nobody”, “the beginning of the end”, Man being described as “Great
Lord of all things, yet a prey to all”.”

• PARALLELISM: Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

• PARENTHESIS: A message that departs from the main subject

39
 • PERSONIFICATION: A form of metaphor that gives human-like characteristics to an inanimate object,
animal or idea. Representing an abstract quality or idea as a person or creature.

• POLYPTOTON: Sequencing of words derived from the same root (“To the drift of the sea and the
drifting wreckage”).

• PUN: Wordplay that uses homonyms (two different words that are spelled identically) to deliver two
or more meanings at the same time. It is a joke that makes a play on words. Puns rely on words that
are similar in spelling, sound or meaning to make their listener laugh. “A pessimist's blood type is
always B-negative”.

• RHETORICAL QUESTION: Asking a question for a purpose other than obtaining the information
requested.

• SIMILE: Comparing two things by using words ‘like’, ‘as’, or “than”. “She is as light as a feather”.

• SYMBOL/SYMBOLISM: When a person, place, thing or action that has meaning in itself also
represents, or stands for, something else. (red rose that stand for love/passion; a river can symbolize
life).

• UNDERSTATEMENT: A figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation

seem less important or serious than it is.

B. Sound devices (Glossary):

• ALLITERATION: the repetition of the same initial consonant sounds or of different vowel sounds at
the beginning of words or in stressed syllables (as in “the silly snake silently slinked by”, “We saw the
sea sound sing, we heard the salt sheet tell”).

• ANAPHORA: Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive phrases,
clauses, or lines to create a sonic effect. (“To live, to love, to die”).It is often used in political speeches
like in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous speech “I Have a Dream”.

• ASSONANCE: Takes place when two or more words close to one another repeat the same vowel
sound but start with different consonant sounds (as in “Men sell the wedding bells.”// “With its
leaping, and deep, cool murmur”.) It means that the vowel sounds are repeated, not the consonants.

• MELODY is the type of sound devices an author chooses to convey a certain meaning. The METRIC
PATTERN identifies the stressed and unstressed syllables. This pattern is described by indicating the
kind and number of feet in a regular verse.

• ONOMATOPOEIA: Is a word that imitates the sound it represents (as in “Slam!, Slam!”)

• RHYME: The use of words with matching sounds, usually at the end of each sentence.

40
 • RHYTHM: Refers to the regular beat of the words in a poem. It is also a pattern the poet has arranged
by way of stressed and unstressed syllables being regular or irregular, slow or fast, depending on the
effect the poet wants to create. Meter is counted in sets of two syllables, known as a foot.

SOME TYPES OF POETRY

• ACROSTIC POETRY: is where the first letter of each line spells a word, usually using the same words
as in the title.

“Heartbreaking” by Jody Kuperavage

He broke my heart But he walked away

Every piece shattered Right in the middle of paradise

All I wanted was his love Every beat of my heart

Real, as he promised Aches for his love

True, as mine for him Keeping the flame aglow

I will wait by the light

Never losing the hope

God will send him back to me

• HAIKU: A Japanese poem written in three lines

Five Syllables An old silent pond . . .

Seven Syllables A frog jumps into the pond.

Five Syllables Splash! Silence again.

• LYRIC: A short poem. Usually written in first person point of view. Expresses an emotion or an idea or
describes a scene. Do not tell a story and are often musical.

• NARRATIVE POEMS: A poem that tells a story. Generally longer than the lyric styles of poetry
because the poet needs to establish characters and a plot.

Examples of Narrative Poems: “The Raven”, “The Highwayman”, “Casey at the Bat”, “The Walrus and the
Carpenter

• “SHAKESPEAREAN” SONNET: A fourteen line poem with a specific rhyme scheme.

The poem is written in three quatrains and ends with a couplet.

41
 The rhyme scheme is: abab cdcd efef gg

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet #18

• SHAPE POETRY/ CONCRETE POEMS: In concrete poems, the words are arranged to create a picture
that relates to the content of the poem.

Poetry

Is like

Flames,

Which are

Swift and elusive

Dodging realization

42
 Sparks, like words on the

Paper, leap and dance in the

Flickering firelight. The fiery

Tongues, formless and shifting

Shapes, tease the imagination.

Yet for those who see,

Through their mind’s

Eye, they burn

Up the page.

Fire and Ice ( by Robert Frost)

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favour fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

43
44
 ! " # $%

" " " % "

" %

& ' ( ) *(
) + + " , , %
-. ( . /% " %
% " , ,

* (0( . .( 0( ) (

( " %

! "
#
$

% &
''

Lesson plan  onestopenglish 2003

Taken from the methodolgy section in www.onestopenglish.com

45
 1 2(
( " 3 %
$ ,
,$ ""
$
$ "

4 0* 0 (5
$ " +- / ! " - /$

,$ . +
% + +
%+% ( ) * ( + + ,

# $

$ 4 " % -
6 " -/
"

* 7 3 " + "%

• "
• 1 " " " %
• + 8 " !" %
"
• . 9 " %1 " %
• 9 ,

Lesson plan  onestopenglish 2003

Taken from the methodolgy section in www.onestopenglish.com

46
. : ;. ( .
by Lindsay Clandfield

Level: Upper Intermediate +

Note: This lesson plan combines the language and personal growth approaches to teaching literature.
Students read one of America’s favorite poems and analyze it in terms of the language the poet uses.
By looking at ways the language is used in the poem (stylistics) students are made aware of
differences between it and Standard English. The follow up is primarily a series of speaking activities
to elicit students’ opinions and feelings about the piece they have just read.

Choices and Decisions

Have the students do this in pairs or small groups. You could do this part without giving them the
handout just yet.

Before You Read

If you have decided to hold back the handout, write the words on the board and set the task for
students. Feedback on what they think the poem will be about.

Comprehension
When students have read the poem, ask them to first turn to a partner and explain what they
understood by the poem. Then set the questions.

Answers will vary. Here is one interpretation.

a) Both are “fair”. One seems to be less walked on and grassy, although people have passed on
both of them.
b) Although he doesn’t specifically say, one would assume that he is happy with his choice.
c) Yes, because he stood for a long time debating which one to take.
d) The author had to make a major decision in his life on what he wanted to do. He chose the
more difficult way but has no regrets.

If students have difficulty with individual words, now is the time to check that they understand them.
You can do this with the whole class or have them check the words in their dictionaries.

Language Work
a) both; one; it; the other; them; the first

b) And I was sorry that I could not take both;

And I was one traveler, I stood for a long time
Then I took the other which was just as fair and it had the better claim
Because I knew how way leads on to way I doubted if I would ever come back

c) The repetition of the word “I” gives the effect of a pause (students should respect this while
reading the poem aloud). The poet, imagining that he talking about his life as an old man and is
giving a sigh while explaining his choice.

Discussion
Students should do this in pairs or in small groups. Conduct feedback at the end.

Lesson plan  onestopenglish 2003

Taken from the methodolgy section in www.onestopenglish.com

47
If (Rudyard Kipling)

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

48
SELECTED PAGES FROM:

49
 Kids play inside a giant peach at the Roald Dahl Children’s
Gallery in Great Britain.

4
50
 Have You Ever?
Have you ever lived inside a peach?
Or flown through the air in a glass
elevator? Roald Dahl did these things
and more inside his head. He used his
imagination to think of exciting ideas
for stories. His imagination helped him
become a famous author.

5
51
 Three - year- old Roald with his mother, Sofie

6
52
 Growing Up
Roald Dahl was born in Great Britain
on September 13, 1916. Roald’s
mother liked to tell him bedtime stories.
The stories were old fairy tales. Roald
would imagine what the characters
looked like.

7
53
When Roald was nine years old, he
went to a boarding school. He did
not like living away from home.

Roald lived at Saint Peter’s School.

8
54
 Roald and his three sisters

Roald missed his family. He wrote a

letter home every week. Writing made
him feel better.

9
55
 Roald in his Royal Air Force uniform

After Roald finished school, he joined

the Royal Air Force. His country was
at war.

10
56
Roald became a pilot. Flying fighter
planes was dangerous. Roald crashed
twice.

Roald flew planes like these in the Royal Air Force.

11
57
Roald’s plane crash story was in the Saturday Evening Post in 1942.

12
58
 Becoming a Writer
Roald wrote about one of his plane
crashes. A magazine printed his story.
Roald also wrote a fantasy story. It
was about little monsters that make
planes crash.

13
59
Walt Disney liked Roald’s monster story.
He wanted to make it into a movie.

Walt Disney, on the left, with Roald and toy monsters

14
60
 © Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Roald’s monster story was called The Gremlins.

Walt changed his mind. He turned the

story into a picture book instead.

15
61
Roald was always thinking of new
story ideas. He wrote his thoughts in
a notebook.

A page from Roald’s notebook

16
62
 Roald’s writing hut

Roald built a small hut in his yard.

This is where he wrote his stories.
He filled the hut with things to help
his imagination.

17
63
 Roald with his wife and children in 1970

18
64
 A Children’s Writer
Roald got married and became a
father. He used his imagination to
make up stories for his children.
Roald decided to make these stories
into books. The first story became the
book James and the Giant Peach.

19
65
For his next book, Roald imagined a
fantastic candy factory.

The factory in Roald’s book made all kinds of sweets.

20
66
 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Bulgarian

This book, Charlie and the Chocolate

Factory, became very popular.
Children all over the world read it.

21
67
 Roald and his son, Theo

22
68
 Roald the Inventor
Roald used his imagination for more
than writing stories. He also invented
things. Roald’s son hurt his head in an
accident. Roald imagined a tool that
could help heal the injury.

23
69
Roald worked with a doctor and a
friend to create the tool. It helped
thousands of children get better.

Stanley Wade, Roald’s friend, holds the tool they invented.

24
70
 Roald enjoyed gardening both indoors and outside.

Roald also invented kites, puzzle games,

and garden tools.

25
71
 Roald works in his writing hut.

26
72
 A Popular Imagination
Roald Dahl died in 1990. He had
written more than twenty children’s
books. Roald’s imagination helped
him become one of the most popular
authors in the world.

27
73
 ROALD DAHL
TIMELINE
1916
Roald Dahl is 1943
born on Roald’s first book, The
September 13. Gremlins, is published.

1939
Roald joins the
Royal Air Force.

28
74
 1962
1996
Doctors start using
the Wade-Dahl-Till The Roald Dahl
valve, the tool that Children’s Gallery opens
Roald helped invent. in Great Britain.

1961
James and the Giant 1990
Peach is published. Roald dies on
November 23.

29
75
 Matilda
Miss Trunchbull

Miss Trunchbull is the evil headmistress at Crunchem Hall Primary

School.

It’s a mystery how she got the job, as she hates children and
education.

A former Olympic athlete, Miss Trunchbull is extremely tall and

muscular. And to keep her throwing arm in practice—she used to
throw the hammer—she regularly throws children.

She throws one boy because he was eating in class and throws
another little girl because the girl had her hair in two braids, a
hairstyle that Miss Trunchbull detests.

76
Her entire purpose in life seems to be tormenting her students—and
she gets away with it because her methods are so outrageous.

And though she regularly laments that she can’t whip children
anymore, she still comes up with horrible ways to torment them, as
when she makes a boy named Bruce (who supposedly stole a piece
of cake) eat an entire 18-inch cake by himself.

Miss Trunchbull is Miss Honey’s aunt and has abused Miss Honey
since Miss Honey was a child.

She probably murdered Miss Honey’s father so she could take

control of the Honey family house and fortune, and she takes almost
all of Miss Honey’s paycheck.

The Witches

“The Witches” is a children’s horror novel in which an unnamed

seven-year-old boy and his grandmother seek to bring down all the
witches of the world before the witches kill all the children around

77
the globe. When the novel begins, the boy – who serves as narrator
– explains that witches are real, and are not the silly characters seen
on Halloween and in movies. Instead, real witches are evil demons
in human form that seek to kill all children. The narrator explains that
witches are so dangerous because they are difficult to distinguish
from regular women, but may be given away by a few telltale signs.
Some of these include blue spit, baldness, wigs, a strong sense of
smell, and a lack of toes. All of these things, the narrator explains,
have been taught to him by his grandmother.

One of the characters, The Grand High Witch, unveils a secret plan
to buy candy shops, and to lace candy with Formula 86 Delayed
Action Mouse-Maker, which will turn anyone who eats the candy into
mice. The candy will be given away free to children.

MORE NEGATIVE FEMALE CHARACTERS

- Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge (James and the Giant

Peach)

- Veruca Salt (greedy and selfish) and Violet Beauregarde

(obsessed with chewing gum, competitive, proud) (Charlie
and the Chococlate factory)

- The Landlady

- Mrs Maloney in Lamb to the Slaughter

78
Get LitCharts LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER

The story begins with Mary Maloney faithfully waiting for her
husband Patrick to come home from his job as a detective. Six months
pregnant and happy in her marriage, she eagerly watches the clock while she
sews. When Patrick arrives, she is ready to hang up his coat, prepare a drink
for him, and sit in silence with him as he rests. For Mary, who is alone in the
house during the day, this after-work ritual is one she looks forward to.
However, as Mary attempts to care for her husband, Patrick brushes off her
efforts, drinks more than usual, and declares that he has something to tell her.
While a nervous Mary scrutinizes him, Patrick tells her that he is leaving her.
Though the narrator leaves out the details, it becomes clear that Patrick still
plans to take care of her financially but that their marriage is over. Mary, who is
in disbelief, decides to act as if nothing has happened and fetches a frozen leg
of lamb from the cellar to prepare their supper. When Patrick tells her not to
bother and begins to leave, Mary suddenly swings the frozen meat at the back
of Patrick’s head and kills him.

79
Once Mary realizes that her husband is dead, she thinks rapidly of how to
protect herself and thus her unborn child from the penalty of murder. She puts
the meat into the oven, and while it begins to cook, she practices her
expression and voice, and then goes out to a nearby grocery store and chats
amiably with Sam, the grocer, about what she needs to buy for her husband’s
dinner. On her way home, she purposefully acts as if everything is normal, and
then is shocked to “discover” Patrick’s body on the floor and begins to cry.
Distraught, she calls the police, and two policemen, Jack
Noonan and O’Malley, friends and colleagues of Patrick, arrive. Mary,
maintaining her façade, claims that she went out to the store and came back to
find Patrick dead. As other detectives arrive and ask her questions, her
premeditated chat with Sam is revealed to be her alibi and she is able to elude
suspicion.

The policemen sympathize with Mary and attempt to comfort her. Despite
Sergeant Noonan’s offer to bring her elsewhere, Mary decides to stay in the
house while the police search for the murder weapon. Jack Noonan reveals to
Mary that the culprit probably used a blunt metal object and that finding the
weapon will lead to the murderer. After nearly three fruitless hours of searching
in and around the house for the weapon, the policemen are no closer to finding
the murder weapon and never suspect that it could be the frozen meat cooking
in the oven. Mary is able to persuade the tired, hungry, and frustrated
policemen to drink some whiskey and eat the leg of lamb that by now has
finished cooking. As the men eat the evidence in the kitchen, Mary eavesdrops
from another room, giggling when one of the men theorizes that the murder
weapon is “right under our very noses.”

VOCABULARY:

CRIME OF PASSION versus PREMEDITATED MURDER - UXORICIDE -

MARITICIDE – INTERNET KILLING - LONELY HEART KILLER or WANT-AD
KILLER - CONSENSUAL HOMICIDE (ASSISTED SUICIDE) -

80
 The Landlady: Analysis

Parallel with Hansel and Gretel

1) Loneliness (Billy > lost in new city, need for
protection; H and G > lost in forest)
2) Strange place (Bath and the forest)

81
3) House as a trap (in both stories, the houses are
enticing places, esp. the chocolate house in
Hansel and Gretel)
4) Fire imagery (Landlady: animals in front of fire;
witch’s oven in Hansel and Gretel)
5) Animal imagery (dachshund, parrot and forest
animals)
6) Food and drink imagery (watery cabbages, smell
of kippers, egg, tea, ginger biscuit, bitter almonds,
pickled walnuts in The Landlady. Chocolate house
in H. and G.)
7) Children as innocent victims of old ladies
(landlady, witch).

LANGUAGE

Use of colours: green curtains; white

lips/fingers/pussywillows; red fingernails; use
of numbers (Billy arrives in Bath in nine; he is
seventeen).

82
CINDERELLA (by Roald Dahl)

I guess you think you know this story.

You don't. The real one's much more gory.
The phoney one, the one you know,
Was cooked up years and years ago,
And made to sound all soft and sappy
just to keep the children happy.
Mind you, they got the first bit right,
The bit where, in the dead of night,
The Ugly Sisters, jewels and all,
Departed for the Palace Ball,
While darling little Cinderella
Was locked up in a slimy cellar,
Where rats who wanted things to eat,
Began to nibble at her feet.

She bellowed 'Help!' and 'Let me out!

The Magic Fairy heard her shout.
Appearing in a blaze of light,
She said: 'My dear, are you all right?'
'All right?' cried Cindy .'Can't you see
'I feel as rotten as can be!'
She beat her fist against the wall,
And shouted, 'Get me to the Ball!
'There is a Disco at the Palace!
'The rest have gone and I am jealous!
'I want a dress! I want a coach!
'And earrings and a diamond brooch!
'And silver slippers, two of those!
'And lovely nylon panty hose!
'Done up like that I'll guarantee
'The handsome Prince will fall for me!'
The Fairy said, 'Hang on a tick.'
She gave her wand a mighty flick
And quickly, in no time at all,
Cindy was at the Palace Ball!

It made the Ugly Sisters wince

To see her dancing with the Prince.
She held him very tight and pressed
herself against his manly chest.
The Prince himself was turned to pulp,

83
All he could do was gasp and gulp.
Then midnight struck. She shouted, 'Heck!
I've got to run to save my neck!'
The Prince cried, 'No! Alas! Alack!'
He grabbed her dress to hold her back.
As Cindy shouted, 'Let me go!'
The dress was ripped from head to toe.

She ran out in her underwear,

And lost one slipper on the stair.
The Prince was on it like a dart,
He pressed it to his pounding heart,
'The girl this slipper fits,' he cried,
'Tomorrow morn shall be my bride!
I'll visit every house in town
'Until I've tracked the maiden down!'
Then rather carelessly, I fear,
He placed it on a crate of beer.

At once, one of the Ugly Sisters,

(The one whose face was blotched with blisters)
Sneaked up and grabbed the dainty shoe,
And quickly flushed it down the loo.
Then in its place she calmly put
The slipper from her own left foot.
Ah ha, you see, the plot grows thicker,
And Cindy's luck starts looking sicker.

Next day, the Prince went charging down

To knock on all the doors in town.
In every house, the tension grew.
Who was the owner of the shoe?
The shoe was long and very wide.
(A normal foot got lost inside.)
Also it smelled a wee bit icky.
(The owner's feet were hot and sticky.)
Thousands of eager people came
To try it on, but all in vain.
Now came the Ugly Sisters' go.
One tried it on. The Prince screamed, 'No!'
But she screamed, 'Yes! It fits! Whoopee!
'So now you've got to marry me!'
The Prince went white from ear to ear.
He muttered, 'Let me out of here.'

84
'Oh no you don't! You made a vow!
'There's no way you can back out now!'
'Off with her head!' The Prince roared back.
They chopped it off with one big whack.
This pleased the Prince. He smiled and said,
'She's prettier without her head.'
Then up came Sister Number Two,
Who yelled, 'Now I will try the shoe!'
'Try this instead!' the Prince yelled back.
He swung his trusty sword and smack
Her head went crashing to the ground.
It bounced a bit and rolled around.
In the kitchen, peeling spuds,
Cinderella heard the thuds
Of bouncing heads upon the floor,
And poked her own head round the door.
'What's all the racket? 'Cindy cried.
'Mind your own bizz,' the Prince replied.
Poor Cindy's heart was torn to shreds.
My Prince! she thought. He chops off heads!
How could I marry anyone
Who does that sort of thing for fun?

The Prince cried, 'Who's this dirty slut?

'Off with her nut! Off with her nut!'
Just then, all in a blaze of light,
The Magic Fairy hove in sight,
Her Magic Wand went swoosh and swish!
'Cindy! 'she cried, 'come make a wish!
'Wish anything and have no doubt
'That I will make it come about!'
Cindy answered, 'Oh kind Fairy,
'This time I shall be more wary.
'No more Princes, no more money.
'I have had my taste of honey.
I'm wishing for a decent man.
'They're hard to find. D'you think you can?'
Within a minute, Cinderella
Was married to a lovely feller,
A simple jam maker by trade,
Who sold good home-made marmalade.
Their house was filled with smiles and laughter
And they were happy ever after.

85
86
87
 HOW TO ANALYSE A NOVEL

What is a novel? It is an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals
imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of
persons in a specific setting.

Types of novel:

 Social novels: They deal with themes to do with social issues and they usually have a message to
convey to the reader.

 Picaresque novels: They deal with a central character while doing a journey in which various
adventures or incidents take place.

 Fictional biography: They focus on the life and developments of one particular character.

 Historical novels: They deal with events set in the past.

 Humorous novels: novels that contain elements of humour.

 Tragedies: These types of novels deal with tragic themes.

 Futuristic novels: Are novels that are set in some future time. Very often in this kind of novel the
writer uses the futuristic setting or theme to make some social comment on the society of the day.

The following points are important to consider when reading and analyzing literature:

CHARACTERS: Characterization deals with how the characters are described in the story. Who are the main
characters in the piece? What are the names and roles of the main characters? Who is the narrator, the
person telling the story? Does this person have a bias? That is, can you trust what he or she is saying?

CLIMAX: it is the point of greatest tension or intensity in the story. It can also be the point where events take
a major turn as the story races towards its conclusion. Is there a turning point in the story? When does the
climax take place?

CONFLICT: Conflict or tension is usually the heart of the story and is related to the main character. How
would you describe the main conflict? Is it an internal or external conflict?

EVENTS AND INTERACTION: What happens in the story? How do the characters interact? How are they
related or connected? Why do the characters act or behave the way they do? Why do the events play out as
they do?

88
NARRATOR: The narrator is the person telling the story. First or third person? Does the author take on the
role of the character? Are we told how different characters feel?

ORGANIZATION: How is the story organized? Most commonly, stories are told chronologically, but in some
works, you may find that the author moves back and forth (in time as well as place).

PLOT: it is the main sequence of events that make up the story. What is the important event? How is the
plot structured? Is it linear, chronological, or does it move around? Is the plot believable?

RETELLING OF A STORY: Many stories are in some way or form a retelling of a previous story. If you think
about Huckleberry Finn's trip, you can find other trips from Greek mythology (Homer's Odyssey) to the Bible
(the trip of the Magi) with similarities

SETTING: It is a description of where and when the story takes place. Where does the piece take place? Is
the setting critical to the story? Does the setting provide background? Does the setting give historical,
physical, or other information that is key to the story? When does the story take place? Is it timeless, or is it
grounded in a particular place and time?

SYMBOLISM: Symbolism can be tricky because, sometimes, as the saying goes: "A cigar is just a cigar." Other
time, a journey represents something beyond the trip itself. For example, Huck Finn's trip was more about
his development as a person than his trip down the river.

THEME: They refer to the main ideas, lessons or messages in the story. What are the themes of the story?
What elements or ideas are repeated or emphasized? Think about this throughout your reading, not just at
the end. Notice what people, places, and events pop up over and over again. How is the theme expressed? Is
there more than one theme? Are any elements repeated and therefore suggest a theme?

WRITING STYLE: What does the writing style tell you about the story? Is the writing richly detailed? Is it
sparse? (For example, Hemingway was famous for his Spartan writing style.) How does the writing style
affect the meaning? Do you have to make assumptions or guesses because there are gaps? Is the author’s
language full of figurative one? Are images used? Does the author use symbolism?

89
90
Lewis Carroll Biography
NAME Lewis Carroll

OCCUPATION Author

BIRTH DATE January 27, 1832

DEATH DATE January 14, 1898

EDUCATIONRugby School, Christ Church (Oxford), Richmond School, Yorkshire

PLACE OF BIRTH Daresbury, England

PLACE OF DEATH Guildford, England

ORIGINALLY Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

QUOTES
“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles L. Dodgson, author of the children's classics "Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass."
Born on January 27, 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, England, Charles Dodgson wrote and created games as a child. At age 20
he received a studentship at Christ Church and was appointed a lecturer in mathematics. Dodgson was shy but enjoyed
creating stories for children. His books including "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" were published under the pen name
Lewis Carroll. Dodgson died in 1898.

Early Life

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, best known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, was born in the village of Daresbury, England, on
January 27, 1832. The eldest boy in a family of 11 children, Carroll was rather adept at entertaining himself and his
siblings. His father, a clergyman, raised them in the rectory. As a boy, Carroll excelled in mathematics and won many
academic prizes. At age 20, he was awarded a studentship (called a scholarship in other colleges) to Christ College. Apart
from serving as a lecturer in mathematics, he was an avid photographer and wrote essays, political pamphlets and poetry.
"The Hunting of the Snark" displays his wonderful ability in the genre of literary nonsense.

Alice and Literary Success

91
Carroll suffered from a bad stammer, but he found himself vocally fluent when speaking with children. The relationships
he had with young people in his adult years are of great interest, as they undoubtedly inspired his best-known writings
and have been a point of disturbed speculation over the years. Carroll loved to entertain children, and it was Alice, the
daughter of Henry George Liddell, who can be credited with his pinnacle inspiration. Alice Liddell remembers spending
many hours with Carroll, sitting on his couch while he told fantastic tales of dream worlds. During an afternoon picnic
with Alice and her two sisters, Carroll told the first iteration of what would later become Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland. When Alice arrived home, she exclaimed that he must write the story down for her.

He fulfilled the small girl's request, and through a series of coincidences, the story fell into the hands of the novelist Henry
Kingsley, who urged Carroll to publish it. The book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was released in 1865. It gained
steady popularity, and as a result, Carroll wrote the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There(1871).
By the time of his death, Alice had become the most popular children's book in England, and by 1932 it was one of the
most popular in the world.

Photography and Legacy

Besides writing, Carroll created a number of fine photographs. His notable portraits include those of the actress Ellen
Terry and the poet Alfred Tennyson. He also photographed children in every possible costume and situation, eventually
making nude studies of them. Despite conjecture, little real evidence of child abuse can be brought against him. Shortly
before his 66th birthday, Lewis Carroll caught a severe case of influenza, which led to pneumonia. He died on January 14,
1898, leaving an enigma behind him.

92
93
94
 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
First published in 1865.
This ebook edition was created and published by Global Grey on the 15th May 2018,
and updated on the 7th December 2022.
The artwork used for the cover is ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’
painted by Charles Robinson.
This book can be found on the site here:
globalgreyebooks.com/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-ebook.html
©Global Grey 2022
globalgreyebooks.com

95
Contents
1. Down The Rabbit-Hole
2. The Pool Of Tears
3. A Caucus-Race And A Long Tale
4. The Rabbit Sends In A Little Bill
5. Advice From A Caterpillar
6. Pig And Pepper
7. A Mad Tea-Party
8. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground
9. The Mock Turtle’s Story
10. The Lobster Quadrille
11. Who Stole The Tarts?
12. Alice’s Evidence

96
 1

'Tis two score years since Carroll's art,

With topsy-turvy magic,
Sent Alice wondering through a part
Half-comic and half-tragic.

Enchanting Alice! Black-and-white

Has made your deeds perennial;
And naught save "Chaos and old Night"
Can part you now from Tenniel;

But still you are a Type, and based

In Truth, like Lear and Hamlet;
And Types may be re-draped to taste
In cloth-of-gold or camlet.

Here comes afresh Costumier, then;

That Taste may gain a wrinkle
From him who drew with such deft pen
The rags of Rip Van Winkle!

AUSTIN DOBSON.

All in the golden afternoon

Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,

Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth

Her edict "to begin it"—
In gentler tone Secunda hopes
"There will be nonsense in it!"—
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,

In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast—

97
 2

And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained

The wells of fancy dry.
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
"The rest next time—" "It is next time!"
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:

Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out—
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! a childish story take,

And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined
In Memory's mystic band,
Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers
Pluck'd in a far-off land.

98
3

99
 4

1. Down The Rabbit-Hole

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having
nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice ‘without
pictures or conversation?’
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel
very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the
trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes
ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the
way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when she thought it
over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it
all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-
pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her
mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take

100
 5

out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just
in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she
was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down,
so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found
herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went
down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look
down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she
looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-
shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from
one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘Orange Marmalade’, but to her great
disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so
managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling
down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it,
even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve
fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth.
Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Alice had learnt
several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very
good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it
was good practice to say it over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder
what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude
either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)
Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll
seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I
think—’ (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the
right word) ‘—but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know.
Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—
fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) ‘And
what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall
see it written up somewhere.’
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again.
‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I hope they’ll
remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with
me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a
mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy,
and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’
and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it
didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun
to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly,
‘Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down
she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it
was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in

101
 6

sight, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind,
and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, ‘Oh my ears and whiskers, how late
it’s getting!’ She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no
longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps
hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the
way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle,
wondering how she was ever to get out again.

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing
on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the
doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at
any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a
low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches
high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-
hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.
How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright

102
 7

flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway;
‘and even if my head would go through,’ thought poor Alice, ‘it would be of very little use
without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I
only know how to begin.’ For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately,
that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half
hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up
like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (‘which certainly was not here before,’
said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME’
beautifully printed on it in large letters.

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a
hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’; for she
had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild
beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules
their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too

103
 8

long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had
never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to
disagree with you, sooner or later.
However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it
very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast
turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.
‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the
thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely
garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any
further: she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself,
‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And she tried
to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not
remember ever having seen such a thing.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at
once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little
golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach
it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of
the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying,
the poor little thing sat down and cried.
‘Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to herself, rather sharply; ‘I advise you
to leave off this minute!’ She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very
seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her
eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a
game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of
pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two
people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!’
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found
in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants.
‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it
makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and
I don’t care which happens!’
She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’, holding her
hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to
find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake,
but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to
happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

104
 9

2. The Pool Of Tears

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she
quite forgot how to speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that
ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost
out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on
your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal
too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must
be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me
see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’
she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the
directions will look!
ALICE’S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
HEARTHRUG,

105
 10

NEAR THE FENDER,

(WITH ALICE’S LOVE).
Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’
Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet
high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.
Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the
garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began
to cry again.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said Alice, ‘a great girl like you,’ (she might well say
this), ‘to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!’ But she went on all the
same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches
deep and reaching half down the hall.

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes
to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of

106
 11

white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great
hurry, muttering to himself as he came, ‘Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won’t she be
savage if I’ve kept her waiting!’ Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any
one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, ‘If you please, sir—
’ The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away
into the darkness as hard as he could go.
Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all
the time she went on talking: ‘Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday
things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I
the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.
But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT’S the great
puzzle!’ And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as
herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
‘I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, ‘for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go
in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she
knows such a very little! Besides, SHE’S she, and I’m I, and—oh dear, how puzzling it all is!
I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four
times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!
However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try Geography. London is the capital
of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome—no, THAT’S all wrong, I’m certain! I
must have been changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say “How doth the little—”‘ and she crossed
her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice
sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:—
‘How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
‘How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!’
‘I’m sure those are not the right words,’ said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again
as she went on, ‘I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little
house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve
made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their putting their
heads down and saying “Come up again, dear!” I shall only look up and say “Who am I then?
Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here
till I’m somebody else”—'but, oh dear!’ cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, ‘I do wish
they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here!’
As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see that she had put on
one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while she was talking. ‘How can I have done that?’
she thought. ‘I must be growing small again.’ She got up and went to the table to measure
herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high,
and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she
was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

107
 12

‘That was a narrow escape!’ said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very
glad to find herself still in existence; ‘and now for the garden!’ and she ran with all speed
back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was
lying on the glass table as before, ‘and things are worse than ever,’ thought the poor child,
‘for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!’
As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her
chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, ‘and in that
case I can go back by railway,’ she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her
life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast
you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with
wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However,
she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine
feet high.
‘I wish I hadn’t cried so much!’ said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. ‘I
shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a
queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.’

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam
nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but
then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a
mouse that had slipped in like herself.

108
 13

‘Would it be of any use, now,’ thought Alice, ‘to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-
of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm
in trying.’ So she began: ‘O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of
swimming about here, O Mouse!’ (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a
mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her
brother’s Latin Grammar, ‘A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!’) The
Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes,
but it said nothing.
‘Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,’ thought Alice; ‘I daresay it’s a French mouse, come
over with William the Conqueror.’ (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very
clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: ‘Ou est ma chatte?’
which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of
the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Alice
hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. ‘I quite forgot you didn’t like
cats.’
‘Not like cats!’ cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. ‘Would you like cats if you
were me?’

‘Well, perhaps not,’ said Alice in a soothing tone: ‘don’t be angry about it. And yet I wish I
could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d take a fancy to cats if you could only see her.
She is such a dear quiet thing,’ Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the
pool, ‘and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face—and
she is such a nice soft thing to nurse—and she’s such a capital one for catching mice—oh, I
beg your pardon!’ cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she
felt certain it must be really offended. ‘We won’t talk about her any more if you’d rather not.’

109
 14

‘We indeed!’ cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. ‘As if I would
talk on such a subject! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me
hear the name again!’
‘I won’t indeed!’ said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. ‘Are
you—are you fond—of—of dogs?’ The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly:
‘There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed
terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch things when you throw
them, and it’ll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things—I can’t remember half of
them—and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred
pounds! He says it kills all the rats and—oh dear!’ cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, ‘I’m afraid
I’ve offended it again!’ For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go,
and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went. So she called softly after it, ‘Mouse
dear! Do come back again, and we won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like
them!’ When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face was
quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, ‘Let us get to
the shore, and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and
dogs.’
It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that
had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other
curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.

110
 15

3. A Caucus-Race And A Long Tale

They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled
feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and
uncomfortable.

The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and
after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with
them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the
Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, ‘I am older than you, and must know
better’; and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory
positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said.

111
 16

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called out, ‘Sit
down, all of you, and listen to me! I’LL soon make you dry enough!’ They all sat down at
once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it,
for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.

‘Ahem!’ said the Mouse with an important air, ‘are you all ready? This is the driest thing I
know. Silence all round, if you please! “William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured
by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late
much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and
Northumbria—”’
‘Ugh!’ said the Lory, with a shiver.
‘I beg your pardon!’ said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: ‘Did you speak?’
‘Not I!’ said the Lory hastily.
‘I thought you did,’ said the Mouse. ‘—I proceed. “Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia
and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury,
found it advisable—”’
‘Found what?’ said the Duck.
‘Found it,’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: ‘of course you know what “it” means.’
‘I know what “it” means well enough, when I find a thing,’ said the Duck: ‘it’s generally a
frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?’
The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, ‘“—found it advisable to go
with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William’s conduct at first was

112
 17

moderate. But the insolence of his Normans—” How are you getting on now, my dear?’ it
continued, turning to Alice as it spoke.
‘As wet as ever,’ said Alice in a melancholy tone: ‘it doesn’t seem to dry me at all.’
‘In that case,’ said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, ‘I move that the meeting adjourn, for
the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—’
‘Speak English!’ said the Eaglet. ‘I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and,
what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!’ And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a
smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.
‘What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get
us dry would be a Caucus-race.’
‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had
paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say
anything.
‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try
the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,)
and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two,
three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so
that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running
half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’
and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long
time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see
Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said,
‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’
‘But who is to give the prizes?’ quite a chorus of voices asked.
‘Why, she, of course,’ said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party
at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, ‘Prizes! Prizes!’
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a
box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes.
There was exactly one a-piece all round.
‘But she must have a prize herself, you know,’ said the Mouse.
‘Of course,’ the Dodo replied very gravely. ‘What else have you got in your pocket?’ he went
on, turning to Alice.
‘Only a thimble,’ said Alice sadly.
‘Hand it over here,’ said the Dodo.
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble,
saying ‘We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had finished this short
speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare
to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the
thimble, looking as solemn as she could.

113
 18

The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large
birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be
patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and
begged the Mouse to tell them something more.
‘You promised to tell me your history, you know,’ said Alice, ‘and why it is you hate—C and
D,’ she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again.
‘Mine is a long and a sad tale!’ said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.
‘It is a long tail, certainly,’ said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; ‘but
why do you call it sad?’ And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so
that her idea of the tale was something like this:—
‘Fury said to
a mouse, That
he met in the
house,
“Let us
both go
to law:
I will
prosecute
you.—
Come, I’ll
take no
denial;
We must
have a
trial:
For
really
this
morning
I’ve
nothing
to do.”
Said the
mouse to
the cur,
“Such a

114
 19

trial,
dear Sir,
With no
Jury or
judge,
would be
wasting
our breath.”
“I’ll be
judge,
I’ll be
jury,”
Said
cunning
old Fury:
“I’ll try
the whole
cause,
and
condemn
you
to
death.”‘
‘You are not attending!’ said the Mouse to Alice severely. ‘What are you thinking of?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Alice very humbly: ‘you had got to the fifth bend, I think?’
‘I had not!’ cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
‘A knot!’ said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her.
‘Oh, do let me help to undo it!’
‘I shall do nothing of the sort,’ said the Mouse, getting up and walking away. ‘You insult me
by talking such nonsense!’
‘I didn’t mean it!’ pleaded poor Alice. ‘But you’re so easily offended, you know!’
The Mouse only growled in reply.
‘Please come back and finish your story!’ Alice called after it; and the others all joined in
chorus, ‘Yes, please do!’ but the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little
quicker.
‘What a pity it wouldn’t stay!’ sighed the Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight; and an
old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her daughter ‘Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to

115
 20

you never to lose your temper!’ ‘Hold your tongue, Ma!’ said the young Crab, a little
snappishly. ‘You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!’
‘I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!’ said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in particular.
‘She’d soon fetch it back!’
‘And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?’ said the Lory.
Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: ‘Dinah’s our cat. And
she’s such a capital one for catching mice you can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her
after the birds! Why, she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!’
This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at
once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, ‘I really must be
getting home; the night-air doesn’t suit my throat!’ and a Canary called out in a trembling
voice to its children, ‘Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in bed!’ On various
pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
‘I wish I hadn’t mentioned Dinah!’ she said to herself in a melancholy tone. ‘Nobody seems
to like her, down here, and I’m sure she’s the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I
wonder if I shall ever see you any more!’ And here poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt
very lonely and low-spirited. In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of
footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed
his mind, and was coming back to finish his story.

116
 21

4. The Rabbit Sends In A Little Bill

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went,
as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to itself ‘The Duchess! The Duchess!
Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are
ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?’ Alice guessed in a moment that it was
looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly began
hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have
changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door,
had vanished completely.
Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her in an
angry tone, ‘Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and
fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!’ And Alice was so much frightened that she
ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made.
‘He took me for his housemaid,’ she said to herself as she ran. ‘How surprised he’ll be when
he finds out who I am! But I’d better take him his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.’
As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass
plate with the name ‘W. RABBIT’ engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and
hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the
house before she had found the fan and gloves.
‘How queer it seems,’ Alice said to herself, ‘to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose
Dinah’ll be sending me on messages next!’ And she began fancying the sort of thing that
would happen: ‘“Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!” “Coming in a
minute, nurse! But I’ve got to see that the mouse doesn’t get out.” Only I don’t think,’ Alice
went on, ‘that they’d let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that!’
By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on
it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan
and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little
bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words ‘DRINK
ME,’ but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. ‘I know something interesting is
sure to happen,’ she said to herself, ‘whenever I eat or drink anything; so I’ll just see what
this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow large again, for really I’m quite tired of being
such a tiny little thing!’
It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had drunk half the bottle,
she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being
broken. She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself ‘That’s quite enough—I hope I
shan’t grow any more—As it is, I can’t get out at the door—I do wish I hadn’t drunk quite so
much!’
Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had to
kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the
effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her
head. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window,
and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself ‘Now I can do no more, whatever happens.
What will become of me?’

117
 22

Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she grew no larger:
still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever
getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.
‘It was much pleasanter at home,’ thought poor Alice, ‘when one wasn’t always growing
larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone
down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do
wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of
thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book
written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I’ll write one—but I’m grown up
now,’ she added in a sorrowful tone; ‘at least there’s no room to grow up any more here.’
‘But then,’ thought Alice, ‘shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort,
one way—never to be an old woman—but then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I
shouldn’t like that!’
‘Oh, you foolish Alice!’ she answered herself. ‘How can you learn lessons in here? Why,
there’s hardly room for you, and no room at all for any lesson-books!’
And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite a conversation
of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen.
‘Mary Ann! Mary Ann!’ said the voice. ‘Fetch me my gloves this moment!’ Then came a
little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and
she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand
times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it.

118
 23

Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened
inwards, and Alice’s elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice
heard it say to itself ‘Then I’ll go round and get in at the window.’
‘That you won’t’ thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just
under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did
not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass,
from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or
something of the sort.

Next came an angry voice—the Rabbit’s—’Pat! Pat! Where are you?’ And then a voice she
had never heard before, ‘Sure then I’m here! Digging for apples, yer honour!’
‘Digging for apples, indeed!’ said the Rabbit angrily. ‘Here! Come and help me out of this!’
(Sounds of more broken glass.)
‘Now tell me, Pat, what’s that in the window?’
‘Sure, it’s an arm, yer honour!’ (He pronounced it ‘arrum.’)

119
 24

‘An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window!’
‘Sure, it does, yer honour: but it’s an arm for all that.’
‘Well, it’s got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!’
There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then; such
as, ‘Sure, I don’t like it, yer honour, at all, at all!’ ‘Do as I tell you, you coward!’ and at last
she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were two
little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. ‘What a number of cucumber-frames there
must be!’ thought Alice. ‘I wonder what they’ll do next! As for pulling me out of the
window, I only wish they could! I’m sure I don’t want to stay in here any longer!’

120
 25

She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little
cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the
words: ‘Where’s the other ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—
Bill! fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ‘em up at this corner—No, tie ‘em together first—they
don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular—Here,
Bill! catch hold of this rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming
down! Heads below!’ (a loud crash)—’Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I fancy—Who’s to
go down the chimney?—Nay, I shan’t! You do it!—That I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—
Here, Bill! the master says you’re to go down the chimney!’
‘Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?’ said Alice to herself. ‘Shy, they seem
to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is
narrow, to be sure; but I think I can kick a little!’
She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little
animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the
chimney close above her: then, saying to herself ‘This is Bill,’ she gave one sharp kick, and
waited to see what would happen next.
The first thing she heard was a general chorus of ‘There goes Bill!’ then the Rabbit’s voice
along—’Catch him, you by the hedge!’ then silence, and then another confusion of voices—
’Hold up his head—Brandy now—Don’t choke him—How was it, old fellow? What
happened to you? Tell us all about it!’
Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (‘That’s Bill,’ thought Alice,) ‘Well, I hardly
know—No more, thank ye; I’m better now—but I’m a deal too flustered to tell you—all I
know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!’
‘So you did, old fellow!’ said the others.
‘We must burn the house down!’ said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice called out as loud as she
could, ‘If you do. I’ll set Dinah at you!’
There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, ‘I wonder what they will do
next! If they had any sense, they’d take the roof off.’ After a minute or two, they began
moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, ‘A barrowful will do, to begin with.’
‘A barrowful of what?’ thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, for the next moment a
shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face.
‘I’ll put a stop to this,’ she said to herself, and shouted out, ‘You’d better not do that again!’
which produced another dead silence.
Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay
on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. ‘If I eat one of these cakes,’ she thought,
‘it’s sure to make some change in my size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it must
make me smaller, I suppose.’
So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she began shrinking
directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house,
and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard,
Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out
of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she ran off as hard as
she could, and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.

121
 26

‘The first thing I’ve got to do,’ said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, ‘is to
grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I
think that will be the best plan.’
It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only
difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was
peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look
up in a great hurry.
An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly stretching out
one paw, trying to touch her. ‘Poor little thing!’ said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried
hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it might be
hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.
Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy;
whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and
rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to
keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy
made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then
Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every
moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then the puppy began a
series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long
way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting,
with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.

122
 27

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she set off at once, and
ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the puppy’s bark sounded quite faint in
the distance.
‘And yet what a dear little puppy it was!’ said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup to rest
herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves: ‘I should have liked teaching it tricks very
much, if—if I’d only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I’d nearly forgotten that I’ve got to
grow up again! Let me see—how is it to be managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink
something or other; but the great question is, what?’
The great question certainly was, what?
Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything
that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances.
There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when
she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she
might as well look and see what was on the top of it.
She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes
immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded,
quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.

123
 28

5. Advice From A Caterpillar

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar
took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

‘Who are you?’ said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I—I
hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I
think I must have been changed several times since then.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ said the Caterpillar sternly. ‘Explain yourself!’

124
 29

‘I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’
‘I don’t see,’ said the Caterpillar.
‘I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,’ Alice replied very politely, ‘for I can’t understand it
myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.’
‘It isn’t,’ said the Caterpillar.
‘Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,’ said Alice; ‘but when you have to turn into a
chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think
you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?’
‘Not a bit,’ said the Caterpillar.
‘Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,’ said Alice; ‘all I know is, it would feel very
queer to me.’
‘You!’ said the Caterpillar contemptuously. ‘Who are you?’
Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little
irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and
said, very gravely, ‘I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first.’
‘Why?’ said the Caterpillar.
Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as
the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.
‘Come back!’ the Caterpillar called after her. ‘I’ve something important to say!’
This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.
‘Keep your temper,’ said the Caterpillar.
‘Is that all?’ said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could.
‘No,’ said the Caterpillar.
Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it
might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking,
but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, ‘So you think
you’re changed, do you?’
‘I’m afraid I am, sir,’ said Alice; ‘I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the
same size for ten minutes together!’
‘Can’t remember what things?’ said the Caterpillar.
‘Well, I’ve tried to say “how doth the little busy bee,” but it all came different!’ Alice replied
in a very melancholy voice.
‘Repeat, “you are old, father William,”‘ said the Caterpillar.
Alice folded her hands, and began:—
‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said,
‘And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?’

125
 30

‘In my youth,’ Father William replied to his son,

‘I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.’

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before,

126
 31

And have grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
Pray, what is the reason of that?’

‘In my youth,’ said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,

‘I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
Allow me to sell you a couple?’

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray how did you manage to do it?’

‘In my youth,’ said his father, ‘I took to the law,

And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.’

127
 32

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
What made you so awfully clever?’

‘I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’

Said his father; ‘don’t give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!’

‘That is not said right,’ said the Caterpillar.

‘Not quite right, I’m afraid,’ said Alice, timidly; ‘some of the words have got altered.’
‘It is wrong from beginning to end,’ said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for
some minutes.
The Caterpillar was the first to speak.
‘What size do you want to be?’ it asked.
‘Oh, I’m not particular as to size,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘only one doesn’t like changing so
often, you know.’
‘I don’t know,’ said the Caterpillar.

128
 33

Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt
that she was losing her temper.
‘Are you content now?’ said the Caterpillar.
‘Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn’t mind,’ said Alice: ‘three inches is
such a wretched height to be.’
‘It is a very good height indeed!’ said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke
(it was exactly three inches high).
‘But I’m not used to it!’ pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought of herself, ‘I
wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended!’
‘You’ll get used to it in time,’ said the Caterpillar; and it put the hookah into its mouth and
began smoking again.
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the
Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself.
Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it
went, ‘One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.’
‘One side of what? The other side of what?’ thought Alice to herself.
‘Of the mushroom,’ said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another
moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which
were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question.
However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of
the edge with each hand.
‘And now which is which?’ she said to herself, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try
the effect: the next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot!
She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt that there was no
time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the
other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open
her mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.
‘Come, my head’s free at last!’ said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in
another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she could
see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk
out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.
‘What can all that green stuff be?’ said Alice. ‘And where have my shoulders got to? And oh,
my poor hands, how is it I can’t see you?’ She was moving them about as she spoke, but no
result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the distant green leaves.
As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, she tried to get her head
down to them, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any
direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and
was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees
under which she had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a
large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating her violently with its wings.
‘Serpent!’ screamed the Pigeon.
‘I’m not a serpent!’ said Alice indignantly. ‘Let me alone!’

129
 34

‘Serpent, I say again!’ repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and added with a
kind of sob, ‘I’ve tried every way, and nothing seems to suit them!’
‘I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,’ said Alice.
‘I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried hedges,’ the Pigeon went on,
without attending to her; ‘but those serpents! There’s no pleasing them!’
Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying anything more
till the Pigeon had finished.
‘As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but I must be on the
look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I haven’t had a wink of sleep these three weeks!’
‘I’m very sorry you’ve been annoyed,’ said Alice, who was beginning to see its meaning.
‘And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,’ continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to
a shriek, ‘and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come
wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!’
‘But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!’ said Alice. ‘I’m a—I’m a—’
‘Well! what are you?’ said the Pigeon. ‘I can see you’re trying to invent something!’
‘I—I’m a little girl,’ said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes
she had gone through that day.
‘A likely story indeed!’ said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt. ‘I’ve seen a good
many little girls in my time, but never one with such a neck as that! No, no! You’re a serpent;
and there’s no use denying it. I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you never tasted an
egg!’
‘I have tasted eggs, certainly,’ said Alice, who was a very truthful child; ‘but little girls eat
eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said the Pigeon; ‘but if they do, why then they’re a kind of serpent, that’s
all I can say.’
This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a minute or two, which gave
the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, ‘You’re looking for eggs, I know that well enough; and
what does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?’
‘It matters a good deal to me,’ said Alice hastily; ‘but I’m not looking for eggs, as it happens;
and if I was, I shouldn’t want yours: I don’t like them raw.’
‘Well, be off, then!’ said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled down again into its nest.
Alice crouched down among the trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting
entangled among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After a
while she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to
work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller
and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.
It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it felt quite strange at first;
but she got used to it in a few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual. ‘Come, there’s
half my plan done now! How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going
to be, from one minute to another! However, I’ve got back to my right size: the next thing is,
to get into that beautiful garden—how is that to be done, I wonder?’ As she said this, she
came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about four feet high. ‘Whoever
lives there,’ thought Alice, ‘it’ll never do to come upon them this size: why, I should frighten

130
 35

them out of their wits!’ So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture
to go near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high.

131
 36

6. Pig And Pepper

For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when
suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood—(she considered him to be a
footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called
him a fish)—and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another
footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice
noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know
what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as
himself, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, ‘For the Duchess. An
invitation from the Queen to play croquet.’ The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn
tone, only changing the order of the words a little, ‘From the Queen. An invitation for the
Duchess to play croquet.’
Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together.

132
 37

Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood for fear of their hearing
her; and when she next peeped out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on
the ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky.
Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.
‘There’s no sort of use in knocking,’ said the Footman, ‘and that for two reasons. First,
because I’m on the same side of the door as you are; secondly, because they’re making such a
noise inside, no one could possibly hear you.’ And certainly there was a most extraordinary
noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great
crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces.
‘Please, then,’ said Alice, ‘how am I to get in?’
‘There might be some sense in your knocking,’ the Footman went on without attending to
her, ‘if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were inside, you might knock, and I
could let you out, you know.’ He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking,
and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. ‘But perhaps he can’t help it,’ she said to herself;
‘his eyes are so very nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer
questions.—How am I to get in?’ she repeated, aloud.
‘I shall sit here,’ the Footman remarked, ‘till tomorrow—’
At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight
at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees
behind him.
‘—or next day, maybe,’ the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had
happened.
‘How am I to get in?’ asked Alice again, in a louder tone.
‘Are you to get in at all?’ said the Footman. ‘That’s the first question, you know.’
It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. ‘It’s really dreadful,’ she muttered to
herself, ‘the way all the creatures argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!’
The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with
variations. ‘I shall sit here,’ he said, ‘on and off, for days and days.’
‘But what am I to do?’ said Alice.
‘Anything you like,’ said the Footman, and began whistling.
‘Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,’ said Alice desperately: ‘he’s perfectly idiotic!’ And she
opened the door and went in.
The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other:
the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was
leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup.
‘There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!’ Alice said to herself, as well as she could
for sneezing.

133
 38

There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as
for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment’s pause. The only
things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on
the hearth and grinning from ear to ear.
‘Please would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it
was good manners for her to speak first, ‘why your cat grins like that?’
‘It’s a Cheshire cat,’ said the Duchess, ‘and that’s why. Pig!’
She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in
another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and
went on again:—
‘I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could grin.’
‘They all can,’ said the Duchess; ‘and most of ‘em do.’
‘I don’t know of any that do,’ Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a
conversation.
‘You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess; ‘and that’s a fact.’
Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce
some other subject of conversation. While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took the
cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at
the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans,
plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her; and the baby

134
 39

was howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or
not.
‘Oh, please mind what you’re doing!’ cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of
terror. ‘Oh, there goes his precious nose’; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and
very nearly carried it off.
‘If everybody minded their own business,’ the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, ‘the world
would go round a deal faster than it does.’
‘Which would not be an advantage,’ said Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportunity of
showing off a little of her knowledge. ‘Just think of what work it would make with the day
and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—’
‘Talking of axes,’ said the Duchess, ‘chop off her head!’
Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take the hint; but the cook
was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to be listening, so she went on again: ‘Twenty-
four hours, I think; or is it twelve? I—’
‘Oh, don’t bother me,’ said the Duchess; ‘I never could abide figures!’ And with that she
began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a
violent shake at the end of every line:
‘Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.’
CHORUS.
(In which the cook and the baby joined):—
‘Wow! wow! wow!’
While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the baby violently up
and down, and the poor little thing howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:—
‘I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!’
CHORUS.
‘Wow! wow! wow!’
‘Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!’ the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her
as she spoke. ‘I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen,’ and she hurried out of
the room. The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her.
Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and held
out its arms and legs in all directions, ‘just like a star-fish,’ thought Alice. The poor little
thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and
straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much as
she could do to hold it.

135
 40

As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort
of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing
itself,) she carried it out into the open air. ‘If I don’t take this child away with me,’ thought
Alice, ‘they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?’ She
said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by
this time). ‘Don’t grunt,’ said Alice; ‘that’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.’
The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the
matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very turn-up nose, much more like a
snout than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice
did not like the look of the thing at all. ‘But perhaps it was only sobbing,’ she thought, and
looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.

136
 41

No, there were no tears. ‘If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,’ said Alice, seriously,
‘I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!’ The poor little thing sobbed again (or
grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence.
Alice was just beginning to think to herself, ‘Now, what am I to do with this creature when I
get it home?’ when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some
alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig,
and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further.
So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the
wood. ‘If it had grown up,’ she said to herself, ‘it would have made a dreadfully ugly child:
but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.’ And she began thinking over other children she
knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, ‘if one only knew the
right way to change them—’ when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting
on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

137
 42

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very
long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like
the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice,
and she went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where—’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘—so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. ‘What sort of people
live about here?’
‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives a Hatter: and in that
direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both
mad.’
‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’
Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on ‘And how do you know that
you’re mad?’
‘To begin with,’ said the Cat, ‘a dog’s not mad. You grant that?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Alice.
‘Well, then,’ the Cat went on, ‘you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when
it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m
mad.’
‘I call it purring, not growling,’ said Alice.
‘Call it what you like,’ said the Cat. ‘Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?’
‘I should like it very much,’ said Alice, ‘but I haven’t been invited yet.’
‘You’ll see me there,’ said the Cat, and vanished.
Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening.
While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.
‘By-the-bye, what became of the baby?’ said the Cat. ‘I’d nearly forgotten to ask.’
‘It turned into a pig,’ Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.
‘I thought it would,’ said the Cat, and vanished again.

138
 43

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or
two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. ‘I’ve seen
hatters before,’ she said to herself; ‘the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and
perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.’ As
she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.
‘Did you say pig, or fig?’ said the Cat.
‘I said pig,’ replied Alice; ‘and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so
suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’
‘All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the
tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
‘Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,’ thought Alice; ‘but a grin without a cat! It’s the
most curious thing I ever saw in my life!’
She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare: she
thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof
was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had
nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high:
even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself ‘Suppose it should be
raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!’

139
 44

7. A Mad Tea-Party
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the
Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other
two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very
uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t
mind.’

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: ‘No
room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s plenty of room!’ said
Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
‘Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine,’
she remarked.
‘There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.
‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.
‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the March Hare.
‘I didn’t know it was your table,’ said Alice; ‘it’s laid for a great many more than three.’

140
 45

‘Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with
great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
‘You should learn not to make personal remarks,’ Alice said with some severity; ‘it’s very
rude.’
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, ‘Why is a raven
like a writing-desk?’
‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking
riddles.—I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.
‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare.
‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.
‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.
‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you
know.’
‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘You might just as well say that “I see what I eat”
is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!’
‘You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare, ‘that “I like what I get” is the same thing
as “I get what I like”!’
‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep,
‘that “I breathe when I sleep” is the same thing as “I sleep when I breathe”!’
‘It is the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the
party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens
and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.
The Hatter was the first to break the silence. ‘What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to
Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it
every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said ‘The fourth.’
‘Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. ‘I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added
looking angrily at the March Hare.
‘It was the best butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied.
‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have
put it in with the bread-knife.’
The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of
tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, ‘It
was the best butter, you know.’
Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. ‘What a funny watch!’ she
remarked. ‘It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!’
‘Why should it?’ muttered the Hatter. ‘Does your watch tell you what year it is?’
‘Of course not,’ Alice replied very readily: ‘but that’s because it stays the same year for such
a long time together.’
‘Which is just the case with mine,’ said the Hatter.

141
 46

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it,
and yet it was certainly English. ‘I don’t quite understand you,’ she said, as politely as she
could.
‘The Dormouse is asleep again,’ said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.
The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, ‘Of course, of
course; just what I was going to remark myself.’
‘Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
‘No, I give it up,’ Alice replied: ‘what’s the answer?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said the Hatter.
‘Nor I,’ said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. ‘I think you might do something better with the time,’ she said, ‘than
waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.’
‘If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter, ‘you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s
him.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alice.
‘Of course you don’t!’ the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. ‘I dare say you never
even spoke to Time!’
‘Perhaps not,’ Alice cautiously replied: ‘but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.’
‘Ah! that accounts for it,’ said the Hatter. ‘He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on
good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose
it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a
hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!’
(‘I only wish it was,’ the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)
‘That would be grand, certainly,’ said Alice thoughtfully: ‘but then—I shouldn’t be hungry
for it, you know.’
‘Not at first, perhaps,’ said the Hatter: ‘but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you
liked.’
‘Is that the way you manage?’ Alice asked.
The Hatter shook his head mournfully. ‘Not I!’ he replied. ‘We quarrelled last March—just
before he went mad, you know—’ (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) ‘—it was
at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing
“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!”
You know the song, perhaps?’
‘I’ve heard something like it,’ said Alice.
‘It goes on, you know,’ the Hatter continued, ‘in this way:—
“Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle—”‘

142
 47

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep ‘Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle,
twinkle—’ and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.
‘Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,’ said the Hatter, ‘when the Queen jumped up and
bawled out, “He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!”‘
‘How dreadfully savage!’ exclaimed Alice.
‘And ever since that,’ the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, ‘he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s
always six o’clock now.’
A bright idea came into Alice’s head. ‘Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?’
she asked.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ said the Hatter with a sigh: ‘it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash
the things between whiles.’
‘Then you keep moving round, I suppose?’ said Alice.
‘Exactly so,’ said the Hatter: ‘as the things get used up.’

143
 48

‘But what happens when you come to the beginning again?’ Alice ventured to ask.
‘Suppose we change the subject,’ the March Hare interrupted, yawning. ‘I’m getting tired of
this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know one,’ said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.
‘Then the Dormouse shall!’ they both cried. ‘Wake up, Dormouse!’ And they pinched it on
both sides at once.
The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: ‘I
heard every word you fellows were saying.’
‘Tell us a story!’ said the March Hare.
‘Yes, please do!’ pleaded Alice.
‘And be quick about it,’ added the Hatter, ‘or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.’
‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and
their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—’
‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating
and drinking.
‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
‘They couldn’t have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they’d have been ill.’
‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘Very ill.’
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it
puzzled her too much, so she went on: ‘But why did they live at the bottom of a well?’
‘Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
‘I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’
‘You mean you can’t take less,’ said the Hatter: ‘it’s very easy to take more than nothing.’
‘Nobody asked your opinion,’ said Alice.
‘Who’s making personal remarks now?’ the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-
butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. ‘Why did they live at the
bottom of a well?’
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, ‘It was a treacle-
well.’
‘There’s no such thing!’ Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare
went ‘Sh! sh!’ and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, ‘If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish
the story for yourself.’
‘No, please go on!’ Alice said very humbly; ‘I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be
one.’
‘One, indeed!’ said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on. ‘And so
these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—’
‘What did they draw?’ said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
‘Treacle,’ said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.

144
 49

‘I want a clean cup,’ interrupted the Hatter: ‘let’s all move one place on.’
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the
Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter
was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse
off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.
Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: ‘But I don’t
understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?’
‘You can draw water out of a water-well,’ said the Hatter; ‘so I should think you could draw
treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?’
‘But they were in the well,’ Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last
remark.
‘Of course they were’, said the Dormouse; ‘—well in.’
This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without
interrupting it.
‘They were learning to draw,’ the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it
was getting very sleepy; ‘and they drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an
M—’
‘Why with an M?’ said Alice.
‘Why not?’ said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being
pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: ‘—that begins with
an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say
things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a
muchness?’
‘Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, ‘I don’t think—’
‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and
walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice
of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after
her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
‘At any rate I’ll never go there again!’ said Alice as she picked her way through the wood.
‘It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!’
Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. ‘That’s
very curious!’ she thought. ‘But everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at
once.’ And in she went.

145
 50

Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. ‘Now, I’ll
manage better this time,’ she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and
unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom
(she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down
the little passage: and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the
bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.

146
 51

8. The Queen’s Croquet-Ground

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white,
but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very
curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard
one of them say, ‘Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me like that!’

‘I couldn’t help it,’ said Five, in a sulky tone; ‘Seven jogged my elbow.’
On which Seven looked up and said, ‘That’s right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!’
‘YOU’D better not talk!’ said Five. ‘I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be
beheaded!’
‘What for?’ said the one who had spoken first.

147
 52

‘That’s none of your business, Two!’ said Seven.

‘Yes, it is his business!’ said Five, ‘and I’ll tell him—it was for bringing the cook tulip-roots
instead of onions.’
Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun ‘Well, of all the unjust things—’ when his
eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself
suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.
‘Would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, ‘why you are painting those roses?’
Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, ‘Why the fact is,
you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by
mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know.
So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—’ At this moment Five, who had
been anxiously looking across the garden, called out ‘The Queen! The Queen!’ and the three
gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many
footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.
First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong
and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were
ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these
came the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily
along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests,
mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking
in a hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a crimson
velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand procession, came The King And Queen Of Hearts.
Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face like the three
gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard of such a rule at processions; ‘and
besides, what would be the use of a procession,’ thought she, ‘if people had all to lie down
upon their faces, so that they couldn’t see it?’ So she stood still where she was, and waited.
When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the
Queen said severely ‘Who is this?’ She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and
smiled in reply.
‘Idiot!’ said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went on,
‘What’s your name, child?’
‘My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,’ said Alice very politely; but she added, to
herself, ‘Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!’
‘And who are these?’ said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round
the rosetree; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was
the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers,
or courtiers, or three of her own children.
‘How should I know?’ said Alice, surprised at her own courage. ‘It’s no business of mine.’
The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast,
screamed ‘Off with her head! Off—’
‘Nonsense!’ said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.
The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said ‘Consider, my dear: she is only a
child!’

148
 53

The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave ‘Turn them over!’
The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.

‘Get up!’ said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three gardeners instantly jumped up,
and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.
‘Leave off that!’ screamed the Queen. ‘You make me giddy.’ And then, turning to the rose-
tree, she went on, ‘What have you been doing here?’
‘May it please your Majesty,’ said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on one knee as
he spoke, ‘we were trying—’
‘I see!’ said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. ‘Off with their heads!’
and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the
unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.
‘You shan’t be beheaded!’ said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood
near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then
quietly marched off after the others.

149
 54

‘Are their heads off?’ shouted the Queen.

‘Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!’ the soldiers shouted in reply.
‘That’s right!’ shouted the Queen. ‘Can you play croquet?’
The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her.
‘Yes!’ shouted Alice.
‘Come on, then!’ roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much
what would happen next.
‘It’s—it’s a very fine day!’ said a timid voice at her side. She was walking by the White
Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.
‘Very,’ said Alice: ‘—where’s the Duchess?’
‘Hush! Hush!’ said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his shoulder
as he spoke, and then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and
whispered ‘She’s under sentence of execution.’
‘What for?’ said Alice.
‘Did you say “What a pity!”?’ the Rabbit asked.
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Alice: ‘I don’t think it’s at all a pity. I said “What for?”‘
‘She boxed the Queen’s ears—’ the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. ‘Oh,
hush!’ the Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. ‘The Queen will hear you! You see, she
came rather late, and the Queen said—’
‘Get to your places!’ shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running
about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled down in a
minute or two, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-
ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets
live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and
feet, to make the arches.
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in
getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging
down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to
give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face,
with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she
had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the
hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was
generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as
the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground,
Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

150
 55

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while, and
fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and
went stamping about, and shouting ‘Off with his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ about once in
a minute.
Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any dispute with the
Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, ‘and then,’ thought she, ‘what would
become of me? They’re dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that
there’s any one left alive!’

151
 56

She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away
without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very
much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said
to herself ‘It’s the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.’
‘How are you getting on?’ said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak
with.
Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. ‘It’s no use speaking to it,’ she thought,
‘till its ears have come, or at least one of them.’ In another minute the whole head appeared,
and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad

152
 57

she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in
sight, and no more of it appeared.
‘I don’t think they play at all fairly,’ Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, ‘and they all
quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in
particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and you’ve no idea how confusing it
is all the things being alive; for instance, there’s the arch I’ve got to go through next walking
about at the other end of the ground—and I should have croqueted the Queen’s hedgehog just
now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming!’
‘How do you like the Queen?’ said the Cat in a low voice.
‘Not at all,’ said Alice: ‘she’s so extremely—’ Just then she noticed that the Queen was close
behind her, listening: so she went on, ‘—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing
the game.’
The Queen smiled and passed on.
‘Who are you talking to?’ said the King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat’s head
with great curiosity.
‘It’s a friend of mine—a Cheshire Cat,’ said Alice: ‘allow me to introduce it.’
‘I don’t like the look of it at all,’ said the King: ‘however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.’
‘I’d rather not,’ the Cat remarked.
‘Don’t be impertinent,’ said the King, ‘and don’t look at me like that!’ He got behind Alice as
he spoke.
‘A cat may look at a king,’ said Alice. ‘I’ve read that in some book, but I don’t remember
where.’
‘Well, it must be removed,’ said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was
passing at the moment, ‘My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!’
The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’
she said, without even looking round.
‘I’ll fetch the executioner myself,’ said the King eagerly, and he hurried off.
Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on, as she heard
the Queen’s voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her
sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like
the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it
was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog.
The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an
excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that
her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying
in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree.
By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the
hedgehogs were out of sight: ‘but it doesn’t matter much,’ thought Alice, ‘as all the arches
are gone from this side of the ground.’ So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not
escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her friend.
When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd
collected round it: there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and the

153
 58

Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very
uncomfortable.
The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they
repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard
indeed to make out exactly what they said.
The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to
cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin
at his time of life.
The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you
weren’t to talk nonsense.
The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in less than no time she’d
have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party
look so grave and anxious.)
Alice could think of nothing else to say but ‘It belongs to the Duchess: you’d better ask her
about it.’
‘She’s in prison,’ the Queen said to the executioner: ‘fetch her here.’
And the executioner went off like an arrow.
The Cat’s head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he had come
back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran
wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.

154
 59

9. The Mock Turtle’s Story

‘You can’t think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!’ said the Duchess, as
she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice’s, and they walked off together.
Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought to herself that perhaps
it was only the pepper that had made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.

‘When I’M a Duchess,’ she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone though), ‘I won’t have
any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup does very well without—Maybe it’s always pepper that
makes people hot-tempered,’ she went on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind
of rule, ‘and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes them bitter—and—
and barley-sugar and such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish people
knew that: then they wouldn’t be so stingy about it, you know—’

155
 60

She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled when she heard her
voice close to her ear. ‘You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget
to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.’
‘Perhaps it hasn’t one,’ Alice ventured to remark.
‘Tut, tut, child!’ said the Duchess. ‘Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’ And she
squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as she spoke.
Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was very ugly; and
secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice’s shoulder, and
it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as
well as she could.
‘The game’s going on rather better now,’ she said, by way of keeping up the conversation a
little.
‘‘Tis so,’ said the Duchess: ‘and the moral of that is—”Oh, ‘tis love, ‘tis love, that makes the
world go round!”‘
‘Somebody said,’ Alice whispered, ‘that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!’
‘Ah, well! It means much the same thing,’ said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into
Alice’s shoulder as she added, ‘and the moral of that is—”Take care of the sense, and the
sounds will take care of themselves.”‘
‘How fond she is of finding morals in things!’ Alice thought to herself.
‘I dare say you’re wondering why I don’t put my arm round your waist,’ the Duchess said
after a pause: ‘the reason is, that I’m doubtful about the temper of your flamingo. Shall I try
the experiment?’
‘He might bite,’ Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious to have the experiment
tried.
‘Very true,’ said the Duchess: ‘flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is—
”Birds of a feather flock together.”‘
‘Only mustard isn’t a bird,’ Alice remarked.
‘Right, as usual,’ said the Duchess: ‘what a clear way you have of putting things!’
‘It’s a mineral, I think,’ said Alice.
‘Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said;
‘there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is—”The more there is of
mine, the less there is of yours.”‘
‘Oh, I know!’ exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark, ‘it’s a vegetable. It
doesn’t look like one, but it is.’
‘I quite agree with you,’ said the Duchess; ‘and the moral of that is—”Be what you would
seem to be”—or if you’d like it put more simply—”Never imagine yourself not to be
otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”‘
‘I think I should understand that better,’ Alice said very politely, ‘if I had it written down: but
I can’t quite follow it as you say it.’
‘That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,’ the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.

156
 61

‘Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,’ said Alice.
‘Oh, don’t talk about trouble!’ said the Duchess. ‘I make you a present of everything I’ve said
as yet.’
‘A cheap sort of present!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they don’t give birthday presents like
that!’ But she did not venture to say it out loud.
‘Thinking again?’ the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin.
‘I’ve a right to think,’ said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.
‘Just about as much right,’ said the Duchess, ‘as pigs have to fly; and the m—’
But here, to Alice’s great surprise, the Duchess’s voice died away, even in the middle of her
favourite word ‘moral,’ and the arm that was linked into hers began to tremble. Alice looked
up, and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded, frowning like a
thunderstorm.
‘A fine day, your Majesty!’ the Duchess began in a low, weak voice.
‘Now, I give you fair warning,’ shouted the Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke;
‘either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice!’
The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment.
‘Let’s go on with the game,’ the Queen said to Alice; and Alice was too much frightened to
say a word, but slowly followed her back to the croquet-ground.
The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen’s absence, and were resting in the shade:
however, the moment they saw her, they hurried back to the game, the Queen merely
remarking that a moment’s delay would cost them their lives.
All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling with the other players, and
shouting ‘Off with his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ Those whom she sentenced were taken
into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that by
the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King,
the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of execution.
Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, ‘Have you seen the Mock
Turtle yet?’
‘No,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.’
‘It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,’ said the Queen.
‘I never saw one, or heard of one,’ said Alice.
‘Come on, then,’ said the Queen, ‘and he shall tell you his history,’
As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company
generally, ‘You are all pardoned.’ ‘Come, that’s a good thing!’ she said to herself, for she had
felt quite unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.
They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (if you don’t know what a
Gryphon is, look at the picture.) ‘Up, lazy thing!’ said the Queen, ‘and take this young lady to
see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history. I must go back and see after some executions I
have ordered’; and she walked off, leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite
like the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would be quite as safe to stay
with it as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited.

157
 62

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till she was out of sight:
then it chuckled. ‘What fun!’ said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.
‘What is the fun?’ said Alice.
‘Why, she,’ said the Gryphon. ‘It’s all her fancy, that: they never executes nobody, you
know. Come on!’
‘Everybody says “come on!” here,’ thought Alice, as she went slowly after it: ‘I never was so
ordered about in all my life, never!’
They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely
on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart
would break. She pitied him deeply. ‘What is his sorrow?’ she asked the Gryphon, and the
Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, ‘It’s all his fancy, that: he hasn’t
got no sorrow, you know. Come on!’
So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said
nothing.
‘This here young lady,’ said the Gryphon, ‘she wants for to know your history, she do.’
‘I’ll tell it her,’ said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow tone: ‘sit down, both of you, and don’t
speak a word till I’ve finished.’
So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes. Alice thought to herself, ‘I don’t see
how he can even finish, if he doesn’t begin.’ But she waited patiently.
‘Once,’ said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, ‘I was a real Turtle.’
These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation
of ‘Hjckrrh!’ from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice

158
 63

was very nearly getting up and saying, ‘Thank you, sir, for your interesting story,’ but she
could not help thinking there must be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.
‘When we were little,’ the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a
little now and then, ‘we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to
call him Tortoise—’

‘Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?’ Alice asked.

159
 64

‘We called him Tortoise because he taught us,’ said the Mock Turtle angrily: ‘really you are
very dull!’
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,’ added the Gryphon;
and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At
last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, ‘Drive on, old fellow! Don’t be all day about it!’
and he went on in these words:
‘Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn’t believe it—’
‘I never said I didn’t!’ interrupted Alice.
‘You did,’ said the Mock Turtle.
‘Hold your tongue!’ added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle
went on.
‘We had the best of educations—in fact, we went to school every day—’
‘I’VE been to a day-school, too,’ said Alice; ‘you needn’t be so proud as all that.’
‘With extras?’ asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘we learned French and music.’
‘And washing?’ said the Mock Turtle.
‘Certainly not!’ said Alice indignantly.
‘Ah! then yours wasn’t a really good school,’ said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief.
‘Now at ours they had at the end of the bill, “French, music, and washing—extra.”‘
‘You couldn’t have wanted it much,’ said Alice; ‘living at the bottom of the sea.’
‘I couldn’t afford to learn it.’ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. ‘I only took the regular
course.’
‘What was that?’ inquired Alice.
‘Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the Mock Turtle replied; ‘and then the
different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’
‘I never heard of “Uglification,”‘ Alice ventured to say. ‘What is it?’
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. ‘What! Never heard of uglifying!’ it
exclaimed. ‘You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’
‘Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: ‘it means—to—make—anything—prettier.’
‘Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, ‘if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a
simpleton.’
Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock
Turtle, and said ‘What else had you to learn?’
‘Well, there was Mystery,’ the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers,
‘—Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling—the Drawling-master
was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and
Fainting in Coils.’

160
 65

‘What was that like?’ said Alice.

‘Well, I can’t show it you myself,’ the Mock Turtle said: ‘I’m too stiff. And the Gryphon
never learnt it.’
‘Hadn’t time,’ said the Gryphon: ‘I went to the Classics master, though. He was an old crab,
he was.’
‘I never went to him,’ the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: ‘he taught Laughing and Grief, they
used to say.’

161
 66

‘So he did, so he did,’ said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both creatures hid their faces
in their paws.
‘And how many hours a day did you do lessons?’ said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
‘Ten hours the first day,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘nine the next, and so on.’
‘What a curious plan!’ exclaimed Alice.
‘That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon remarked: ‘because they lessen from
day to day.’
This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next
remark. ‘Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?’
‘Of course it was,’ said the Mock Turtle.
‘And how did you manage on the twelfth?’ Alice went on eagerly.
‘That’s enough about lessons,’ the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone: ‘tell her
something about the games now.’

162
 67

10. The Lobster Quadrille

The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across his eyes. He looked
at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or two sobs choked his voice. ‘Same as if he had
a bone in his throat,’ said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in
the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears running down his
cheeks, he went on again:—

‘You may not have lived much under the sea—’ (‘I haven’t,’ said Alice)—’and perhaps you
were never even introduced to a lobster—’ (Alice began to say ‘I once tasted—’ but checked

163
 68

herself hastily, and said ‘No, never’) ‘—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a
Lobster Quadrille is!’
‘No, indeed,’ said Alice. ‘What sort of a dance is it?’
‘Why,’ said the Gryphon, ‘you first form into a line along the sea-shore—’
‘Two lines!’ cried the Mock Turtle. ‘Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on; then, when you’ve
cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way—’
‘That generally takes some time,’ interrupted the Gryphon.
‘—you advance twice—’
‘Each with a lobster as a partner!’ cried the Gryphon.
‘Of course,’ the Mock Turtle said: ‘advance twice, set to partners—’
‘—change lobsters, and retire in same order,’ continued the Gryphon.
‘Then, you know,’ the Mock Turtle went on, ‘you throw the—’
‘The lobsters!’ shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.
‘—as far out to sea as you can—’
‘Swim after them!’ screamed the Gryphon.
‘Turn a somersault in the sea!’ cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.
‘Change lobsters again!’ yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.
‘Back to land again, and that’s all the first figure,’ said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping
his voice; and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time,
sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.
‘It must be a very pretty dance,’ said Alice timidly.
‘Would you like to see a little of it?’ said the Mock Turtle.
‘Very much indeed,’ said Alice.
‘Come, let’s try the first figure!’ said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon. ‘We can do without
lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?’
‘Oh, you sing,’ said the Gryphon. ‘I’ve forgotten the words.’
So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now and then treading on her
toes when they passed too close, and waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock
Turtle sang this, very slowly and sadly:—
‘“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail.
“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?
“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”

164
 69

But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance—
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
‘“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied.
“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France—
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”‘
‘Thank you, it’s a very interesting dance to watch,’ said Alice, feeling very glad that it was
over at last: ‘and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!’
‘Oh, as to the whiting,’ said the Mock Turtle, ‘they—you’ve seen them, of course?’
‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘I’ve often seen them at dinn—’ she checked herself hastily.
‘I don’t know where Dinn may be,’ said the Mock Turtle, ‘but if you’ve seen them so often,
of course you know what they’re like.’
‘I believe so,’ Alice replied thoughtfully. ‘They have their tails in their mouths—and they’re
all over crumbs.’
‘You’re wrong about the crumbs,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘crumbs would all wash off in the
sea. But they have their tails in their mouths; and the reason is—’ here the Mock Turtle
yawned and shut his eyes.—’Tell her about the reason and all that,’ he said to the Gryphon.
‘The reason is,’ said the Gryphon, ‘that they would go with the lobsters to the dance. So they
got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their
mouths. So they couldn’t get them out again. That’s all.’
‘Thank you,’ said Alice, ‘it’s very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before.’
‘I can tell you more than that, if you like,’ said the Gryphon. ‘Do you know why it’s called a
whiting?’
‘I never thought about it,’ said Alice. ‘Why?’
‘It does the boots and shoes.’ the Gryphon replied very solemnly.
Alice was thoroughly puzzled. ‘Does the boots and shoes!’ she repeated in a wondering tone.
‘Why, what are your shoes done with?’ said the Gryphon. ‘I mean, what makes them so
shiny?’
Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. ‘They’re done
with blacking, I believe.’
‘Boots and shoes under the sea,’ the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, ‘are done with a
whiting. Now you know.’
‘And what are they made of?’ Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.
‘Soles and eels, of course,’ the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: ‘any shrimp could have
told you that.’

165
 70

‘If I’d been the whiting,’ said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, ‘I’d have
said to the porpoise, “Keep back, please: we don’t want you with us!”‘
‘They were obliged to have him with them,’ the Mock Turtle said: ‘no wise fish would go
anywhere without a porpoise.’
‘Wouldn’t it really?’ said Alice in a tone of great surprise.
‘Of course not,’ said the Mock Turtle: ‘why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a
journey, I should say “With what porpoise?”‘
‘Don’t you mean “purpose”?’ said Alice.
‘I mean what I say,’ the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added
‘Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.’
‘I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly:
‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’
‘Explain all that,’ said the Mock Turtle.
‘No, no! The adventures first,’ said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: ‘explanations take such
a dreadful time.’
So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White
Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one
on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so very wide, but she gained courage as she
went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating ‘you are
old, father William,’ to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock
Turtle drew a long breath, and said ‘That’s very curious.’
‘It’s all about as curious as it can be,’ said the Gryphon.
‘It all came different!’ the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. ‘I should like to hear her try
and repeat something now. Tell her to begin.’ He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it
had some kind of authority over Alice.
‘Stand up and repeat “‘Tis The Voice Of The Sluggard,”‘ said the Gryphon.
‘How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!’ thought Alice; ‘I might as
well be at school at once.’ However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so
full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came
very queer indeed:—
‘‘Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.’
[later editions continued as follows
When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,
But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]
‘That’s different from what I used to say when I was a child,’ said the Gryphon.

166
 71

‘Well, I never heard it before,’ said the Mock Turtle; ‘but it sounds uncommon nonsense.’
Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would
ever happen in a natural way again.
‘I should like to have it explained,’ said the Mock Turtle.
‘She can’t explain it,’ said the Gryphon hastily. ‘Go on with the next verse.’
‘But about his toes?’ the Mock Turtle persisted. ‘How could he turn them out with his nose,
you know?’
‘It’s the first position in dancing.’ Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing,
and longed to change the subject.
‘Go on with the next verse,’ the Gryphon repeated impatiently: ‘it begins “I passed by his
garden.”‘
Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on
in a trembling voice:—
‘I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—’
[later editions continued as follows
The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.
When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
And concluded the banquet—]
‘What is the use of repeating all that stuff,’ the Mock Turtle interrupted, ‘if you don’t explain
it as you go on? It’s by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!’
‘Yes, I think you’d better leave off,’ said the Gryphon: and Alice was only too glad to do so.
‘Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?’ the Gryphon went on. ‘Or would you
like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?’
‘Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,’ Alice replied, so eagerly that the
Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, ‘Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her “Turtle
Soup,” will you, old fellow?’
The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing
this:—
‘Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

167
 72

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

‘Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!
Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beauti—ful soup!’

‘Chorus again!’ cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a
cry of ‘The trial’s beginning!’ was heard in the distance.
‘Come on!’ cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting
for the end of the song.
‘What trial is it?’ Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only answered ‘Come on!’ and
ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them,
the melancholy words:—
‘Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!’

168
 73

11. Who Stole The Tarts?

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great
crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of
cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard
him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of
parchment in the other.

In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so
good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—’I wish they’d get the trial done,’ she

169
 74

thought, ‘and hand round the refreshments!’ But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she
began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time.
Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and
she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. ‘That’s the
judge,’ she said to herself, ‘because of his great wig.’
The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the wig, (look at the
frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was
certainly not becoming.
‘And that’s the jury-box,’ thought Alice, ‘and those twelve creatures,’ (she was obliged to say
‘creatures,’ you see, because some of them were animals, and some were birds,) ‘I suppose
they are the jurors.’ She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather
proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the
meaning of it at all. However, ‘jury-men’ would have done just as well.
The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. ‘What are they doing?’ Alice
whispered to the Gryphon. ‘They can’t have anything to put down yet, before the trial’s
begun.’
‘They’re putting down their names,’ the Gryphon whispered in reply, ‘for fear they should
forget them before the end of the trial.’
‘Stupid things!’ Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the White
Rabbit cried out, ‘Silence in the court!’ and the King put on his spectacles and looked
anxiously round, to make out who was talking.
Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were
writing down ‘stupid things!’ on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them
didn’t know how to spell ‘stupid,’ and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. ‘A nice
muddle their slates’ll be in before the trial’s over!’ thought Alice.
One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice could not stand, and she
went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it
away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make
out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write with
one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate.
‘Herald, read the accusation!’ said the King.
On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment
scroll, and read as follows:—

‘The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,

All on a summer day:
The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
And took them quite away!’

‘Consider your verdict,’ the King said to the jury.

‘Not yet, not yet!’ the Rabbit hastily interrupted. ‘There’s a great deal to come before that!’

170
 75

‘Call the first witness,’ said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet,
and called out, ‘First witness!’
The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a teacup in one hand and a piece of bread-
and-butter in the other. ‘I beg pardon, your Majesty,’ he began, ‘for bringing these in: but I
hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.’
‘You ought to have finished,’ said the King. ‘When did you begin?’
The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with
the Dormouse. ‘Fourteenth of March, I think it was,’ he said.

171
 76

‘Fifteenth,’ said the March Hare.

‘Sixteenth,’ added the Dormouse.
‘Write that down,’ the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates
on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.
‘Take off your hat,’ the King said to the Hatter.
‘It isn’t mine,’ said the Hatter.
‘Stolen!’ the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the
fact.
‘I keep them to sell,’ the Hatter added as an explanation; ‘I’ve none of my own. I’m a hatter.’
Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and
fidgeted.
‘Give your evidence,’ said the King; ‘and don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the
spot.’
This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting from one foot to the other,
looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup
instead of the bread-and-butter.
Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until
she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she
would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she
was as long as there was room for her.
‘I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so.’ said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. ‘I can
hardly breathe.’
‘I can’t help it,’ said Alice very meekly: ‘I’m growing.’
‘You’ve no right to grow here,’ said the Dormouse.
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Alice more boldly: ‘you know you’re growing too.’
‘Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,’ said the Dormouse: ‘not in that ridiculous fashion.’
And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the other side of the court.
All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse
crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, ‘Bring me the list of the singers
in the last concert!’ on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes
off.
‘Give your evidence,’ the King repeated angrily, ‘or I’ll have you executed, whether you’re
nervous or not.’
‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, ‘—and I hadn’t
begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin—
and the twinkling of the tea—’
‘The twinkling of the what?’ said the King.
‘It began with the tea,’ the Hatter replied.
‘Of course twinkling begins with a T!’ said the King sharply. ‘Do you take me for a dunce?
Go on!’

172
 77

‘I’m a poor man,’ the Hatter went on, ‘and most things twinkled after that—only the March
Hare said—’
‘I didn’t!’ the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.
‘You did!’ said the Hatter.
‘I deny it!’ said the March Hare.
‘He denies it,’ said the King: ‘leave out that part.’
‘Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—’ the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see
if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.
‘After that,’ continued the Hatter, ‘I cut some more bread-and-butter—’
‘But what did the Dormouse say?’ one of the jury asked.
‘That I can’t remember,’ said the Hatter.
‘You must remember,’ remarked the King, ‘or I’ll have you executed.’
The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee.
‘I’m a poor man, your Majesty,’ he began.
‘You’re a very poor speaker,’ said the King.
Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the
court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a
large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-
pig, head first, and then sat upon it.)
‘I’m glad I’ve seen that done,’ thought Alice. ‘I’ve so often read in the newspapers, at the end
of trials, “There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the
officers of the court,” and I never understood what it meant till now.’
‘If that’s all you know about it, you may stand down,’ continued the King.
‘I can’t go no lower,’ said the Hatter: ‘I’m on the floor, as it is.’
‘Then you may sit down,’ the King replied.
Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.
‘Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!’ thought Alice. ‘Now we shall get on better.’
‘I’d rather finish my tea,’ said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was
reading the list of singers.
‘You may go,’ said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to
put his shoes on.

173
 78

‘—and just take his head off outside,’ the Queen added to one of the officers: but the Hatter
was out of sight before the officer could get to the door.
‘Call the next witness!’ said the King.
The next witness was the Duchess’s cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice
guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door
began sneezing all at once.
‘Give your evidence,’ said the King.
‘Shan’t,’ said the cook.
The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, ‘Your Majesty must
cross-examine this witness.’
‘Well, if I must, I must,’ the King said, with a melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and
frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, ‘What are
tarts made of?’
‘Pepper, mostly,’ said the cook.
‘Treacle,’ said a sleepy voice behind her.
‘Collar that Dormouse,’ the Queen shrieked out. ‘Behead that Dormouse! Turn that
Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!’
For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by
the time they had settled down again, the cook had disappeared.
‘Never mind!’ said the King, with an air of great relief. ‘Call the next witness.’ And he added
in an undertone to the Queen, ‘Really, my dear, you must cross-examine the next witness. It
quite makes my forehead ache!’
Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling very curious to see what
the next witness would be like, ‘—for they haven’t got much evidence yet,’ she said to

174
 79

herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little
voice, the name ‘Alice!’

175
 80

12. Alice’s Evidence

‘Here!’ cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in
the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with
the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there
they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of goldfish she had
accidentally upset the week before.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and began picking them up
again as quickly as she could, for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and

176
 81

she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the jury-
box, or they would die.
‘The trial cannot proceed,’ said the King in a very grave voice, ‘until all the jurymen are back
in their proper places—all,’ he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said
do.
Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put the Lizard in head
downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being
quite unable to move. She soon got it out again, and put it right; ‘not that it signifies much,’
she said to herself; ‘I should think it would be quite as much use in the trial one way up as the
other.’
As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being upset, and their slates and
pencils had been found and handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write out
a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do
anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the court.
‘What do you know about this business?’ the King said to Alice.
‘Nothing,’ said Alice.
‘Nothing whatever?’ persisted the King.
‘Nothing whatever,’ said Alice.
‘That’s very important,’ the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write
this down on their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted: ‘UNimportant, your Majesty
means, of course,’ he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as
he spoke.
‘UNimportant, of course, I meant,’ the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an
undertone,
‘important—unimportant—unimportant—important—’ as if he were trying which word
sounded best.
Some of the jury wrote it down ‘important,’ and some ‘unimportant.’ Alice could see this, as
she was near enough to look over their slates; ‘but it doesn’t matter a bit,’ she thought to
herself.
At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book,
cackled out ‘Silence!’ and read out from his book, ‘Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a
mile high to leave the court.’
Everybody looked at Alice.
‘I’m not a mile high,’ said Alice.
‘You are,’ said the King.
‘Nearly two miles high,’ added the Queen.
‘Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,’ said Alice: ‘besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it
just now.’
‘It’s the oldest rule in the book,’ said the King.
‘Then it ought to be Number One,’ said Alice.

177
 82

The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. ‘Consider your verdict,’ he said to the
jury, in a low, trembling voice.
‘There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,’ said the White Rabbit, jumping up
in a great hurry; ‘this paper has just been picked up.’
‘What’s in it?’ said the Queen.
‘I haven’t opened it yet,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘but it seems to be a letter, written by the
prisoner to—to somebody.’
‘It must have been that,’ said the King, ‘unless it was written to nobody, which isn’t usual,
you know.’
‘Who is it directed to?’ said one of the jurymen.
‘It isn’t directed at all,’ said the White Rabbit; ‘in fact, there’s nothing written on the
outside.’ He unfolded the paper as he spoke, and added ‘It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of
verses.’
‘Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?’ asked another of the jurymen.
‘No, they’re not,’ said the White Rabbit, ‘and that’s the queerest thing about it.’ (The jury all
looked puzzled.)
‘He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,’ said the King. (The jury all brightened up
again.)
‘Please your Majesty,’ said the Knave, ‘I didn’t write it, and they can’t prove I did: there’s no
name signed at the end.’
‘If you didn’t sign it,’ said the King, ‘that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant
some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.’
There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had
said that day.
‘That proves his guilt,’ said the Queen.
‘It proves nothing of the sort!’ said Alice. ‘Why, you don’t even know what they’re about!’
‘Read them,’ said the King.
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. ‘Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?’ he
asked.
‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then
stop.’
These were the verses the White Rabbit read:—
‘They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him:
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.

He sent them word I had not gone

(We know it to be true):

178
 83

If she should push the matter on,

What would become of you?

I gave her one, they gave him two,

You gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be

Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.

My notion was that you had been

(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.

Don’t let him know she liked them best,

For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.’

‘That’s the most important piece of evidence we’ve heard yet,’ said the King, rubbing his
hands; ‘so now let the jury—’
‘If any one of them can explain it,’ said Alice, (she had grown so large in the last few minutes
that she wasn’t a bit afraid of interrupting him,) ‘I’ll give him sixpence. I don’t believe
there’s an atom of meaning in it.’
The jury all wrote down on their slates, ‘She doesn’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in
it,’ but none of them attempted to explain the paper.
‘If there’s no meaning in it,’ said the King, ‘that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we
needn’t try to find any. And yet I don’t know,’ he went on, spreading out the verses on his
knee, and looking at them with one eye; ‘I seem to see some meaning in them, after all. “—
said i could not swim—” you can’t swim, can you?’ he added, turning to the Knave.
The Knave shook his head sadly. ‘Do I look like it?’ he said. (Which he certainly did not,
being made entirely of cardboard.)

179
 84

‘All right, so far,’ said the King, and he went on muttering over the verses to himself: ‘“We
know it to be true—” that’s the jury, of course— “I gave her one, they gave him two—” why,
that must be what he did with the tarts, you know—’

180
 85

‘But, it goes on “they all returned from him to you,”‘ said Alice.
‘Why, there they are!’ said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table. ‘Nothing
can be clearer than that. Then again— “Before she had this fit—” you never had fits, my
dear, I think?’ he said to the Queen.
‘Never!’ said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The
unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no
mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long
as it lasted.)
‘Then the words don’t fit you,’ said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was
a dead silence.
‘It’s a pun!’ the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, ‘Let the jury
consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

181
 86

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.
‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.
‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re
nothing but a pack of cards!’
At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little
scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on
the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead
leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.
‘Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister; ‘Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’
‘Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!’ said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could
remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about;
and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, ‘It was a curious dream, dear,
certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.’ So Alice got up and ran off, thinking
while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.
But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her hand, watching the setting
sun, and thinking of little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming
after a fashion, and this was her dream:—
First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny hands were clasped upon her
knee, and the bright eager eyes were looking up into hers—she could hear the very tones of
her voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair that would
always get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place
around her became alive with the strange creatures of her little sister’s dream.
The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the frightened Mouse
splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she could hear the rattle of the teacups as
the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the
Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby was
sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it—once more the
shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the
suppressed guinea-pigs, filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock
Turtle.
So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew
she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only
rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups
would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd
boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises,
would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing
of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.
Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be
herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and
loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and
make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of
Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a
pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer
days.

182
 87

THE END
***************
I'm Julie, the woman who runs Global Grey - the website where this ebook was
published. These are my own formatted editions, and I hope you enjoyed reading this
particular one.
If you have this book because you bought it as part of a collection – thank you so much
for your support.
If you downloaded it for free – please consider (if you haven’t already) making a small
donation to help keep the site running.
If you bought this from Amazon or anywhere else, you have been ripped off by someone
taking free ebooks from my site and selling them as their own. You should definitely get
a refund :/
Thanks for reading this and I hope you visit the site again - new books are added
regularly so you'll always find something of interest :)

183
 FAIRY TALES
Fairy tales are a genre of literature that is clearly defined by common elements. They have roots in oral
tradition and storytelling. These types of stories are common to every culture, and they usually teach life
lessons that are aligned with the values of that particular region. There are similar stories (plots, characters,
magic) all over the world. This genre of literature is fun because it whisks you away to a whole other world
where magic lives.

Opening and Ending Line

Fairy tales are usually presented as happening a long time ago. The most common phrase connected with a
fairy tale is "once upon a time." The line starts off several different fairy tales and is an immediate hint that you
are reading a story in that genre. Likewise, many fairy tales end with the line "and they lived happily ever after."
This line is most prominent in "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty."

Hero/Heroine and Villian

Fairy tales have clearly defined heroes and heroines. These characters are often described as kind and good
natured. They most often find themselves in unfair situations, such as Snow White, a sweet young girl who was
envied by the queen. On that same note, fairy tales always have a villain. The villain is sometimes a witch or
sorceress, dabbling in the dark arts, or it could be a gnome or monster.

Magic

Fairy tales are notorious for including a magical or supernatural element. It is common to see talking animals
who befriend the hero or heroine. Fairy tales with princesses often describe the princess singing and dancing
with animals. Even everyday objects can be alive. Fairy tales include such magical characters as fairies, trolls,
elves and goblins.

Royalty

Fairy tales usually feature royal settings or characters. There is often a castle, queen or king mentioned within
the story. Sometimes, the heroine is a missing princess as is the case with "Rapunzel" and "Sleeping Beauty."
Many of the heroines in fairy tales end up living "happily ever after" with a kind and handsome prince that
rescues them.

Problem and Solution

The plot of a fairy tale focuses on a problem that must be solved. The whole story revolves around that
problem, and the happily ever after is derived from finding a solution to the problem. Cinderella's problem was
that she wanted to go to the ball, her fairy godmother provided a solution to the problem and, thus, Cinderella
met the prince.

Universal Lesson

Fairy tales provide lessons on some sort of universal truth. It's a world where goodness prevails. The story can
be focused on coming of age, love, dreams and hope. It shows that the kind hero or heroine can win in the face
of adversity and an evil villain.

Learning Resources

Fairy tales are excellent resources for the classroom. Children are familiar with this type of genre. You could
have students compare different versions of the story "Cinderella" (there are different tales from different
regions). Since fairy tales have common elements, they are useful in teaching students how to write. There is a
format that they follow, and understanding it helps students to arrange their thoughts and map out their own
stories.

184
bs_bs_banner

doi:10.1111/jpc.12080

VIEWPOINT

Why fairy tales are still relevant to today’s children

Anthony Zehetner
Adolescent Medicine, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia

Are fairy tales outdated to a modernised 21st century society? In

1976, clinical psychologist Professor Bruno Bettelheim wrote a
book examining the power and utility of fairy tales in childhood
development.1 Forty years later, his work maintains its impor-
tance. Through a Freudian lens, Bettelheim examines the emo-
tional and symbolic facets of traditional children’s fairy tales
alongside contemporary developmental child psychology. Bet-
telheim believes that when children find meaning within these
socially evolved stories, they engage in emotional growth and
transcend their self-centred natures. This would allow them to
attain a greater sense of meaning and purpose to their own lives,
which would prepare them better for their own futures to be in
a position to contribute significantly to others. Through the fairy
tale narrative, the child makes sense of life’s bewilderment. The
imagery in fairy tales (such as personified animals, adults repre-
sented as giants and allegorical magic vegetables) allows the
child to explore their fears in remote and symbolic terms (Fig. 1).
The child is able to sort through their inner pressures and moral
obligations in an environment that is not belittling to them.
Should parents still recount these tales of make believe to the
children of today or are they passé?2 Unlike myths, which tend
to be detailed historical tragedies inaccessible to a child’s mind,
fairy tales are a screenplay of adversity, quest, struggle and
acceptance – with a happy ending. They tend to be universally
translatable and are edited and embellished with every genera-
tion. The emphasis is on choice of action rather than the title of Fig. 1 Little Red Riding Hood at the crossroad by Jessie Wilcox-Smith.
the characters themselves. Hansel and Gretel were so named
because these were the prevailing children’s names at the time.
Fables demand the reader to choose a moral outcome. Fairy Numbers play an important part in the world3 and fairy tales
tales allow the reader to explore each virtue and path of action are no exception. Here, the magical number is three: three
through the different characters’ fates. The child decides their bears, three little pigs, three wishes, etc. Apart from religious
own personal stance after deliberating each consequence. connotations to the Holy Trinity, the child sees their place in the
Through the telling, the child is exposed to ethical reasoning mother, father and child triad. As in the fairy tale, the child
without being preached at. The little pig who worked hard usually chooses the third path from the other two characters:
building his house out of bricks was safe, while the pigs that their own.
used the easier straw and sticks and went off to play got gobbled Many fairy tales follow a set pattern similar to ‘rite of passage’
up. Without being explicitly told so, the child learns that hard stories. A poor vulnerable child loses a parent, and then must set
work pays off and that sometimes delayed gratification is nec- off on an arduous journey testing their courage and outwitting
essary. Fairy tales provide answers to what the world is really their foes, before realising their true place in the world, usually
like and the child’s place within it. by bonding with another (‘Prince Charming’). This simplistically
echoes the process of adolescence, whereby a child emancipates
from their parents, forms a self-identity and vocation, and
begins to enter into mutually exclusive adult relationships. Cin-
Correspondence: Dr Anthony Zehetner, Department of Adolescent
derella typifies this with the glass slipper fitting only the right
Medicine, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Corner Hawkesbury Road
and Hainsworth Street, Locked Bag 4001, Westmead, NSW 2145, Australia.
person. The child realises that their potential spouse must suit
Fax: +61 298452517; email: [email protected] them wholly and not just be wealthy, attractive or popular.
Goldilocks tries out the porridge and the beds to find the right
Conflict of interest: None declared.
one. Teenagers traverse many phases of fashion, music, friends
Accepted for publication 14 September 2012. and hairstyles before finding their ‘home’.

Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 49 (2013) 161–162 161

© 2013 The Author
Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health © 2013 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (Royal Australasian College of Physicians)

185
bs_bs_banner

Fairy tales, psychoanalysis, resilience A Zehetner

As they listen, children interweave their own worries and

thoughts into the crossroads of the fairy tale. They conceive and
construct an internal image of the ‘monster’, which is unique to
each child’s mind. Physical malformation represents psychologi-
cal maladjustment. Ineffectual fathers are usually projected as
protective, aristocratic hunters. Running away, while easy to do,
is far from satisfying. Sleep represents introspection and the
process of maturation. The child experiences lessons in sibling
rivalry and encounters motifs of deliverance. Cinderella rises
from her literal and metaphorical ashes like a phoenix. The child
mustn’t know the psychological meaning of the fairy tale
imagery or it loses its power and joy. The utility of fairy tales lies
at the preconscious level, rather than laying Little Red Riding
down on the psychoanalyst’s couch (Fig. 2).
Fairy tales conclude where they ‘all lived happily ever after’,
countering a child’s separation anxiety. Happiness is attained Fig. 2 Modern reinterpretation of Little Red Riding Hood by Henry Kilham.
through a satisfactory relationship with others, achieving iden-
tity and contentment within oneself from the path to selfhood.
Attractiveness was hidden all along. This remains a pertinent
lesson for avaricious children and so fairy tales may be a primer Dr Anthony Zehetner runs the Teenlink health service for children and
for adolescence. The fairy tale of the Ugly Duckling is wondrous young people aged 8–16 years with a substance-using parent undergo-
to nurture self-esteem and counter negative body image. ing rehabilitation treatment. He is also a General Paediatrician at
Rapunzel’s unique bodily attribute is seen as strength, not curse. Gosford and a Clinical Lecturer for the University of Sydney.
With many broken families, disrupted lives and unhappy
children in today’s society, it would be imprudent to abandon a
tool which has been used for centuries to aid parent–child References
discourse, impart morals and foster self-development. They are 1 Bettelheim B. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance
also fun. I challenge you to revisit your childhood with your of Fairy Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976; ISBN 978-0140137279.
children by re-examining your relationship with fairy tales as I 2 Isaacs D. Reading to children. J. Paediatr. Child Health 2012; 48: 289.
have done. 3 Isaacs D. Magical numbers. J. Paediatr. Child Health 2012; 48: 189.

Image of the Month: Answer

1 Radiological findings are consistent with a diagnosis of synovial chondromatosis, confirmed by histological findings after
synovectomy. Synovial chondromatosis is an uncommon, monoarticular, proliferative disease of the synovium that usually affects
large joints. The disorder is characterised by the presence in the synovial space of multiple highly cellular cartilaginous nodules, that
results from metaplasia of the synovial tissue. As the disease progresses, the cartilaginous nodules become partially calcified, the
synovium thickens and the joint surfaces may become eroded. Only when calcification of nodules occurs, radiographs reveal
radiopaque loose bodies within the joint. Initially MRI can be negative, because in unmineralised synovial chondromatosis the signal
intensity of the nodules resembles that of fluid.1 Malignant transformation has been reported. Clinical manifestations can mimic a
monoarticular JIA since, as in our case, it may be characterised by recurrent relapses and remissions. Repeating a radiograph is
therefore mandatory in all cases of oligoarticular JIA characterised by frequent relapses. The differential diagnosis should consider
tubercular arthritis.2 Knee tuberculosis is characterised by a chronic indolent monoarthritis resulting in destruction of the joint.
Tuberculin skin test and culture of the synovial fluid confirm the diagnosis. Other conditions to be considered are intra-articular
chondroma and synovial sarcoma, which require histologic evaluation. Synovial fluid examination, MRI and biopsy might be useful
to exclude pigmented villonodular synovitis, haemarthrosis, vascular malformation, foreign body synovitis and sarcoidosis.
2 The treatment of synovial chondromatosis is surgical. Open surgery or arthroscopic intervention is performed with resection of the
diseased synovium and removal of any loose intra-articular bodies. Recurrence is frequent after partial synovectomy, hence total
synovectomy has been suggested as the preferred treatment.3

References
1 Murphey MD, Vidal JA, Fanburg-Smith JC, Gajewski DA. Imaging of synovial chondromatosis with radiologic-pathologic correlation. Radiographics 2007;
27: 1465–88.
2 Kiritsi O, Tsitas K, Grollios G. A case of idiopathic bursal synovial chondromatosis resembling rheumatoid arthritis. Hippokratia 2009; 13: 61–3.
3 Jesalpura JP, Chung HW, Patnaik S, Choi HW, Kim JI, Nha KW. Arthroscopic treatment of localized synovial chondromatosis of the posterior knee joint.
Orthopedics 2010; 33: 49.

162 Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 49 (2013) 161–162

© 2013 The Author
Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health © 2013 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (Royal Australasian College of Physicians)

186
 HOW TO ANALYSE A SHORT STORY
THE ELEMENTS A THE STORY: Like the novel and the play, the short story has the elements of:

 plot
 theme
 character
 setting
 point of view

Each element contributes to the overall effect of the story.

As you read and write a short story you should keep the following questions in mind:

 What is the writer's purpose? To entertain? To be thought-provoking? To state an opinion? To play on

the reader's emotions? To teach?
 What is the writer's tone? Is the writer being ironic? Sarcastic? Humorous? Serious? Ironic?
 How does the story begin? Does the writer establish setting or emphasise the background of the
situation? Is the character given more emphasis than the setting? How much detail is supplied? Are
there descriptions?
 How does the story develop? Is it told through a series of blocks moving rapidly through time and
space, like flash backs and foreshadowing? Is it being told chronologically?
 How does the story end? With a twist or surprise? With a build up to an inevitable climax or are you
left hanging, being forced to supply your own ending based on your reading of the little blocks of
action the writer supplied?
 Who tells the story? Is the story being told through the eyes of a character involved in the action? Is
the author standing outside of the action and observing? Is the author observing but within the
action?
 Another way of telling a story is as a series of thoughts, each thought block building up an impression
or action. The thoughts can be told in a logical order or as they seemingly occur to the character... at
random. This is known as the stream of consciousness technique.
 What is the language and style like? Are there dialogues? Does the dialogue help the characters to
become alive? Does it brighten the narrative?
 Can the elements of plot structure be easily identify?
 What images are used? What for?
 What are the characters like? Are there developing characters? Are there flat characters?
 How important is the setting in conveying the ideas and mood of the story? Is the setting connected
with the characters? Is nature part of the setting? Would the story have the same effect on the reader
if the setting changed?
 Are there references to traditions, history, regional beliefs?
 Is characterization direct or analytical? Is it indirect or dramatic?

PLOT: Plot is different from Story. The story is a chronological sequence (arranged in time) of events/episodes.
The plot of a story need not be chronologically sequenced. The plot can rearrange the elements of the story
so that (for instance) the end is narrated before the beginning. In such an instance, the plot uses the device of
flashback. To give another example, in a detective tale, the initial action in the story is not disclosed to the
reader until nearly the end, thereby producing the element of suspense. The plot explores the causal
connection (the link of cause to effect) between the episodes of a story. (Irony, Suspense, Coincidence, are
some features of a plot.)

1
187
What are the constituents of Plot?: Exposition/Introduction is the information needed to understand what will
happen during the time frame of a story. It usually consists of background information.

Complication is the catalyst that begins the major conflict.

Rising action refers to the increase in tension leading up to the climax.

Climax or crisis is the turning point in the story that occurs when characters try to resolve the complication.

Falling action refers to the decline of tension leading to the resolution.

Resolution is the tying up of the loose ends of the story, the ending or outcome.

Epiphany: a moment of startling, sudden insight gained by the main character as a result of the unfolding of
events in the story

POINT OF VIEW: Who tells the story? The teller of a story is the narrator, who is not to be confused with the
author. In fiction, who tells the story and how she/he tells it are critical issues that determine the
interpretation of the story. The tone and feel of the story, and even its meaning, can change depending on
who the narrator is.

The narrator can either ‘show’ or ‘tell’. In the former case, she/he has the characters speak in their own
voices, without any narrative mediation. In the latter, the narrator reports the events to the reader and
thereby possesses greater control over the interpretation of the story.

Is the narrator trustworthy? The credibility of the story will depend on the (perceived) reliability of the
narrator. The narrator could be either objective (detached) or subjective (biased). An objective narrator’s tale
is more readily believed than that of a subjective narrator.

Types of Point of View

Third Person Point of View: Omniscient narrator: Here the narrator does not participate in the action of the
story as one of the characters, but lets us know about the events and characters. This is an ‘outside’ voice.
This narrator hears, sees and knows everything. This type of narrator can be subjective or objective. The
subjective omniscient narrator mixes up his opinions about the characters and the events. An objective
omniscient narrator refrains from making any comments and simply tells us the story.

Limited omniscient narrator: There can also be a limited point of view. That is when the narrator tells us the
story from the point of view of one of the characters, either major or minor.

First Person Point of View: Here the narrator does participate in the action of the story. She/he is one of the
characters in the story, an ‘inside’ voice. When reading stories in the first person, we need to realise that what
the narrator is recounting might not be the objective truth. For instance, a first person narrator might try to
justify her/his action as she/he wishes to present her/himself in a favourable light to the reader.

Multiple Point of View: In this case, the same story is told from different angles, therefore, some events are
told differently according to the narrator. The whole story becomes clarified when the reader has been able to
understand the different points of views that tell the story.

CHARACTER: Characters are either major or minor, and either static (unchanging) or developing (changing).

2
188
  Protagonist—the leading character; the main character.
 Antagonist—the force acting against the main character.
 Flat character—a one-dimensional representation, a stereotype.
 Round character—a multi-dimensional representation, someone who can convince in a surprising
manner.
 Developing character—one that changes or grows from beginning to end.
 Static character—one that never changes or grows from beginning to end.

Readers can learn about characters in many ways, including: Physical traits, dialogue, actions, attire, opinions,
point of view.

SETTING: The location of a story's action, along with the time in which it occurs, is the setting. Setting can add
an important dimension of meaning, reflecting character and embodying theme. Setting could even be
symbolic.

THEME: Themes are universal ideas prevailing in a literary work. In some cases, the title of the story lets us
know from the beginning what the theme of the story is. In most cases, it is necessary to read the complete
story to find the theme or themes.

3
189
190
191
 [002]

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Once upon a time, in a very far-off country, there lived a mer-
chant who had been so fortunate in all his undertakings that he
was enormously rich. As he had, however, six sons and six
daughters, he found that his money was not too much to let them
all have everything they fancied, as they were accustomed to do.
But one day a most unexpected misfortune befell them. Their
house caught fire and was speedily burnt to the ground, with
all the splendid furniture, the books, pictures, gold, silver, and
precious goods it contained; and this was only the beginning of
their troubles. Their father, who had until this moment prospered
in all ways, suddenly lost every ship he had upon the sea, either
by dint of pirates, shipwreck, or fire. Then he heard that his
clerks in distant countries, whom he trusted entirely, had proved
unfaithful; and at last from great wealth he fell into the direst
poverty.
All that he had left was a little house in a desolate place at least
a hundred leagues from the town in which he had lived, and to this
he was forced to retreat with his children, who were in despair at
the idea of leading such a different life. Indeed, the daughters at
first hoped that their friends, who had been so numerous while
they were rich, would insist on their staying in their houses now
they no longer possessed one. But they soon found that they
were left alone, and that their former friends even attributed their
misfortunes to their own extravagance, and showed no intention
of offering them any help. So nothing was left for them but to
take their departure to the cottage, which stood in the midst of

192
 2 Beauty and the Beast

a dark forest, and seemed to be the most dismal place upon the
face of the earth. As they were too poor to have any servants,
the girls had to work hard, like peasants, and the sons, for their
part, cultivated the fields to earn their living. Roughly clothed,
[003] and living in the simplest way, the girls regretted unceasingly the
luxuries and amusements of their former life; only the youngest
tried to be brave and cheerful. She had been as sad as anyone
when misfortune first overtook her father, but, soon recovering
her natural gaiety, she set to work to make the best of things, to
amuse her father and brothers as well as she could, and to try
to persuade her sisters to join her in dancing and singing. But
they would do nothing of the sort, and, because she was not as
doleful as themselves, they declared that this miserable life was
all she was fit for. But she was really far prettier and cleverer
than they were; indeed, she was so lovely that she was always
called Beauty. After two years, when they were all beginning to
get used to their new life, something happened to disturb their
tranquillity. Their father received the news that one of his ships,
which he had believed to be lost, had come safely into port with
a rich cargo. All the sons and daughters at once thought that
their poverty was at an end, and wanted to set out directly for the
town; but their father, who was more prudent, begged them to
wait a little, and, though it was harvest-time, and he could ill be
spared, determined to go himself first, to make inquiries. Only
the youngest daughter had any doubt but that they would soon
again be as rich as they were before, or at least rich enough to live
comfortably in some town where they would find amusement
and gay companions once more. So they all loaded their father
with commissions for jewels and dresses which it would have
taken a fortune to buy; only Beauty, feeling sure that it was of
no use, did not ask for anything. Her father, noticing her silence,
said: "And what shall I bring for you, Beauty?"
"The only thing I wish for is to see you come home safely,"
she answered.

193
 3

But this reply vexed her sisters, who fancied she was blaming
them for having asked for such costly things. Her father, how-
ever, was pleased, but as he thought that at her age she certainly
ought to like pretty presents, he told her to choose something.
"Well, dear father," she said, "as you insist upon it, I beg that
you will bring me a rose. I have not seen one since we came
here, and I love them so much."
So the merchant set out and reached the town as quickly as
possible, but only to find that his former companions, believing
him to be dead, had divided between them the goods which the [004]
ship had brought; and after six months of trouble and expense
he found himself as poor as when he started, having been able
to recover only just enough to pay the cost of his journey. To
make matters worse, he was obliged to leave the town in the
most terrible weather, so that by the time he was within a few
leagues of his home he was almost exhausted with cold and
fatigue. Though he knew it would take some hours to get through
the forest, he was so anxious to be at his journey's end that he
resolved to go on; but night overtook him, and the deep snow
and bitter frost made it impossible for his horse to carry him any
further. Not a house was to be seen; the only shelter he could get
was the hollow trunk of a great tree, and there he crouched all the
night, which seemed to him the longest he had ever known. In
spite of his weariness the howling of the wolves kept him awake,
and even when at last the day broke he was not much better off,
for the falling snow had covered up every path, and he did not
know which way to turn.
At length he made out some sort of track, and though at the
beginning it was so rough and slippery that he fell down more [005]
than once, it presently became easier, and led him into an avenue
of trees which ended in a splendid castle. It seemed to the mer-
chant very strange that no snow had fallen in the avenue, which
was entirely composed of orange trees, covered with flowers and
fruit. When he reached the first court of the castle he saw before

194
4 Beauty and the Beast

195
 5

him a flight of agate steps, and went up them, and passed through
several splendidly furnished rooms. The pleasant warmth of the
air revived him, and he felt very hungry; but there seemed to be
nobody in all this vast and splendid palace whom he could ask
to give him something to eat. Deep silence reigned everywhere,
and at last, tired of roaming through empty rooms and galleries,
he stopped in a room smaller than the rest, where a clear fire was
burning and a couch was drawn up cosily close to it. Thinking
that this must be prepared for someone who was expected, he sat
down to wait till he should come, and very soon fell into a sweet
sleep.
When his extreme hunger wakened him after several hours, he
was still alone; but a little table, upon which was a good dinner,
had been drawn up close to him, and, as he had eaten nothing
for twenty-four hours, he lost no time in beginning his meal,
hoping that he might soon have an opportunity of thanking his
considerate entertainer, whoever it might be.
But no one appeared, and even after another long sleep, from
which he awoke completely refreshed, there was no sign of any-
body, though a fresh meal of dainty cakes and fruit was prepared
upon the little table at his elbow. Being naturally timid, the
silence began to terrify him, and he resolved to search once more
through all the rooms; but it was of no use. Not even a servant
was to be seen; there was no sign of life in the palace! He began
to wonder what he should do, and to amuse himself by pretending
that all the treasures he saw were his own, and considering how
he would divide them among his children. Then he went down
into the garden, and though it was winter everywhere else, here
the sun shone, and the birds sang, and the flowers bloomed, and
the air was soft and sweet. The merchant, in ecstacies with all he
saw and heard, said to himself:
"All this must be meant for me. I will go this minute and bring
my children to share all these delights."
In spite of being so cold and weary when he reached the castle,

196
 6 Beauty and the Beast

[006] he had taken his horse to the stable and fed it. Now he thought he
would saddle it for his homeward journey, and he turned down
the path which led to the stable. This path had a hedge of roses
on each side of it, and the merchant thought he had never seen or
smelt such exquisite flowers. They reminded him of his promise
to Beauty, and he stopped and had just gathered one to take to
her when he was startled by a strange noise behind him. Turning
round, he saw a frightful Beast, which seemed to be very angry
and said, in a terrible voice:

197
 7

"Who told you that you might gather my roses? Was it not
enough that I allowed you to be in my palace and was kind
to you? This is the way you show your gratitude, by stealing
my flowers! But your insolence shall not go unpunished." The
merchant, terrified by these furious words, dropped the fatal rose,
and, throwing himself on his knees, cried: "Pardon me, noble
sir. I am truly grateful to you for your hospitality, which was so
magnificent that I could not imagine that you would be offended
by my taking such a little thing as a rose." But the Beast's anger [007]
was not lessened by this speech.
"You are very ready with excuses and flattery," he cried; "but
that will not save you from the death you deserve."
"Alas!" thought the merchant, "if my daughter Beauty could
only know what danger her rose has brought me into!"
And in despair he began to tell the Beast all his misfortunes,
and the reason of his journey, not forgetting to mention Beauty's
request.
"A king's ransom would hardly have procured all that my other
daughters asked," he said; "but I thought that I might at least take
Beauty her rose. I beg you to forgive me, for you see I meant no
harm."
The Beast considered for a moment, and then he said, in a less
furious tone:
"I will forgive you on one condition--that is, that you will give
me one of your daughters."
"Ah!" cried the merchant, "if I were cruel enough to buy my
own life at the expense of one of my children's, what excuse
could I invent to bring her here?"
"No excuse would be necessary," answered the Beast. "If she
comes at all she must come willingly. On no other condition will
I have her. See if any one of them is courageous enough, and
loves you well enough to come and save your life. You seem to
be an honest man, so I will trust you to go home. I give you a
month to see if either of your daughters will come back with you

198
 8 Beauty and the Beast

and stay here, to let you go free. If neither of them is willing,

you must come alone, after bidding them good-bye for ever, for
then you will belong to me. And do not imagine that you can
hide from me, for if you fail to keep your word I will come and
fetch you!" added the Beast grimly.
The merchant accepted this proposal, though he did not really
think any of his daughters would be persuaded to come. He
promised to return at the time appointed, and then, anxious to
escape from the presence of the Beast, he asked permission to
set off at once. But the Beast answered that he could not go until
the next day.
"Then you will find a horse ready for you," he said. "Now go
and eat your supper, and await my orders."
The poor merchant, more dead than alive, went back to his
[008] room, where the most delicious supper was already served on the
little table which was drawn up before a blazing fire. But he was
too terrified to eat, and only tasted a few of the dishes, for fear
the Beast should be angry if he did not obey his orders. When he
had finished he heard a great noise in the next room, which he
knew meant that the Beast was coming. As he could do nothing
to escape his visit, the only thing that remained was to seem as
little afraid as possible; so when the Beast appeared and asked
roughly if he had supped well, the merchant answered humbly
that he had, thanks to his host's kindness. Then the Beast warned
him to remember their agreement, and to prepare his daughter
exactly for what she had to expect.
"Do not get up to-morrow," he added, "until you see the sun
and hear a golden bell ring. Then you will find your breakfast
waiting for you here, and the horse you are to ride will be ready
in the courtyard. He will also bring you back again when you
come with your daughter a month hence. Farewell. Take a rose
to Beauty, and remember your promise!"
The merchant was only too glad when the Beast went away,
and though he could not sleep for sadness, he lay down until

199
 9

the sun rose. Then, after a hasty breakfast, he went to gather

Beauty's rose, and mounted his horse, which carried him off so
swiftly that in an instant he had lost sight of the palace, and he
was still wrapped in gloomy thoughts when it stopped before the
door of the cottage.
His sons and daughters, who had been very uneasy at his long
absence, rushed to meet him, eager to know the result of his
journey, which, seeing him mounted upon a splendid horse and
wrapped in a rich mantle, they supposed to be favorable. But he
hid the truth from them at first, only saying sadly to Beauty as
he gave her the rose:
"Here is what you asked me to bring you; you little know what
it has cost."
But this excited their curiosity so greatly that presently he
told them his adventures from beginning to end, and then they
were all very unhappy. The girls lamented loudly over their lost
hopes, and the sons declared that their father should not return
to this terrible castle, and began to make plans for killing the
Beast if it should come to fetch him. But he reminded them that
he had promised to go back. Then the girls were very angry [009]
with Beauty, and said it was all her fault, and that if she had
asked for something sensible this would never have happened,
and complained bitterly that they should have to suffer for her
folly.
Poor Beauty, much distressed, said to them:
"I have indeed caused this misfortune, but I assure you I did it
innocently. Who could have guessed that to ask for a rose in the
middle of summer would cause so much misery? But as I did the
mischief it is only just that I should suffer for it. I will therefore
go back with my father to keep his promise."
At first nobody would hear of this arrangement, and her father
and brothers, who loved her dearly, declared that nothing should
make them let her go; but Beauty was firm. As the time drew near
she divided all her little possessions between her sisters, and said

200
 10 Beauty and the Beast

good-bye to everything she loved, and when the fatal day came
she encouraged and cheered her father as they mounted together
the horse which had brought him back. It seemed to fly rather
than gallop, but so smoothly that Beauty was not frightened;
indeed, she would have enjoyed the journey if she had not feared
what might happen to her at the end of it. Her father still tried
to persuade her to go back, but in vain. While they were talking
the night fell, and then, to their great surprise, wonderful colored
lights began to shine in all directions, and splendid fireworks
blazed out before them; all the forest was illuminated by them,
and even felt pleasantly warm, though it had been bitterly cold
before. This lasted until they reached the avenue of orange trees,
where were statues holding flaming torches, and when they got
nearer to the palace they saw that it was illuminated from the
roof to the ground, and music sounded softly from the courtyard.
"The Beast must be very hungry," said Beauty, trying to laugh,
"if he makes all this rejoicing over the arrival of his prey."
But, in spite of her anxiety, she could not help admiring all
the wonderful things she saw.
The horse stopped at the foot of the flight of steps leading to
the terrace, and when they had dismounted her father led her to
the little room he had been in before, where they found a splendid
fire burning, and the table daintily spread with a delicious supper.
The merchant knew that this was meant for them, and Beauty,
who was rather less frightened now that she had passed through
[010] so many rooms and seen nothing of the Beast, was quite willing to
begin, for her long ride had made her very hungry. But they had
hardly finished their meal when the noise of the Beast's footsteps
was heard approaching, and Beauty clung to her father in terror,
which became all the greater when she saw how frightened he
was. But when the Beast really appeared, though she trembled at
the sight of him, she made a great effort to hide her horror, and
saluted him respectfully.
This evidently pleased the Beast. After looking at her he said,

201
 11

in a tone that might have struck terror into the boldest heart,
though he did not seem to be angry:
"Good-evening, old man. Good-evening, Beauty."
The merchant was too terrified to reply, but Beauty answered
sweetly:
"Good-evening, Beast."
"Have you come willingly?" asked the Beast. "Will you be
content to stay here when your father goes away?"
Beauty answered bravely that she was quite prepared to stay.
"I am pleased with you," said the Beast. "As you have come
of your own accord, you may stay. As for you, old man," he
added, turning to the merchant, "at sunrise to-morrow you will
take your departure. When the bell rings get up quickly and eat
your breakfast, and you will find the same horse waiting to take
you home; but remember that you must never expect to see my
palace again."
Then turning to Beauty, he said:
"Take your father into the next room, and help him to choose
everything you think your brothers and sisters would like to have.
You will find two traveling-trunks there; fill them as full as you
can. It is only just that you should send them something very
precious as a remembrance of yourself."
Then he went away, after saying, "Good-bye, Beauty; good-
bye, old man;" and though Beauty was beginning to think with
great dismay of her father's departure, she was afraid to disobey
the Beast's orders; and they went into the next room, which had
shelves and cupboards all round it. They were greatly surprised
at the riches it contained. There were splendid dresses fit for a
queen, with all the ornaments that were to be worn with them;
and when Beauty opened the cupboards she was quite dazzled
by the gorgeous jewels that lay in heaps upon every shelf. After [011]
choosing a vast quantity, which she divided between her sisters-
-for she had made a heap of the wonderful dresses for each of
them---she opened the last chest, which was full of gold.

202
12 Beauty and the Beast

"I think, father," she said, "that, as the gold will be more useful
to you, we had better take out the other things again, and fill the
trunks with it." So they did this; but the more they put in, the
more room there seemed to be, and at last they put back all the
jewels and dresses they had taken out, and Beauty even added as
many more of the jewels as she could carry at once; and then the
trunks were not too full, but they were so heavy that an elephant
could not have carried them!
"The Beast was mocking us," cried the merchant; "he must
have pretended to give us all these things, knowing that I could
not carry them away."
"Let us wait and see," answered Beauty. "I cannot believe that
he meant to deceive us. All we can do is to fasten them up and
leave them ready."
So they did this and returned to the little room, where, to their
astonishment, they found breakfast ready. The merchant ate his
with a good appetite, as the Beast's generosity made him believe
that he might perhaps venture to come back soon and see Beauty.
But she felt sure that her father was leaving her for ever, so she
was very sad when the bell rang sharply for the second time, and
warned them that the time was come for them to part. They went
down into the courtyard, where two horses were waiting, one
loaded with the two trunks, the other for him to ride. They were
pawing the ground in their impatience to start, and the merchant
was forced to bid Beauty a hasty farewell; and as soon as he was
mounted he went off at such a pace that she lost sight of him in
an instant. Then Beauty began to cry, and wandered sadly back
to her own room. But she soon found that she was very sleepy,
and as she had nothing better to do she lay down and instantly
fell asleep. And then she dreamed that she was walking by a
brook bordered with trees, and lamenting her sad fate, when a
young prince, handsomer than anyone she had ever seen, and
with a voice that went straight to her heart, came and said to her,
"Ah, Beauty! you are not so unfortunate as you suppose. Here

203
 13

you will be rewarded for all you have suffered elsewhere. Your
every wish shall be gratified. Only try to find me out, no matter
how I may be disguised, as I love you dearly, and in making me [012]
happy you will find your own happiness. Be as true-hearted as
you are beautiful, and we shall have nothing left to wish for."
"What can I do, Prince, to make you happy?" said Beauty.
"Only be grateful," he answered, "and do not trust too much
to your eyes. And, above all, do not desert me until you have
saved me from my cruel misery."
After this she thought she found herself in a room with a
stately and beautiful lady, who said to her:
"Dear Beauty, try not to regret all you have left behind you,
for you are destined to a better fate. Only do not let yourself be
deceived by appearances."

204
 14 Beauty and the Beast

Beauty found her dreams so interesting that she was in no

hurry to awake, but presently the clock roused her by calling her
name softly twelve times, and then she got up and found her
dressing-table set out with everything she could possibly want;
and when her toilet was finished she found dinner was waiting in
the room next to hers. But dinner does not take very long when
you are all by yourself, and very soon she sat down cosily in the
corner of a sofa, and began to think about the charming Prince
she had seen in her dream.
[013] "He said I could make him happy," said Beauty to herself.
"It seems, then, that this horrible Beast keeps him a prisoner.
How can I set him free? I wonder why they both told me not to
trust to appearances? I don't understand it. But, after all, it was
only a dream, so why should I trouble myself about it? I had
better go and find something to do to amuse myself."
So she got up and began to explore some of the many rooms
of the palace.
The first she entered was lined with mirrors, and Beauty saw
herself reflected on every side, and thought she had never seen
such a charming room. Then a bracelet which was hanging from
a chandelier caught her eye, and on taking it down she was
greatly surprised to find that it held a portrait of her unknown
admirer, just as she had seen him in her dream. With great delight
she slipped the bracelet on her arm, and went on into a gallery of
pictures, where she soon found a portrait of the same handsome
Prince, as large as life, and so well painted that as she studied it
he seemed to smile kindly at her. Tearing herself away from the
portrait at last, she passed through into a room which contained
every musical instrument under the sun, and here she amused
herself for a long while in trying some of them, and singing
until she was tired. The next room was a library, and she saw
everything she had ever wanted to read, as well as everything
she had read, and it seemed to her that a whole lifetime would
not be enough even to read the names of the books, there were so

205
 15

many. By this time it was growing dusk, and wax candles in dia-
mond and ruby candlesticks were beginning to light themselves
in every room.
Beauty found her supper served just at the time she preferred
to have it, but she did not see anyone or hear a sound, and, though
her father had warned her that she would be alone, she began to
find it rather dull.
But presently she heard the Beast coming, and wondered
tremblingly if he meant to eat her up now.
However, as he did not seem at all ferocious, and only said
gruffly:
"Good-evening, Beauty," she answered cheerfully and man-
aged to conceal her terror. Then the Beast asked her how she
had been amusing herself, and she told him all the rooms she had
seen.
Then he asked if she thought she could be happy in his palace;
and Beauty answered that everything was so beautiful that she
would be very hard to please if she could not be happy. And after [014]
about an hour's talk Beauty began to think that the Beast was not
nearly so terrible as she had supposed at first. Then he got up to
leave her, and said in his gruff voice:
"Do you love me, Beauty? Will you marry me?"
"Oh! what shall I say?" cried Beauty, for she was afraid to
make the Beast angry by refusing.
"Say 'yes' or 'no' without fear," he replied.
"Oh! no, Beast," said Beauty hastily.
"Since you will not, good-night, Beauty," he said. And she
answered:
"Good-night, Beast," very glad to find that her refusal had not
provoked him. And after he was gone she was very soon in bed
and asleep, and dreaming of her unknown Prince. She thought
he came and said to her:
"Ah, Beauty! why are you so unkind to me? I fear I am fated
to be unhappy for many a long day still."

206
 16 Beauty and the Beast

And then her dreams changed, but the charming Prince figured
in them all; and when morning came her first thought was to look
at the portrait and see if it was really like him, and she found that
it certainly was.
This morning she decided to amuse herself in the garden,
for the sun shone, and all the fountains were playing; but she
was astonished to find that every place was familiar to her, and
presently she came to the brook where the myrtle trees were
growing where she had first met the Prince in her dream, and that
made her think more than ever that he must be kept a prisoner
by the Beast. When she was tired she went back to the palace,
and found a new room full of materials for every kind of work--
ribbons to make into bows, and silks to work into flowers. Then
there was an aviary full of rare birds, which were so tame that
they flew to Beauty as soon as they saw her, and perched upon
her shoulders and her head.
"Pretty little creatures," she said, "how I wish that your cage
was nearer to my room, that I might often hear you sing!"
So saying she opened a door, and found to her delight that it
led into her own room, though she had thought it was quite the
[015] other side of the palace.
There were more birds in a room farther on, parrots and cock-
atoos that could talk, and they greeted Beauty by name; indeed,
she found them so entertaining that she took one or two back to
her room, and they talked to her while she was at supper; after
which the Beast paid her his usual visit, and asked the same
questions as before, and then with a gruff "good-night" he took
his departure, and Beauty went to bed to dream of her mysterious
Prince. The days passed swiftly in different amusements, and
after a while Beauty found out another strange thing in the palace,
which often pleased her when she was tired of being alone. There
was one room which she had not noticed particularly; it was
empty, except that under each of the windows stood a very
comfortable chair; and the first time she had looked out of the

207
 17

208
 18 Beauty and the Beast

window it had seemed to her that a black curtain prevented her

from seeing anything outside. But the second time she went
into the room, happening to be tired, she sat down in one of the
chairs, when instantly the curtain was rolled aside, and a most
amusing pantomime was acted before her; there were dances and
colored lights, and music, and pretty dresses, and it was all so
gay that Beauty was in ecstacies. After that she tried the other
seven windows in turn, and there was some new and surprising
entertainment to be seen from each of them, so that Beauty never
[016] could feel lonely any more. Every evening after supper the Beast
came to see her, and always before saying good-night asked her
in his terrible voice:
"Beauty, will you marry me?"
And it seemed to Beauty, now she understood him better,
that when she said, "No, Beast," he went away quite sad. But
her happy dreams of the handsome young Prince soon made her
forget the poor Beast, and the only thing that at all disturbed her
was to be constantly told to distrust appearances, to let her heart
guide her, and not her eyes, and many other equally perplexing
things, which, consider as she would, she could not understand.
So everything went on for a long time, until at last, happy as
she was, Beauty began to long for the sight of her father and her
brothers and sisters; and one night, seeing her look very sad, the
Beast asked her what was the matter. Beauty had quite ceased to
be afraid of him. Now she knew that he was really gentle in spite
of his ferocious looks and his dreadful voice. So she answered
that she was longing to see her home once more. Upon hearing
this the Beast seemed sadly distressed, and cried miserably.
"Ah! Beauty, have you the heart to desert an unhappy Beast
like this? What more do you want to make you happy? Is it
because you hate me that you want to escape?"
"No, dear Beast," answered Beauty softly, "I do not hate you,
and I should be very sorry never to see you any more, but I long
to see my father again. Only let me go for two months, and I

209
 19

promise to come back to you and stay for the rest of my life."
The Beast, who had been sighing dolefully while she spoke,
now replied:
"I cannot refuse you anything you ask, even though it should
cost me my life. Take the four boxes you will find in the room
next to your own, and fill them with everything you wish to take
with you. But remember your promise and come back when the
two months are over, or you may have cause to repent it, for if
you do not come in good time you will find your faithful Beast
dead. You will not need any chariot to bring you back. Only
say good-bye to all your brothers and sisters the night before you
come away, and when you have gone to bed turn this ring round
upon your finger and say firmly: 'I wish to go back to my palace
and see my Beast again.' Good-night, Beauty. Fear nothing, [017]
sleep peacefully, and before long you shall see your father once
more."
As soon as Beauty was alone she hastened to fill the boxes
with all the rare and precious things she saw about her, and only
when she was tired of heaping things into them did they seem to
be full.
Then she went to bed, but could hardly sleep for joy. And
when at last she did begin to dream of her beloved Prince she
was grieved to see him stretched upon a grassy bank sad and
weary, and hardly like himself.
"What is the matter?" she cried.
But he looked at her reproachfully, and said:
"How can you ask me, cruel one? Are you not leaving me to
my death perhaps?"
"Ah! don't be so sorrowful," cried Beauty; "I am only going to
assure my father that I am safe and happy. I have promised the
Beast faithfully that I will come back, and he would die of grief
if I did not keep my word!"
"What would that matter to you?" said the Prince. "Surely you
would not care?"

210
 20 Beauty and the Beast

"Indeed I should be ungrateful if I did not care for such a kind

Beast," cried Beauty indignantly. "I would die to save him from
pain. I assure you it is not his fault that he is so ugly."
Just then a strange sound woke her--someone was speaking
not very far away; and opening her eyes she found herself in a
room she had never seen before, which was certainly not nearly
so splendid as those she was used to in the Beast's palace. Where
could she be? She got up and dressed hastily, and then saw
that the boxes she had packed the night before were all in the
room. While she was wondering by what magic the Beast had
transported them and herself to this strange place she suddenly
heard her father's voice, and rushed out and greeted him joyfully.
Her brothers and sisters were all astonished at her appearance,
as they had never expected to see her again, and there was no
end to the questions they asked her. She had also much to hear
about what had happened to them while she was away, and of
her father's journey home. But when they heard that she had only
come to be with them for a short time, and then must go back to
[018] the Beast's palace for ever, they lamented loudly. Then Beauty
asked her father what he thought could be the meaning of her
strange dreams, and why the Prince constantly begged her not
to trust to appearances. After much consideration he answered:
"You tell me yourself that the Beast, frightful as he is, loves you
dearly, and deserves your love and gratitude for his gentleness
and kindness; I think the Prince must mean you to understand
that you ought to reward him by doing as he wishes you to, in
spite of his ugliness."
Beauty could not help seeing that this seemed very probable;
still, when she thought of her dear Prince who was so handsome,
she did not feel at all inclined to marry the Beast. At any rate,
for two months she need not decide, but could enjoy herself
with her sisters. But though they were rich now, and lived in a
town again, and had plenty of acquaintances, Beauty found that
nothing amused her very much; and she often thought of the

211
 21

palace, where she was so happy, especially as at home she never

once dreamed of her dear Prince, and she felt quite sad without
him.
Then her sisters seemed to have got quite used to being without
her, and even found her rather in the way, so she would not have
been sorry when the two months were over but for her father
and brothers, who begged her to stay, and seemed so grieved at
the thought of her departure that she had not the courage to say
good-bye to them. Every day when she got up she meant to say
it at night, and when night came she put it off again, until at last
she had a dismal dream which helped her to make up her mind.
She thought she was wandering in a lonely path in the palace
gardens, when she heard groans which seemed to come from
some bushes hiding the entrance of a cave, and running quickly
to see what could be the matter, she found the Beast stretched
out upon his side, apparently dying. He reproached her faintly
with being the cause of his distress, and at the same moment a
stately lady appeared, and said very gravely:
"Ah! Beauty, you are only just in time to save his life. See
what happens when people do not keep their promises! If you
had delayed one day more, you would have found him dead."
Beauty was so terrified by this dream that the next morning
she announced her intention of going back at once, and that very
night she said good-bye to her father and all her brothers and
sisters, and as soon as she was in bed she turned her ring round [019]
upon her finger, and said firmly:
"I wish to go back to my palace and see my Beast again," as
she had been told to do.
Then she fell asleep instantly, and only woke up to hear the
clock saying, "Beauty, Beauty," twelve times in its musical voice,
which told her at once that she was really in the palace once
more. Everything was just as before, and her birds were so glad
to see her! but Beauty thought she had never known such a long
day, for she was so anxious to see the Beast again that she felt as

212
 22 Beauty and the Beast

if supper-time would never come.

But when it did come and no Beast appeared she was really
frightened; so, after listening and waiting for a long time, she
ran down into the garden to search for him. Up and down the
paths and avenues ran poor Beauty, calling him in vain, for no
one answered, and not a trace of him could she find; until at last,
quite tired, she stopped for a minute's rest, and saw that she was
standing opposite the shady path she had seen in her dream. She
rushed down it, and, sure enough, there was the cave, and in
it lay the Beast--asleep, as Beauty thought. Quite glad to have
found him, she ran up and stroked his head, but to her horror he
did not move or open his eyes.
"Oh! he is dead; and it is all my fault," said Beauty, crying
bitterly.
But then, looking at him again, she fancied he still breathed,
[020] and, hastily fetching some water from the nearest fountain, she
sprinkled it over his face, and to her great delight he began to
revive.

213
 23

"Oh! Beast, how you frightened me!" she cried. "I never knew
how much I loved you until just now, when I feared I was too
late to save your life."
"Can you really love such an ugly creature as I am?" said the
Beast faintly. "Ah! Beauty, you only came just in time. I was
dying because I thought you had forgotten your promise. But go
back now and rest, I shall see you again by-and-by."
Beauty, who had half expected that he would be angry with
her, was reassured by his gentle voice, and went back to the
palace, where supper was awaiting her; and afterwards the Beast
came in as usual, and talked about the time she had spent with
her father, asking if she had enjoyed herself, and if they had all
been very glad to see her.
Beauty answered politely, and quite enjoyed telling him all
that had happened to her. And when at last the time came for
him to go, and he asked, as he had so often asked before:
"Beauty, will you marry me?" she answered softly:
"Yes, dear Beast."
As she spoke a blaze of light sprang up before the windows
of the palace; fireworks crackled and guns banged, and across
the avenue of orange trees, in letters all made of fire-flies, was
written: "Long live the Prince and his Bride."
Turning to ask the Beast what it could all mean, Beauty found
that he had disappeared, and in his place stood her long-loved
Prince! At the same moment the wheels of a chariot were heard
upon the terrace, and two ladies entered the room. One of them
Beauty recognized as the stately lady she had seen in her dreams;
the other was also so grand and queenly that Beauty hardly knew
which to greet first.
But the one she already knew said to her companion:
"Well, Queen, this is Beauty, who has had the courage to
rescue your son from the terrible enchantment. They love one
another, and only your consent to their marriage is wanting to
make them perfectly happy."

214
24 Beauty and the Beast

"I consent with all my heart," cried the Queen. "How can I
ever thank you enough, charming girl, for having restored my
dear son to his natural form?"
And then she tenderly embraced Beauty and the Prince, who
had meanwhile been greeting the Fairy and receiving her con-
gratulations.
"Now," said the Fairy to Beauty, "I suppose you would like
me to send for all your brothers and sisters to dance at your
wedding?"
And so she did, and the marriage was celebrated the very next
day with the utmost splendor, and Beauty and the Prince lived
happily ever after.

215
 HOW TO ANALYSE A PLAY

Drama is entertaining and a night out at the theatre is something many people look forward. Today, not realising what
an interesting experience they are missing, of course, most people's experience of plays is not that of live acting at a
theatre but the recorded and edited action of TV.

Plays are a unique and very special form of literature because they are based on a combination of language and action
and are the vision of two important people: the playwright and the play's director this vision is coupled with the
enormous hard work of a company of actors and back stage personnel. Plays are designed both to entertain by
capturing the imagination and to persuade by capturing the mind.

Aspects to take into account when analyzing a play

 Remember - there will always be two levels of purpose to discuss: first, there will always be what you might
call a 'local' purpose - something to do with the point in the play it occurs and quoting from; this will always be
linked to some local aspect such as development of a character, creation of mood or tension, development of
the plot, helping the audience relate to or engage with the action and so on.

 Playwrights are often very political creatures who are particularly sensitive to what they perceive to be the
wrongs of society. Their plays are often a vehicle not just for entertainment but for the expression of the
playwright's ideas and concerns. These are called the play's themes

 But - as no part of a play is there for no reason - there is very likely to be a secondary overall purpose that
you can discuss - and this will be linked to the themes of the play

 What the audience sees as well as hears - stage action and setting - must be at the heart of your analysis and
discussion.

 Only if you analyse from the perspective of the play's audience, will you be able to recognise the effect the
play is having on them and understand the purposes intended by the playwright - always a two-fold purpose,
for plot and theme.

 When you interpret the action and dialogue of a play, you are finding, explaining and discussing the methods,
effects and purposes of the layers of meaning that exist beyond the surface meaning. Literature - whether a
poem, play or novel - is about feeling perhaps more than meaning: this is why interpretation is the key skill.

 Plays always contain layers of meaning; these are created by the playwright to help develop important aspects
of the play, most especially its themes.

 To uncover these different layers of meaning, you will need to consider the what, how and why of such things
as the mood being created, the way a character is being portrayed through dialogue and action, etc., how the
stage setting (i.e. the time, place and context) adds to the play in subtle but important ways, and how the
events (plot), stage action and dialogue all work to help develop and explore the play's themes. All of these
are covered in detail later.

 You will need to analyse quotations and descriptions of stage action.

216
  You need to take into account what has already occurred in the play, and show how this develops the
audience's sense of what might happen next.

 You need to look for and explain the dramatic techniques used in the play, for example, the use of dramatic
irony (*).

 Always remember that the purpose attached to a specific effect of language, interaction or stage action will be
for a local effect at this point in the play, and will in some small way be contributing to the play's overall
effects or them.

 Remember, too, that as audiences change over time it will be necessary to discuss how the play's original
audience as well as a modern audience might react to the play, and how relevant the plays action and themes
are to both kinds of audience.

 A vital aspect of a play is its characters, what they do and what the audience come to think about them (are
they sympathetic or antagonistic, for example?). Who a character is, what they say, how they say it, what
other characters say about them, how other characters act around them and so forth all help to build up a
character in the audience's mind.

Dramatic aspects:

Be sure to consider the methods used, the effects created and the purposes intended of the following dramatic
aspects:

stage directions

stage entrances and exits (i.e. timing)

positioning, action and interaction of characters

uses of props and costumes

the key device of dramatic irony

structure, thatis, the effects of sequences of action, a key plot device

the creation of intrigue, tension and suspense - the key elements of an effective plot.

uses of asides and soliloquies

STAGECRAFT

The effects and purposes behind the playwright's use of stagecraft are as important in your analysis and essay as the
choices and uses of language. Always consider how what is said in a play fits in with the following aspects of stagecraft:

SETTING
Where and when the action occurs

217
COSTUME
How a character is dressed

ACTION
What a character does

UNFOLDING ACTION or STRUCTURE

The division of action into scenes and acts

the passing of time

the introduction of a conflict

the build up to a climax of action

the resolution of problems

the use of disguise

the use of coincidence

the use of dance, music and song

(*) DRAMATIC IRONY

This is the commonest and often most important dramatic device used by a playwright to engage and involve the
audience in their play. Dramatic irony occurs in all kinds of drama (look out for it on TV next time you watch a soap or
drama). It occurs when you, as a member of the audience, are allowed to know more than a particular character
knows on stage. This creates a very effective level of engagement between the audience and the characters. Members
of the audience become involved in the action because they feel they ought to 'step in' and help the character - but
obviously they cannot. This creates tension and involvement - and even sympathy.

218
 VOLUME IV BOOK IX

ROMEO AND JULIET

By William Shakespeare
219
 Dramatis Personae

BALTHASAR servant to Romeo.

ESCALUS prince of Verona. (PRINCE) SAMPSON
servants to Capulet.
PARIS a young nobleman, kinsman to the prince. GREGORY

MONTAGUE heads of two houses PETER servant to Juliet’s nurse.

at variance with
CAPULET each other. ABRAHAM servant to Montague.
An Apothecary. (APOTHECARY)
An old man, cousin to Capulet. (SECOND CAPULET)
Three Musicians.
ROMEO son to Montague.
(FIRST MUSICIAN)
MERCUTIO kinsman to the prince, and friend to Romeo. (SECOND MUSICIAN)
(THIRD MUSICIAN)
BENVOLIO nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo.
Page to Paris; (PAGE) another Page; an Officer.
TYBALT nephew to Lady Capulet.
LADY MONTAGUE wife to Montague.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Franciscans. LADY CAPULET wife to Capulet.
FRIAR JOHN
JULIET daughter to Capulet.
Nurse to Juliet. (NURSE)
Citizens of Verona; several Men and Women,
relations to both houses; Maskers,

Guards, Watchmen, and Attendants.

(FIRST CITIZEN), (SERVANT), (FIRST SERVANT), (SECOND SERVANT), (FIRST WATCHMAN), (SECOND
WATCHMAN), (THIRD WATCHMAN), Chorus.
SCENE Verona: Mantua.

220
 Romeo and Juliet

PROLOGUE
Two households, both alike in dignity, Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; The which if you with patient ears attend,
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

ACT I
SCENE I SAMPSON A dog of that house shall move me to stand:
Verona. A public place. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.
GREGORY That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest
[Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY, of the house
goes to the wall.
of CAPULET, armed with swords and bucklers]
SAMPSON True; and therefore women, being the
SAMPSON Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals.
weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I
GREGORY No, for then we should be colliers. will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his
maids to the wall.
SAMPSON I mean, an we be in choler, we’ll draw.
GREGORY The quarrel is between our masters and us
GREGORY Ay, while you live, draw your neck out their men.
o’ the collar.
SAMPSON ’Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when
SAMPSON I strike quickly, being moved. I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the
maids, and cut off their heads.
GREGORY But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
GREGORY The heads of the maids?
SAMPSON A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
SAMPSON Ay, the heads of the maids, or their
GREGORY To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.
stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn’st away.
GREGORY They must take it in sense that feel it.

Volume221
III Book IX 5
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

SAMPSON Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: [They fight]

and’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
[Enter BENVOLIO]
GREGORY ’Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou
hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool! here comes BENVOLIO Part, fools!
two of the house of the Montagues. Put up your swords; you know not what you do.
SAMPSON My naked weapon is out: quarrel, [Beats down their swords]
I will back thee.
[Enter TYBALT]
GREGORY How! turn thy back and run?
TYBALT What, art thou drawn among these
SAMPSON Fear me not. heartless hinds?
GREGORY No, marry; I fear thee! Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

SAMPSON Let us take the law of our sides; BENVOLIOI do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
let them begin. Or manage it to part these men with me.

GREGORY I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it TYBALT What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate
as they list. the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
SAMPSON Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at Have at thee, coward!
them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.
[They fight]
[Enter ABRAHAM and BALTHASAR]
[Enter, several of both houses, who join the fray;
ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? then enter Citizens, with clubs]
SAMPSON I do bite my thumb, sir. Clubs, bills, and partisans! strike! beat
FIRST CITIZEN

ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? them down!

Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues!
SAMPSON [Aside to GREGORY] Is the law of our side,
if I say ay? [Enter CAPULET in his gown, and LADY
CAPULET]
GREGORY No.
CAPULET What noise is this? Give me my
SAMPSON No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, long sword, ho!
but I bite my thumb, sir.
LADY CAPULET A crutch, a crutch! why call you
GREGORY Do you quarrel, sir? for a sword?
ABRAHAM Quarrel sir! no, sir. CAPULET My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
SAMPSON If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a
man as you. [Enter MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE]
ABRAHAM No better. MONTAGUE Thou villain Capulet,—Hold me not, let
SAMPSON Well, sir. me go.

GREGORY Say “better”: here comes one of my LADY MONTAGUE Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.
master’s kinsmen.
[Enter PRINCE, with Attendants]
SAMPSON Yes, better, sir.
PRINCE Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
ABRAHAM You lie. Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,—
Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
SAMPSON Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
swashing blow.

6 Volume222
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

With purple fountains issuing from your veins, MONTAGUE Many a morning hath he there been seen,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew.
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground, Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
And hear the sentence of your moved prince. But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, Should in the furthest east begin to draw
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets, Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens And private in his chamber pens himself,
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, Shuts up his windows, locks far daylight out
To wield old partisans, in hands as old, And makes himself an artificial night:
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate: Black and portentous must this humour prove,
If ever you disturb our streets again, Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away: BENVOLIO My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
You, Capulet, shall go along with me: MONTAGUE I neither know it nor can learn of him.
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our further pleasure in this case, BENVOLIO Have you importuned him by any means?
To old Free-town, our common judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. MONTAGUE Both by myself and many other friends:
But he, his own affections’ counsellor,
[Exeunt all but MONTAGUE, LADY Is to himself—I will not say how true—
MONTAGUE, and BENVOLIO] But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
MONTAGUE Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach? As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began? Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
BENVOLIO Here were the servants of your adversary, Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach: We would as willingly give cure as know.
I drew to part them: in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared, [Enter ROMEO]
Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head and cut the winds, BENVOLIO See, where he comes: so please you,
Who nothing hurt withal hiss’d him in scorn: step aside;
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows, I’ll know his grievance, or be much denied.
Came more and more and fought on part and part,
Till the prince came, who parted either part. MONTAGUE I would thou wert so happy by thy stay,
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away.
LADY MONTAGUE O, where is Romeo? saw you
him to-day? [Exeunt MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE]
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
BENVOLIO Good morrow, cousin.
BENVOLIO Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east, ROMEO Is the day so young?
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad; BENVOLIO But new struck nine.
Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from the city’s side, ROMEO Ay me! sad hours seem long.
So early walking did I see your son: Was that my father that went hence so fast?
Towards him I made, but he was ware of me
And stole into the covert of the wood: BENVOLIO It was. What sadness lengthens
I, measuring his affections by my own, Romeo’s hours?
That most are busied when they’re most alone, ROMEO Not having that, which, having, makes
Pursued my humour not pursuing his, them short.
And gladly shunn’d who gladly fled from me.
BENVOLIO In love?

Volume223
III Book IX 7
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

ROMEO Out— BENVOLIO I aim’d so near, when I supposed you loved.

BENVOLIO Of love? ROMEO A right good mark-man! And she’s fair I love.
ROMEO Out of her favour, where I am in love. BENVOLIO A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
BENVOLIO Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, ROMEO Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! With Cupid’s arrow; she hath Dian’s wit;
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm’d,
ROMEO Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharm’d.
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will! She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here? Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. O, she is rich in beauty, only poor,
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! That when she dies with beauty dies her store.
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity! BENVOLIO Then she hath sworn that she will still
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms! live chaste?
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
sick health! ROMEO She hath, and in that sparing makes
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! huge waste,
This love feel I, that feel no love in this. For beauty starved with her severity
Dost thou not laugh? Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
BENVOLIO No, coz, I rather weep. To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
ROMEO Good heart, at what? Do I live dead that live to tell it now.
BENVOLIO At thy good heart’s oppression. BENVOLIO Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
ROMEO Why, such is love’s transgression. ROMEO O, teach me how I should forget to think.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest BENVOLIO By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown Examine other beauties.
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; ROMEO ’Tis the way
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; To call hers exquisite, in question more:
Being vex’d a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears: These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows
What is it else? a madness most discreet, Being black put us in mind they hide the fair;
A choking gall and a preserving sweet. He that is strucken blind cannot forget
Farewell, my coz. The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
BENVOLIO Soft! I will go along; What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
An if you leave me so, you do me wrong. Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair?
Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget.
ROMEO Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here;
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where. BENVOLIO I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
BENVOLIO Tell me in sadness, who is that you love. [Exeunt]
ROMEO What, shall I groan and tell thee? SCENE II
BENVOLIO Groan! why, no; A street.
But sadly tell me who.
[Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant]
ROMEO Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:
Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill! CAPULET But Montague is bound as well as I,
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman. In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.
8 Volume224
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

PARIS Of honourable reckoning are you both; BENVOLIO Tut, man, one fire burns out
And pity ’tis you lived at odds so long. another’s burning,
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit? One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
CAPULET But saying o’er what I have said before: One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:
My child is yet a stranger in the world; Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years; And the rank poison of the old will die.
Let two more summers wither in their pride,
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride. ROMEO Your plaintain-leaf is excellent for that.
PARIS Younger than she are happy mothers made. BENVOLIO For what, I pray thee?
CAPULET And too soon marr’d are those so early made. ROMEO For your broken shin.
The earth hath swallow’d all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth: BENVOLIO Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, ROMEO Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;
My will to her consent is but a part; Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
An she agree, within her scope of choice Whipp’d and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast, SERVANT God gi’ god-den. I pray, sir, can you read?
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love; and you, among the store, ROMEO Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
SERVANT Perhaps you have learned it without book:
At my poor house look to behold this night
but, I pray, can you read any thing you see?
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel ROMEO Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
When well-apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight SERVANT Ye say honestly: rest you merry!
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house; hear all, all see, ROMEO Stay, fellow; I can read.
And like her most whose merit most shall be:
[Reads]
Which on more view, of many mine being one
May stand in number, though in reckoning none, “Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
Come, go with me. County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady
widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely
[To Servant, giving a paper] nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine
Go, sirrah, trudge about uncle Capulet, his wife—and daughters; my fair niece
Through fair Verona; find those persons out Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin
Whose names are written there, and to them say, Tybalt; Lucio and the lively Helena.”
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. A fair
assembly: whither should they come?
[Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS] SERVANT Up.
SERVANT Find them out whose names are written here! ROMEO Whither?
It is written, that the shoemaker should meddle with
his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with SERVANT To supper; to our house.
his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am
sent to find those persons whose names are here ROMEO Whose house?
writ, and can never find what names the writing
SERVANT My master’s.
person hath here writ. I must to the learned.—
In good time. ROMEO Indeed, I should have ask’d you that before.
[Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO] SERVANT Now I’ll tell you without asking: my master is
the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house

Volume225
III Book IX 9
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. NURSE Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
Rest you merry!
LADY CAPULET She’s not fourteen.
[Exit] NURSE I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,—
BENVOLIO At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four—
Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest, She is not fourteen. How long is it now
With all the admired beauties of Verona: To Lammas-tide?
Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
LADY CAPULET A fortnight and odd days.
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow. NURSE Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
ROMEO When the devout religion of mine eye
Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls!—
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
And these, who often drown’d could never die,
She was too good for me: but, as I said,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
BENVOLIO Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by, And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it,—
Herself poised with herself in either eye: Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’d For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Your lady’s love against some other maid Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall;
That I will show you shining at this feast, My lord and you were then at Mantua:—
And she shall scant show well that now shows best. Nay, I do bear a brain:—but, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
ROMEO I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown, Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
But to rejoice in splendor of mine own. To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
Shake quoth the dove-house: ’twas no need, I trow,
[Exeunt] To bid me trudge:
And since that time it is eleven years;
SCENE III For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
A room in CAPULET’s house. She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before, she broke her brow:
[Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse] And then my husband—God be with his soul!
LADY CAPULET Nurse, where’s my daughter? call her A’was a merry man—took up the child:
forth to me. “Yea,”quoth he, “dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
NURSE Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old, Wilt thou not, Jule?” and, by my holidame,
I bade her come. What, lamb! what, lady bird! The pretty wretch left crying and said “Ay.”
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet! To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
[Enter JULIET] I never should forget it: “Wilt thou not, Jule?”
quoth he;
JULIET How now! who calls? And, pretty fool, it stinted and said “Ay.”
NURSE Your mother. LADY CAPULET Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy
JULIETMadam, I am here. peace.
What is your will? NURSE Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,
LADY CAPULET This is the matter:—Nurse, give To think it should leave crying and say “Ay.”
leave awhile, And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
We must talk in secret:—nurse, come back again; A bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone;
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel. A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:
Thou know’st my daughter’s of a pretty age. “Yea,”quoth my husband, “fall’st upon thy face?

10 Volume226
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age; JULIETI’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
Wilt thou not, Jule?” it stinted and said “Ay.” But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
JULIET And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
NURSE Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace! [Enter a Servant]
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed: SERVANT Madam, the guests are come, supper served
An I might live to see thee married once, up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse
I have my wish. cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I
LADY CAPULET Marry, that “marry” is the very theme must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet, LADY CAPULET We follow thee.
How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET It is an honour that I dream not of. [Exit Servant]

NURSE An honour! were not I thine only nurse, Juliet, the county stays.
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat. NURSE Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
LADY CAPULET Well, think of marriage now; younger
[Exeunt]
than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, SCENE IV
Are made already mothers: by my count,
A street.
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief: [Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others]
NURSE A man, young lady! lady, such a man
ROMEO What, shall this speech be spoke for
As all the world—why, he’s a man of wax.
our excuse?
LADY CAPULET Verona’s summer hath not such a Or shall we on without a apology?
flower.
BENVOLIO The date is out of such prolixity:
NURSE Nay, he’s a flower; in faith, a very flower. We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
LADY CAPULET What say you? can you love the Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
gentleman? Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
This night you shall behold him at our feast; After the prompter, for our entrance:
Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face, But let them measure us by what they will;
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen; We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content ROMEO Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
And what obscured in this fair volume lies Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
MERCUTIO Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
you dance.
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea, and ’tis much pride ROMEO Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
For fair without the fair within to hide: With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead
That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory, So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess, MERCUTIO You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings,
By having him, making yourself no less. And soar with them above a common bound.

NURSE No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men. ROMEO I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
LADY CAPULET Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love? I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

Volume227
III Book IX 11
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

MERCUTIO And, to sink in it, should you burden love; The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
Too great oppression for a tender thing. The traces of the smallest spider’s web,
The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams,
ROMEO Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn. Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
MERCUTIO If love be rough with you, be rough
Not so big as a round little worm
with love; Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Give me a case to put my visage in: Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
A visor for a visor! what care I Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
What curious eye doth quote deformities? And in this state she gallops night by night
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me. Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight,
BENVOLIO Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in, O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,
But every man betake him to his legs. O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
ROMEO A torch for me: let wantons light of heart Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels, Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase; And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
I’ll be a candle-holder, and look on. And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done. Tickling a parson’s nose as a’ lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
MERCUTIO Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
own word:
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick’st
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
ROMEO Nay, that’s not so. And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
MERCUTIO I mean, sir, in delay That plats the manes of horses in the night,
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Take our good meaning, for our judgement sits Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
Five times in that ere once in our five wits. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
ROMEO And we mean well in going to this mask;
Making them women of good carriage:
But ’tis no wit to go. This is she—
MERCUTIO Why, may one ask? ROMEO Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
ROMEO I dream’d a dream to-night. Thou talk’st of nothing.

MERCUTIO And so did I. MERCUTIO True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,
ROMEO Well, what was yours? Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
MERCUTIO That dreamers often lie. And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
ROMEO In bed asleep, while they do dream things true. Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,
MERCUTIO O, then, I see Queen Mab Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.
hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes BENVOLIO This wind, you talk of, blows us
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone from ourselves;
On the fore-finger of an alderman, Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
Drawn with a team of little atomies ROMEO I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep; Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders’ legs, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
12 Volume228
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

With this night’s revels and expire the term More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
Of a despised life closed in my breast And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
By some vile forfeit of untimely death. Ah, sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.
But He, that hath the steerage of my course, Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet;
Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen. For you and I are past our dancing days:
How long is’t now since last yourself and I
BENVOLIO Strike, drum. Were in a mask?
[Exeunt] SECOND CAPULET By’r lady, thirty years.

SCENE V CAPULET What, man! ’tis not so much, ’tis not

A hall in CAPULET’s house. so much:
’Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,
[Musicians waiting. Enter Servingmen Come pentecost as quickly as it will,
with napkins] Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d.

FIRST SERVANT Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to SECOND CAPULET ’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is
take away? He shift a trencher? he scrape a trencher! elder, sir;
His son is thirty.
SECOND SERVANT When good manners shall lie all in
one or two men’s hands and they unwashed too, ’tis a CAPULET Will you tell me that?
foul thing. His son was but a ward two years ago.

FIRST SERVANT Away with the joint-stools, remove the ROMEO [To a Servingman] What lady is that, which
court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save doth enrich the hand
me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let Of yonder knight?
the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.
SERVANT I know not, sir.
Antony, and Potpan!
ROMEO O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
SECOND SERVANT Ay, boy, ready.
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
FIRST SERVANT You are looked for and called for, asked Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;
for and sought for, in the great chamber. Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
SECOND SERVANT We cannot be here and there too. As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
Cheerly, boys; be brisk awhile, and the longer liver The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
take all. And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
[Enter CAPULET, with JULIET and others of his For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
house, meeting the Guests and Maskers]
TYBALT This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
CAPULET Welcome, gentlemen! ladies that Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
have their toes Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you. To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty, To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
She, I’ll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day CAPULET Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm
That I have worn a visor and could tell you so?
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,
TYBALT Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,
Such as would please: ’tis gone,’tis gone,’tis gone:
A villain that is hither come in spite,
You are welcome, gentlemen! come, musicians, play.
To scorn at our solemnity this night.
A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.
CAPULET Young Romeo is it?
[Music plays, and they dance]
TYBALT ’Tis he, that villain Romeo.

Volume229
III Book IX 13
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT I

CAPULET Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone; JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for
He bears him like a portly gentleman; prayers’ sake.
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth: ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
I would not for the wealth of all the town Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
Here in my house do him disparagement: JULIET Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Therefore be patient, take no note of him:
It is my will, the which if thou respect, ROMEO Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Show a fair presence and put off these frowns, Give me my sin again.
And ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
JULIET You kiss by the book.
TYBALT It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him. NURSE Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

CAPULET He shall be endured: ROMEO What is her mother?

What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;
NURSE Marry, bachelor,
Am I the master here, or you? go to.
Her mother is the lady of the house,
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
I nursed her daughter, that you talk’d withal;
You will set cock-a-hoop! you’ll be the man!
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
TYBALT Why, uncle, ’tis a shame. Shall have the chinks.

CAPULET Go to, go to; ROMEO Is she a Capulet?

You are a saucy boy: is’t so, indeed? O dear account! my life is my foe’s debt.
This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:
BENVOLIO Away, begone; the sport is at the best.
You must contrary me! marry, ’tis time.
Well said, my hearts! You are a princox; go: ROMEO Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.
Be quiet, or—More light, more light! For shame!
I’ll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts! CAPULET Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
TYBALT Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting Is it e’en so? why, then, I thank you all
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall More torches here! Come on then, let’s to bed.
Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall. Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late:
I’ll to my rest.
[Exit]
[Exeunt all but JULIET and Nurse]
ROMEO [To JULIET] If I profane with my
unworthiest hand JULIET Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand NURSE The son and heir of old Tiberio.
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET What’s he that now is going out of door?
JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand
too much, NURSE Marry, that, I think, be young Petrucio.
Which mannerly devotion shows in this; JULIETWhat’s he that follows there, that would
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, not dance?
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
NURSE I know not.
ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIETGo ask his name: if he be married.
JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

14 Volume230
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

NURSE His name is Romeo, and a Montague; JULIETA rhyme I learn’d even now
The only son of your great enemy. Of one I danced withal.
JULIET My only love sprung from my only hate! [One calls within “Juliet.”]
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me, NURSE Anon, anon!
That I must love a loathed enemy. Come, let’s away; the strangers all are gone.

NURSE What’s this? what’s this? [Exeunt]

ACT II

PROLOGUE MERCUTIO Nay, I’ll conjure too.

Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
[Enter Chorus] Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
CHORUS Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie, Cry but “Ay me!” pronounce but “ ove” and “dove;”
And young affection gapes to be his heir; Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
That fair for which love groan’d for and would die, One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair. Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
Now Romeo is beloved and loves again, When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!
Alike betwitched by the charm of looks, He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
But to his foe supposed he must complain, The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks: I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
Being held a foe, he may not have access By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear; By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh
And she as much in love, her means much less And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
To meet her new-beloved any where: That in thy likeness thou appear to us!
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet. BENVOLIO And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

[Exit] MERCUTIO This cannot anger him: ’Twould anger him

To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle
SCENE I Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
A lane by the wall of CAPULET’s orchard. Till she had laid it and conjured it down;
That were some spite: my invocation
[Enter ROMEO] Is fair and honest, and in his mistress’ name
I conjure only but to raise up him.
ROMEO Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out. BENVOLIO Come, he hath hid himself among
these trees,
[He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it] To be consorted with the humorous night:
Blind is his love and best befits the dark.
[Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO]
MERCUTIO If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
BENVOLIO Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
MERCUTIO He is wise;
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
And, on my lie, hath stol’n him home to bed. Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
BENVOLIO He ran this way, and leap’d this An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!
orchard wall: Romeo, good night: I’ll to my truckle-bed;
Call, good Mercutio.

Volume231
III Book IX 15
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep: Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
Come, shall we go? And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
BENVOLIO Go, then; for ’tis in vain ROMEO [Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak
To seek him here that means not to be found. at this?

[Exeunt] JULIET ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
SCENE II What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
CAPULET’s orchard. Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
[Enter ROMEO] What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
ROMEO He jests at scars that never felt a wound. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
[JULIET appears above at a window] Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? And for that name which is no part of thee
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Take all myself.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, ROMEO I take thee at thy word:
Who is already sick and pale with grief, Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized;
That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green JULIET What man art thou that thus bescreen’d
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. in night
It is my lady, O, it is my love! So stumblest on my counsel?
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that? ROMEO By a name
Her eye discourses; I will answer it. I know not how to tell thee who I am:
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks: My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Because it is an enemy to thee;
Having some business, do entreat her eyes Had I it written, I would tear the word.
To twinkle in their spheres till they return. JULIET My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
What if her eyes were there, they in her head? Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound:
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright ROMEO Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! JULIET How camest thou hither, tell me,
O, that I were a glove upon that hand, and wherefore?
That I might touch that cheek! The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
JULIET Ay me! If any of my kinsmen find thee here.
ROMEO She speaks: ROMEO With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch
O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art these walls;
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head For stony limits cannot hold love out,
As is a winged messenger of heaven And what love can do that dares love attempt;
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds JULIET If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
ROMEO Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
JULIETO Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
Deny thy father and refuse thy name; And I am proof against their enmity.

16 Volume232
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

JULIET I would not for the world they saw thee here. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
ROMEO I have night’s cloak to hide me from their sight; Ere one can say “It lightens.” Sweet, good night!
And but thou love me, let them find me here: This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
My life were better ended by their hate, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love. Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest
JULIET By whose direction found’st thou out this place? Come to thy heart as that within my breast!

ROMEO By love, who first did prompt me to inquire; ROMEO O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes. JULIET What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?
I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash’d with the farthest sea, ROMEO The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow
I would adventure for such merchandise. for mine.
JULIET Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face, JULIETI gave thee mine before thou didst request it:
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek And yet I would it were to give again.
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny ROMEO Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what
What I have spoke: but farewell compliment! purpose, love?
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say “Ay,” JULIETBut to be frank, and give it thee again.
And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear’st, And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
Thou mayst prove false; at lovers’ perjuries My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
Then say, Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully: The more I have, for both are infinite.
Or if thou think’st I am too quickly won,
I’ll frown and be perverse an say thee nay, [Nurse calls within]
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu!
And therefore thou mayst think my ’haviuor light: Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.
But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true Stay but a little, I will come again.
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess, [Exit, above]
But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ware,
My true love’s passion: therefore pardon me, ROMEO O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.
And not impute this yielding to light love, Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Which the dark night hath so discovered. Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

ROMEO Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear [Re-enter JULIET, above]

That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—
JULIET Three words, dear Romeo,
JULIET O, swear not by the moon, and good night indeed.
the inconstant moon, If that thy bent of love be honourable,
That monthly changes in her circled orb, Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;
ROMEO What shall I swear by? And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
JULIET Do not swear at all;
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, NURSE [Within] Madam!
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I’ll believe thee. JULIET I come, anon.—But if thou mean’st not well,
I do beseech thee—
ROMEO If my heart’s dear love—
NURSE [Within] Madam!
JULIET Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night:

Volume233
III Book IX 17
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

JULIET By and by, I come:— JULIET Sweet, so would I:

To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief: Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
To-morrow will I send. Good night, good night! parting is such
sweet sorrow,
ROMEO So thrive my soul— That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
JULIET A thousand times good night!
[Exit above]
[Exit, above] ROMEO Sleep dwell upon thine eyes,
ROMEO A thousand times the worse, to want thy light. peace in thy breast!
Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books, Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. Hence will I to my ghostly father’s cell,
His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.
[Retiring]
[Exit]
[Re-enter JULIET, above]
SCENE III
JULIET Hist! Romeo, hist! O, for a falconer’s voice, FRIAR LAURENCE’s cell.
To lure this tassel-gentle back again!
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud; [Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a basket]
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine, FRIAR LAURENCE The grey-eyed morn smiles on the
With repetition of my Romeo’s name. frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
ROMEO It is my soul that calls upon my name: And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night, From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels:
Like softest music to attending ears! Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,
JULIET Romeo! I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
ROMEO My dear?
The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb;
JULIET At what o’clock to-morrow What is her burying grave that is her womb,
Shall I send to thee? And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
ROMEO At the hour of nine. Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.
JULIET I will not fail: ’tis twenty years till then. O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
I have forgot why I did call thee back. In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
ROMEO Let me stand here till thou remember it. For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
JULIET Nor aught so good but strain’d from that fair use
Remembering how I love thy company. Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
ROMEO And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget, And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Forgetting any other home but this. Within the infant rind of this small flower
JULIET ’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone: Poison hath residence and medicine power:
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird; For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand, Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, Two such opposed kings encamp them still
And with a silk thread plucks it back again, In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
So loving-jealous of his liberty. And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
ROMEO I would I were thy bird.
[Enter ROMEO]

18 Volume234
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

ROMEO Good morrow, father. The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
FRIAR LAURENCE Benedicite! Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet:
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head If e’er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline:
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.
But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign: ROMEO Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art up-roused by some distemperature; FRIAR LAURENCE For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Or if not so, then here I hit it right, ROMEO And bad’st me bury love.
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.
FRIAR LAURENCE Not in a grave,
ROMEO That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine. To lay one in, another out to have.
FRIAR LAURENCE God pardon sin! wast thou ROMEO I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now
with Rosaline? Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
ROMEO With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; The other did not so.
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe. FRIAR LAURENCE O, she knew well
FRIAR LAURENCE That’s my good son: but where hast Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
thou been, then? But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
ROMEO I’ll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. For this alliance may so happy prove,
I have been feasting with mine enemy, To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
That’s by me wounded: both our remedies ROMEO O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.
Within thy help and holy physic lies: FRIAR LAURENCE Wisely and slow; they stumble that
I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo, run fast.
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
FRIAR LAURENCE Be plain, good son, and homely [Exeunt]
in thy drift;
SCENE IV
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
A street.
ROMEO Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet: [Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO]
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
MERCUTIO Where the devil should this Romeo be?
And all combined, save what thou must combine
Came he not home to-night?
By holy marriage: when and where and how
We met, we woo’d and made exchange of vow, BENVOLIO Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.
I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us to-day. MERCUTIO Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench,
that Rosaline.
FRIAR LAURENCE Holy Saint Francis, what a Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, BENVOLIO Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
So soon forsaken? young men’s love then lies Hath sent a letter to his father’s house.
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine MERCUTIO A challenge, on my life.
Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! BENVOLIO Romeo will answer it.
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste! MERCUTIO Any man that can write may answer a letter.

Volume235
III Book IX 19
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

BENVOLIO Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how great; and in such a case as mine a man may
he dares, being dared. strain courtesy.
MERCUTIO Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; MERCUTIO That’s as much as to say, such a case as
stabbed with a white wench’s black eye; shot through yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft
with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft: and is he a man to ROMEO Meaning, to court’sy.
encounter Tybalt? MERCUTIO Thou hast most kindly hit it.
BENVOLIO Why, what is Tybalt? ROMEO A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, MERCUTIO Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights
as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and ROMEO Pink for flower.
proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and
the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk MERCUTIO Right.
button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the
ROMEO Why, then is my pump well flowered.
very first house, of the first and second cause:
ah, the immortal passado! The punto reverso! MERCUTIO Well said: follow me this jest now till thou
The hai! hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it
is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing
BENVOLIO The what?
sole singular.
MERCUTIO The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
ROMEO O single-soled jest, solely singular for
fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! “By Jesu,
the singleness.
a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
whore!” Why, is not this a lamentable thing, MERCUTIO Come between us, good Benvolio;
grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with my wits faint.
these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
perdona-mi’s, who stand so much on the new form, ROMEO Switch and spurs, switch and spurs;
that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their or I’ll cry a match.
bones, their bones!
MERCUTIO Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I
[Enter ROMEO] have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one
of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:
BENVOLIO Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. was I with you there for the goose?
MERCUTIO Without his roe, like a dried herring: ROMEO Thou wast never with me for any thing when
flesh, flesh, thou wast not there for the goose.
how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a MERCUTIO I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to ROMEO Nay, good goose, bite not.
be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey MERCUTIO Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior sharp sauce.
Romeo, bon jour! there’s a French salutation
to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit ROMEO And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
fairly last night.
MERCUTIO O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches
ROMEO Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit from an inch narrow to an ell broad!
did I give you?
ROMEO I stretch it out for that word “broad”; which
MERCUTIO The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive? added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a
broad goose.
ROMEO Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was

20 Volume236
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

MERCUTIO Why, is not this better now than groaning MERCUTIO Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i’ faith;
for love? now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; wisely, wisely.
now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
for this drivelling love is like a great natural, NURSE If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble with you.
in a hole. BENVOLIO She will indite him to some supper.
BENVOLIO Stop there, stop there. MERCUTIO A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!
MERCUTIO Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against ROMEO What hast thou found?
the hair.
MERCUTIO No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten
BENVOLIO Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large. pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
MERCUTIO O, thou art deceived; I would have made it
short: for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and [Sings]
meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer. An old hare hoar,
And an old hare hoar,
ROMEO Here’s goodly gear! Is very good meat in lent
But a hare that is hoar
[Enter Nurse and PETER] Is too much for a score,
When it hoars ere it be spent.
MERCUTIO A sail, a sail!
Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll
BENVOLIO Two, two; a shirt and a smock. to dinner, thither.
NURSE Peter! ROMEO I will follow you.
PETER Anon! MERCUTIO Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,
NURSE My fan, Peter.
[Singing]
MERCUTIO Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan’s “lady, lady, lady.”
the fairer face.
[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO]
NURSE God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
NURSE Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
MERCUTIO God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.
merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?
NURSE Is it good den?
ROMEO A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself
MERCUTIO ’Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand
the dial is now upon the prick of noon. to in a month.

NURSE Out upon you! what a man are you! NURSE An a’ speak any thing against me, I’ll take him
down, an a’ were lustier than he is, and twenty such
ROMEO One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for Jacks; and if I cannot, I’ll find those that shall.
himself to mar. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am
none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by
NURSE By my troth, it is well said; “for himself to mar, too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?
quoth a”? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I
may find the young Romeo? PETER I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my
weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I
ROMEO I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older
dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a
when you have found him than he was when you good quarrel, and the law on my side.
sought him: I am the youngest of that name, for fault
of a worse. NURSE Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part
about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
NURSE You say well. and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you

Volume237
III Book IX 21
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself: ROMEO Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.
but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
a fool’s paradise, as they say, it were a very gross NURSE Ah, mocker! that’s the dog’s name; R is for
kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman the—No; I know it begins with some other
is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double letter:—and she hath the prettiest sententious of
with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good
to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing. to hear it.

ROMEO Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. ROMEO Commend me to thy lady.
I protest unto thee— NURSE Ay, a thousand times.
NURSE Good heart, and, i’ faith, I will tell her as much:
Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman. [Exit Romeo]

ROMEO What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not Peter!
mark me. PETER Anon!
NURSE I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as NURSE Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.
I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
[Exeunt]
ROMEO Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon; SCENE V
And there she shall at Friar Laurence’s cell
CAPULET’s orchard.
Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.
NURSE No truly sir; not a penny. [Enter JULIET]

ROMEO Go to; I say you shall. JULIET The clock struck nine when I did send
the nurse;
NURSE This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there. In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him: that’s not so.
ROMEO And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall: O, she is lame! love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Within this hour my man shall be with thee Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams,
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair; Driving back shadows over louring hills:
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,
Must be my convoy in the secret night. And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Farewell; be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains: Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress. Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve
NURSE Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir. Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
ROMEO What say’st thou, my dear nurse? She would be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
NURSEIs your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say, And his to me:
Two may keep counsel, putting one away? But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
ROMEO I warrant thee, my man’s as true as steel.
O God, she comes!
NURSE Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest
lady—Lord, Lord! when ’Twas a little prating [Enter Nurse and PETER]
thing:—O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that O honey nurse, what news?
would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.
lief see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her
sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer man; NURSE Peter, stay at the gate.
but, I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as
any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and [Exit PETER]
Romeo begin both with a letter?

22 Volume238
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT II

JULIET Now, good sweet nurse,—O Lord, why look’st Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
thou sad? Henceforward do your messages yourself.
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news JULIET Here’s such a coil! come, what says Romeo?
By playing it to me with so sour a face. NURSE Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?
NURSE I am a-weary, give me leave awhile: JULIET I have.
Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!
NURSE Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’s cell;
JULIET I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news: There stays a husband to make you a wife:
Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak. Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
NURSE Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile? They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Do you not see that I am out of breath? Hie you to church; I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
JULIET How art thou out of breath, when thou Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark:
hast breath I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
To say to me that thou art out of breath? But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay Go; I’ll to dinner: hie you to the cell.
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that; JULIET Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.
Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance:
Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad? [Exeunt]

NURSE Well, you have made a simple choice; you know SCENE VI
not how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though FRIAR LAURENCE’s cell.
his face be better than any man’s, yet his leg excels all
men’s; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body, though [Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and ROMEO]
they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare:
FRIAR LAURENCE So smile the heavens upon
he is not the flower of courtesy, but, I’ll warrant him, as
this holy act,
gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve God. What,
That after hours with sorrow chide us not!
have you dined at home?
ROMEO Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,
JULIETNo, no: but all this did I know before.
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
What says he of our marriage? what of that?
That one short minute gives me in her sight:
NURSE Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I! Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. Then love-devouring death do what he dare;
My back o’ t’ other side,—O, my back, my back! It is enough I may but call her mine.
Beshrew your heart for sending me about,
FRIAR LAURENCE These violent delights have
To catch my death with jaunting up and down!
violent ends
JULIET I’ faith, I am sorry that thou art not well. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love? Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
NURSE Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a And in the taste confounds the appetite:
courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
warrant, a virtuous,—Where is your mother? Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
JULIET Where is my mother! why, she is within; [Enter JULIET]
Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!
“Your love says, like an honest gentleman, Here comes the lady: O, so light a foot
Where is your mother?” Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint:
A lover may bestride the gossamer
NURSE O God’s lady dear! That idles in the wanton summer air,
Are you so hot? marry, come up, I trow; And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

Volume239
III Book IX 23
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

JULIET Good even to my ghostly confessor. JULIET Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
FRIAR LAURENCE Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for They are but beggars that can count their worth;
us both. But my true love is grown to such excess
JULIET As much to him, else is his thanks too much. I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

ROMEO Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy FRIAR LAURENCE Come, come with me, and we will
Be heap’d like mine and that thy skill be more make short work;
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue Till holy church incorporate two in one.
Unfold the imagined happiness that both
[Exeunt]
Receive in either by this dear encounter.

ACT III
SCENE I out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before
A public place. Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old
riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!
[Enter MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, Page,
and Servants] BENVOLIO An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any
man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour
BENVOLIO I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire: and a quarter.
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
MERCUTIO The fee-simple! O simple!
And, if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl;
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring. BENVOLIO By my head, here come the Capulets.
MERCUTIO Thou art like one of those fellows that when MERCUTIO By my heel, I care not.
he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword
upon the table and says “God send me no need of [Enter TYBALT and others]
thee!” and by the operation of the second cup draws it
on the drawer, when indeed there is no need. TYBALT Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.
BENVOLIO Am I like such a fellow?
MERCUTIO And but one word with one of us? couple it
MERCUTIO Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy with something; make it a word and a blow.
mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody,
and as soon moody to be moved. TYBALT You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an
you will give me occasion.
BENVOLIO And what to?
MERCUTIO Could you not take some occasion
MERCUTIO Nay, an there were two such, we should without giving?
have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou!
why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair TYBALT Mercutio, thou consort’st with Romeo,—
more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou
MERCUTIO Consort! what, dost thou make us
wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no
minstrels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear
other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what eye
nothing but discords: here’s my fiddlestick; here’s that
but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head
shall make you dance. ’Zounds, consort!
is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy
head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for BENVOLIO We talk here in the public haunt of men:
quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a man for Either withdraw unto some private place,
coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy And reason coldly of your grievances,
dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

24 Volume240
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

MERCUTIO Men’s eyes were made to look, ROMEO Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
and let them gaze; Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I. Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath
Forbidden bandying in Verona streets:
[Enter ROMEO] Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!
TYBALTWell, peace be with you, sir: here comes [TYBALT under ROMEO’s arm stabs
my man. MERCUTIO, and flies with his followers]
MERCUTIO But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery: MERCUTIO I am hurt.
Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower; A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped.
Your worship in that sense may call him “man.” Is he gone, and hath nothing?
TYBALT Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford BENVOLIO What, art thou hurt?
No better term than this,—thou art a villain.
MERCUTIO Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch;
ROMEO Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee marry, ’tis enough.
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.
To such a greeting: villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not. [Exit Page]
TYBALT Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries ROMEO Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.
MERCUTIO No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide
ROMEO I do protest, I never injured thee, as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for
But love thee better than thou canst devise, me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love: am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’
And so, good Capulet,—which name I tender both your houses! ’Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a
As dearly as my own,—be satisfied. cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a
MERCUTIO O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
Alla stoccata carries it away. arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I
was hurt under your arm.
[Draws] ROMEO I thought all for the best.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk? MERCUTIO Help me into some house, Benvolio,
TYBALT What wouldst thou have with me? Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses!
They have made worms’ meat of me: I have it,
MERCUTIO Good king of cats, nothing but one of your And soundly too: your houses!
nine
lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you [Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO]
shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the
eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher ROMEO This gentleman, the prince’s near ally,
by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
ears ere it be out. In my behalf; my reputation stain’d
With Tybalt’s slander,—Tybalt, that an hour
TYBALT I am for you. Hath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
[Drawing] And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel!
ROMEO Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up. [Re-enter BENVOLIO]
MERCUTIO Come, sir, your passado. BENVOLIO O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio’s dead!
That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,
[They fight] Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

Volume241
III Book IX 25
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

ROMEO This day’s black fate on more days LADY CAPULET Tybalt, my cousin!
doth depend; O my brother’s child!
This but begins the woe, others must end. O prince! O cousin! husband! O, the blood is spilt
O my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,
BENVOLIO Here comes the furious Tybalt back again. For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.
ROMEO Alive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain! O cousin, cousin!
Away to heaven, respective lenity, PRINCE Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!
BENVOLIO Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s
[Re-enter TYBALT] hand did slay;
Romeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink
Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again, How nice the quarrel was, and urged withal
That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio’s soul Your high displeasure: all this uttered
Is but a little way above our heads, With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow’d,
Staying for thine to keep him company: Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him. Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts
TYBALT Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,
him here, Who all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
Shalt with him hence. And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
ROMEO This shall determine that. It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity,
Retorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,
[They fight; TYBALT falls] “Hold, friends! friends, part!” and, swifter than
his tongue,
BENVOLIO Romeo, away, be gone! His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain. And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
Stand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death, An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
If thou art taken: hence, be gone, away! Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;
ROMEO O, I am fortune’s fool! But by and by comes back to Romeo,
Who had but newly entertain’d revenge,
BENVOLIO Why dost thou stay? And to ’t they go like lightning, for, ere I
Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.
[Exit ROMEO] And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.
[Enter Citizens, &c.]
LADY CAPULET He is a kinsman to the Montague;
FIRST CITIZEN Which way ran he that kill’d Mercutio? Affection makes him false; he speaks not true:
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he? Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
And all those twenty could but kill one life.
BENVOLIO There lies that Tybalt.
I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give;
FIRST CITIZEN Up, sir, go with me; Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.
I charge thee in the princes name, obey.
PRINCERomeo slew him, he slew Mercutio;
[Enter Prince, attended; MONTAGUE, Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?
CAPULET, their Wives, and others] MONTAGUE Not Romeo, prince, he was
Mercutio’s friend;
PRINCE Where are the vile beginners of this fray?
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
BENVOLIO O noble prince, I can discover all The life of Tybalt.
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:
PRINCE And for that offence
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
Immediately we do exile him hence:
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;

26 Volume242
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine NURSE Ay, ay, the cords.
That you shall all repent the loss of mine:
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses; [Throws them down]
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:
Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste, JULIET Ay me! what news? why dost thou wring
Else, when he’s found, that hour is his last. thy hands?
Bear hence this body and attend our will: NURSE Ah, well-a-day! he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill. We are undone, lady, we are undone!
Alack the day! he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead!
[Exeunt]
JULIET Can heaven be so envious?
SCENE II
CAPULET’s orchard. NURSERomeo can,
Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!
[Enter JULIET] Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

JULIET Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, JULIET What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
As Phaethon would whip you to the west, Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but “I,”
And bring in cloudy night immediately. And that bare vowel “I’ shall poison more
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo I am not I, if there be such an I;
Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen. Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer “I.”
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites If he be slain, say “I”; or if not, no:
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, NURSE I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,—
And learn me how to lose a winning match, God save the mark!—here on his manly breast:
Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks, Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, All in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.
Think true love acted simple modesty. JULIET O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt,
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; break at once!
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night To prison, eyes, ne’er look on liberty!
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars, NURSE O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
And he will make the face of heaven so fine O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
That all the world will be in love with night That ever I should live to see thee dead!
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love, JULIETWhat storm is this that blows so contrary?
But not possess’d it, and, though I am sold, Is Romeo slaughter’d, and is Tybalt dead?
Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?
As is the night before some festival Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
To an impatient child that hath new robes For who is living, if those two are gone?
And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse, NURSETybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.
But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.
JULIET O God! did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?
[Enter Nurse, with cords]
NURSE It did, it did; alas the day, it did!
Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
The cords JULIETO serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
That Romeo bid thee fetch? Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

Volume243
III Book IX 27
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! “Romeo is banished,” to speak that word,

Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
Despised substance of divinest show! All slain, all dead. “Romeo is banished!”
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st, There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
A damned saint, an honourable villain! In that word’s death; no words can that woe sound.
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell, Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In moral paradise of such sweet flesh? NURSE Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse:
Was ever book containing such vile matter Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell JULIET Wash they his wounds with tears:
In such a gorgeous palace! mine shall be spent,
NURSE There’s no trust, When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, Take up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. Both you and I; for Romeo is exiled:
Ah, where’s my man? give me some aqua vitae: He made you for a highway to my bed;
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Shame come to Romeo! Come, cords, come, nurse; I’ll to my wedding-bed;
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!
JULIET Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! he was not born to shame: NURSE Hie to your chamber: I’ll find Romeo
Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit; To comfort you: I wot well where he is.
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:
Sole monarch of the universal earth. I’ll to him; he is hid at Laurence’cell.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him! JULIETO, find him! give this ring to my true knight,
NURSE Will you speak well of him that kill’d And bid him come to take his last farewell.
your cousin?
[Exeunt]
JULIET Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, SCENE III
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? FRIAR LAURENCE’s cell.
But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband: [Enter FRIAR LAURENCE]
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
FRIAR LAURENCE Romeo, come forth; come forth,
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
thou fearful man:
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
Affliction is enamour’d of thy parts,
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
And thou art wedded to calamity.
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband:
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then? [Enter ROMEO]
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
That murder’d me: I would forget it fain; ROMEO Father, what news? what is the prince’s doom?
But, O, it presses to my memory, What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds: That I yet know not?
“Tybalt is dead, and Romeo—banished”;
That “banished,” that one word “banished,” FRIAR LAURENCE Too familiar
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death Is my dear son with such sour company:
Was woe enough, if it had ended there: I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom.
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship
ROMEO What less than dooms-day is the
And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
prince’s doom?
Why follow’d not, when she said “Tybalt’s dead,”
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, FRIAR LAURENCE A gentler judgement vanish’d
Which modern lamentations might have moved? from his lips,
But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death, Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

28 Volume244
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

ROMEO Ha, banishment! be merciful, say “death”; ROMEO Yet “banished”? Hang up philosophy!
For exile hath more terror in his look, Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Much more than death: do not say “banishment.” Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
FRIAR LAURENCE Hence from Verona art
thou banished: FRIAR LAURENCE O, then I see that madmen
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide. have no ears.
ROMEO There is no world without Verona walls, ROMEO How should they, when that wise men
But purgatory, torture, hell itself. have no eyes?
Hence-banished is banish’d from the world,
And world’s exile is death: then banished, FRIAR LAURENCE Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Is death mis-term’d: calling death banishment, ROMEO Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe, Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me. An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
FRIAR LAURENCE O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness! Doting like me and like me banished,
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince, Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou
Taking thy part, hath rush’d aside the law, tear thy hair,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment: And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not. Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

ROMEO ’Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, [Knocking within]
Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing, FRIAR LAURENCE Arise; one knocks; good Romeo,
Live here in heaven and may look on her; hide thyself.
But Romeo may not: more validity, ROMEO Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,
More honourable state, more courtship lives Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.
In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand [Knocking]
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who even in pure and vestal modesty, FRIAR LAURENCE Hark, how they knock! Who’s there?
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin; Romeo, arise;
But Romeo may not; he is banished: Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
They are free men, but I am banished. [Knocking]
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Run to my study. By and by! God’s will,
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
What simpleness is this! I come, I come!
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But “banished” to kill me?—“banished”? [Knocking]
O friar, the damned use that word in hell;
Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart, Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what’s
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, your will?
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
To mangle me with that word “banished”? NURSE [Within] Let me come in, and you shall know
my errand; I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAURENCE Thou fond mad man, hear me but
speak a word. FRIAR LAURENCE Welcome, then.

ROMEO O, thou wilt speak again of banishment. [Enter Nurse]

FRIAR LAURENCE I’ll give thee armour to keep off NURSEO holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,
that word: Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished. FRIAR LAURENCE There on the ground, with his own
tears made drunk.

Volume245
III Book IX 29
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

NURSE O, he is even in my mistress’ case, Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Just in her case! O woful sympathy! Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Piteous predicament! Even so lies she, Like powder in a skitless soldier’s flask,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering. Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man: And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand; What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
Why should you fall into so deep an O? For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
ROMEO Nurse! But thou slew’st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
NURSE Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death’s the end of all. The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
ROMEO Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her? A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Doth she not think me an old murderer, Happiness courts thee in her best array;
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
With blood removed but little from her own? Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Where is she? and how doth she? and what says Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love? Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
NURSE O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps; But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries, Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
And then down falls again. To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
ROMEO As if that name,
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Did murder her; as that name’s cursed hand
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:
Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
Romeo is coming.
The hateful mansion.
NURSE O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
[Drawing his sword] To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!
FRIAR LAURENCE Hold thy desperate hand: My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art: ROMEO Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast: NURSE Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:
Unseemly woman in a seeming man! Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order, [Exit]
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself? ROMEO How well my comfort is revived by this!
And stay thy lady too that lives in thee, FRIAR LAURENCE Go hence; good night; and here stands
By doing damned hate upon thyself? all your state:
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? Either be gone before the watch be set,
Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet Or by the break of day disguised from hence:
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose. Sojourn in Mantua; I’ll find out your man,
Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit; And he shall signify from time to time
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all, Every good hap to you that chances here:
And usest none in that true use indeed Give me thy hand; ’tis late: farewell; good night.
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, ROMEO But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
Digressing from the valour of a man; It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish; [Exeunt]

30 Volume246
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

SCENE IV SCENE V
A room in CAPULET’s house. CAPULET’s orchard.
[Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and PARIS] [Enter ROMEO and JULIET above, at
the window]
CAPULET Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily,
That we have had no time to move our daughter: JULIET Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly, It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
And so did I:—Well, we were born to die. That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
’Tis very late, she’ll not come down to-night: Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
I promise you, but for your company, Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
I would have been a-bed an hour ago.
ROMEO It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
These times of woe afford no time to woo.
PARIS No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter. Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
LADY CAPULET I will, and know her mind Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
early to-morrow; I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
To-night she is mew’d up to her heaviness.
JULIET Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
CAPULET Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
Of my child’s love: I think she will be ruled To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not. And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed; Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone.
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love;
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next— ROMEO Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death;
But, soft! what day is this? I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
PARIS Monday, my lord, ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow;
CAPULET Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
is too soon, The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
O’ Thursday let it be: o’ Thursday, tell her, I have more care to stay than will to go:
She shall be married to this noble earl. Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
Will you be ready? do you like this haste? How is’t, my soul? let’s talk; it is not day.
We’ll keep no great ado,—a friend or two; JULIET It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late, It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
It may be thought we held him carelessly, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Being our kinsman, if we revel much: Some say the lark makes sweet division;
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends, This doth not so, for she divideth us:
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday? Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,
PARIS My lord, I would that Thursday O, now I would they had changed voices too!
were to-morrow. Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day,
CAPULET Well get you gone: o’ Thursday be it, then. O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day. ROMEO More light and light; more dark and
Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho! dark our woes!
Afore me! it is so very very late,
That we may call it early by and by. [Enter Nurse, to the chamber]
Good night. NURSE Madam!
[Exeunt] JULIET Nurse?

Volume247
III Book IX 31
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

NURSE Your lady mother is coming to your chamber: An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
The day is broke; be wary, look about. Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
[Exit]
JULIET Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
JULIET Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
LADY CAPULET So shall you feel the loss,
ROMEO Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I’ll descend. but not the friend
Which you weep for.
[He goeth down]
Feeling so the loss,
JULIET
JULIET Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, Cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
husband, friend!
I must hear from thee every day in the hour, LADY CAPULET Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for
For in a minute there are many days: his death,
O, by this count I shall be much in years As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.
Ere I again behold my Romeo!
JULIET What villain, madam?
ROMEO Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity LADY CAPULET That same villain, Romeo.
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee. JULIET [Aside] Villain and he be many miles

JULIET O think’st thou we shall ever meet again? asunder.—

God pardon him! I do, with all my heart;
ROMEO I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
LADY CAPULET That is, because the traitor murderer
JULIET O God, I have an ill-divining soul! lives.
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb: Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands:
JULIET

Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale. Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!

ROMEO And trust me, love, in my eye so do you: LADY CAPULET We will have vengeance for it,
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu! fear thou not:
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
[Exit] Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram,
JULIET O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle: That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him. And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.
That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long, JULIET Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
But send him back. With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart for a kinsman vex’d.
LADY CAPULET [Within] Ho, daughter! are you up? Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it;
JULIET Who is’t that calls? is it my lady mother? That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Is she not down so late, or up so early? Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither? To hear him named, and cannot come to him.
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
[Enter LADY CAPULET] Upon his body that slaughter’d him!
LADY CAPULET Why, how now, Juliet! LADY CAPULET Find thou the means, and I’ll find
JULIET Madam, I am not well. such a man.
But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
LADY CAPULET Evermore weeping for your
cousin’s death? JULIETAnd joy comes well in such a needy time:
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears? What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

32 Volume248
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT III

LADY CAPULET Well, well, thou hast a Proud can I never be of what I hate;
careful father, child; But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, CAPULET How now, how now, chop-logic!
That thou expect’st not nor I look’d not for. What is this?
“Proud,” and “I thank you,” and “I thank you not”;
JULIET Madam, in happy time, what day is that? And yet “not proud,” mistress minion, you,
Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,
LADY CAPULET Marry, my child, early next But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next,
Thursday morn, To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
The gallant, young and noble gentleman, Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church, Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride. You tallow-face!
JULIET Now, by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too, LADY CAPULET Fie, fie! what, are you mad?
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste; that I must wed JULIETGood father, I beseech you on my knees,
Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo. Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear, CAPULET Hang thee, young baggage!
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, disobedient wretch!
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed! I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face:
LADY CAPULET Here comes your father; Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
tell him so yourself, My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
And see how he will take it at your hands. That God had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
[Enter CAPULET and Nurse] And that we have a curse in having her:
Out on her, hilding!
CAPULET When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother’s son NURSE God in heaven bless her!
It rains downright. You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body CAPULET And why, my lady wisdom?
Thou counterfeit’st a bark, a sea, a wind; hold your tongue,
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
NURSE I speak no treason.
Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them, CAPULET O, God ye god-den.
Without a sudden calm, will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife! NURSE May not one speak?
Have you deliver’d to her our decree?
CAPULET Peace, you mumbling fool!
LADY CAPULET Ay, sir; but she will none, Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl;
she gives you thanks. For here we need it not.
I would the fool were married to her grave!
LADY CAPULET You are too hot.
CAPULET Soft! take me with you, take me
with you, wife. CAPULET God’s bread! it makes me mad:
How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks? Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest, Alone, in company, still my care hath been
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought To have her match’d: and having now provided
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom? A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train’d,
JULIET Not proud, you have; but thankful, Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
that you have: Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man;

Volume249
III Book IX 33
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT IV

And then to have a wretched puling fool, That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you;
A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender, Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
To answer “I’ll not wed; I cannot love, Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.” I think it best you married with the county.
But, as you will not wed, I’ll pardon you: O, he’s a lovely gentleman!
Graze where you will you shall not house with me: Romeo’s a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest. Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise: As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend; I think you are happy in this second match,
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in For it excels your first: or if it did not,
the streets, Your first is dead; or ’Twere as good he were,
For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee, As living here and you no use of him.
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to’t, bethink you; I’ll not be forsworn. JULIET Speakest thou from thy heart?
NURSE And from my soul too;
[Exit] Or else beshrew them both.
JULIET Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
JULIET Amen!
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away! NURSE What?
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed JULIET Well, thou hast comforted me
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies. marvellous much.
Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,
LADY CAPULET Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word: Having displeased my father, to Laurence’s cell,
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. To make confession and to be absolved.
[Exit] NURSE Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
JULIET O God!—O nurse, how shall this be prevented? [Exit]
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
How shall that faith return again to earth, JULIET Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Unless that husband send it me from heaven Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me. Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems Which she hath praised him with above compare
Upon so soft a subject as myself! So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;
What say’st thou? hast thou not a word of joy? Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
Some comfort, nurse. I’ll to the friar, to know his remedy:
If all else fail, myself have power to die.
NURSEFaith, here it is.
Romeo is banish’d; and all the world to nothing, [Exit]

ACT IV

SCENE I PARIS My father Capulet will have it so;

FRIAR LAURENCE’s cell. And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS] FRIAR LAURENCE You say you do not know
the lady’s mind:
FRIAR LAURENCE On Thursday, sir? the time is Uneven is the course, I like it not.
very short.

34 Volume250
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT IV

PARIS Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death, PARIS God shield I should disturb devotion!
And therefore have I little talk’d of love; Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway, [Exit]
And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears; O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
JULIET

Which, too much minded by herself alone, Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!
May be put from her by society: FRIAR LAURENCE Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
Now do you know the reason of this haste. It strains me past the compass of my wits:
FRIAR LAURENCE [Aside] I would I knew not why it I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
should be slow’d. On Thursday next be married to this county.
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell. JULIET Tell me not, friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
[Enter JULIET] If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
PARIS Happily met, my lady and my wife! Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
JULIET That may be, sir, when I may be a wife. God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal’d,
PARIS That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.
Shall be the label to another deed,
JULIET What must be shall be. Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
FRIAR LAURENCE That’s a certain text. Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,
Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
PARIS Come you to make confession to this father?
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
JULIET To answer that, I should confess to you. Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
PARIS Do not deny to him that you love me. Could to no issue of true honour bring.
JULIET I will confess to you that I love him. Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.
PARIS So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
FRIAR LAURENCE Hold, daughter: I do spy a
JULIET If I do so, it will be of more price, kind of hope,
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face. Which craves as desperate an execution.
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
PARIS Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears. If, rather than to marry County Paris,
JULIET The tears have got small victory by that; Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
For it was bad enough before their spite. Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
PARIS Thou wrong’st it, more than tears, with That copest with death himself to scape from it:
that report. And, if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
JULIET JULIET O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face. From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
PARIS Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it. Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
JULIET It may be so, for it is not mine own. Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
Are you at leisure, holy father, now; O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass? With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave
FRIAR LAURENCE My leisure serves me, pensive And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
daughter, now. Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

Volume251
III Book IX 35
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT IV

And I will do it without fear or doubt, CAPULET So many guests invite as here are writ.
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.
[Exit First Servant]
FRIAR LAURENCE Hold, then; go home, be merry,
give consent Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone; SECOND SERVANT You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber: if they can lick their fingers.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed, CAPULET How canst thou try them so?
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run SECOND SERVANT Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse lick hisown fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease: fingers goes not with me.
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade CAPULET Go, be gone.
To paly ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life; [Exit Second Servant]
Each part, deprived of supple government, We shall be much unfurnished for this time.
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death: What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours, NURSE Ay, forsooth.
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes CAPULET Well, he may chance to do some good on her:
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead: A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.
Then, as the manner of our country is, NURSE See where she comes from shrift with merry
In thy best robes uncover’d on the bier look.
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie. [Enter JULIET]
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift, CAPULET How now, my headstrong! where have you
And hither shall he come: and he and I been gadding?
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua. JULIET Where I have learn’d me to repent the sin
And this shall free thee from this present shame; Of disobedient opposition
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear, To you and your behests, and am enjoin’d
Abate thy valour in the acting it. By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!
JULIET Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear! Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.
FRIAR LAURENCE Hold; get you gone, be strong CAPULET Send for the county; go tell him of this:
and prosperous I’ll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.
In this resolve: I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord. JULIET I met the youthful lord at Laurence’s cell;
And gave him what becomed love I might,
JULIET Love give me strength! and strength Not step o’er the bounds of modesty.
shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father! CAPULET Why, I am glad on’t; this is well: stand up:
This is as’t should be. Let me see the county;
[Exeunt] Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now, afore God! this reverend holy friar,
SCENE II Our whole city is much bound to him.
Hall in CAPULET’s house. JULIETNurse, will you go with me into my closet,
[Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, Nurse, To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?
and two Servingmen]

36 Volume252
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT IV

LADY CAPULET No, not till Thursday; there is My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
time enough. Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
CAPULET Go, nurse, go with her: we’ll to church Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
to-morrow. No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.
[Exeunt JULIET and Nurse] [Laying down her dagger]
LADY CAPULET We shall be short in our provision: What if it be a poison, which the friar
’Tis now near night. Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead,
CAPULET Tush, I will stir about, Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife: Because he married me before to Romeo?
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her; I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,
I’ll not to bed to-night; let me alone; For he hath still been tried a holy man.
I’ll play the housewife for this once. What, ho! How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
They are all forth. Well, I will walk myself I wake before the time that Romeo
To County Paris, to prepare him up Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point!
Against to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light, Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d. To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
[Exeunt] Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
SCENE III Together with the terror of the place,—
JULIET’s chamber. As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
[Enter JULIET and Nurse] Of all my buried ancestors are packed:
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
JULIET Ay, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse, Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night, At some hours in the night spirits resort;—
For I have need of many orisons Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
To move the heavens to smile upon my state, So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
Which, well thou know’st, is cross, and full of sin. And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:—
[Enter LADY CAPULET] O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?
LADY CAPULET What, are you busy, ho? need you
And madly play with my forefather’s joints?
my help?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
JULIET No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As are behoveful for our state to-morrow: As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
So please you, let me now be left alone, O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
And let the nurse this night sit up with you; Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all, Upon a rapier’s point: stay, Tybalt, stay!
In this so sudden business. Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

LADY CAPULET Good night: [She falls upon her bed, within the curtains]
Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.
SCENE IV
[Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse] Hall in CAPULET’s house.
JULIET Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. [Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse]
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life: LADY CAPULET Hold, take these keys, and fetch more
I’ll call them back again to comfort me: spices, nurse.
Nurse! What should she do here?
NURSE They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

Volume253
III Book IX 37
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT IV

[Enter CAPULET] Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up;

I’ll go and chat with Paris: hie, make haste,
CAPULET Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already:
hath crow’d, Make haste, I say.
The curfew-bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock:
Look to the baked meats, good Angelica: [Exeunt]
Spare not for the cost.
SCENE V
NURSE Go, you cot-quean, go, JULIET’s chamber.
Get you to bed; faith, You’ll be sick to-morrow
For this night’s watching. [Enter Nurse]
CAPULET No, not a whit: what! I have watch’d ere now NURSE Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast,
All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick. I warrant her, she:
LADY CAPULET Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!
in your time; Why, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! why, bride!
But I will watch you from such watching now. What, not a word? you take your pennyworths now;
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
[Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse] The County Paris hath set up his rest,
That you shall rest but little. God forgive me,
CAPULET A jealous hood, a jealous hood! Marry, and amen, how sound is she asleep!
I must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
[Enter three or four Servingmen, with spits, Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
logs, and baskets] He’ll fright you up, i’ faith. Will it not be?
Now, fellow, [Undraws the curtains]
What’s there?
What, dress’d! and in your clothes! and down again!
FIRST SERVANT Things for the cook, sir; but I know I must needs wake you; Lady! lady! lady!
not what. Alas, alas! Help, help! my lady’s dead!
O, well-a-day, that ever I was born!
CAPULET Make haste, make haste.
Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!
[Exit First Servant] [Enter LADY CAPULET]
Sirrah, fetch drier logs:
LADY CAPULET What noise is here?
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.
NURSE O lamentable day!
SECOND SERVANT I have a head, sir, that will
find out logs, LADY CAPULET What is the matter?
And never trouble Peter for the matter.
NURSE Look, look! O heavy day!
[Exit]
LADY CAPULET O me, O me! My child, my only life,
CAPULET Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha! Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!
Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, ’tis day: Help, help! Call help.
The county will be here with music straight,
For so he said he would: I hear him near. [Enter CAPULET]

[Music within] CAPULET For shame, bring Juliet forth;

her lord is come.
Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!
NURSE She’s dead, deceased, she’s dead; alack the day!
[Re-enter Nurse] LADY CAPULET Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead,
she’s dead!

38 Volume254
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT IV

CAPULET Ha! let me see her: out, alas! she’s cold: FRIAR LAURENCE Peace, ho, for shame! confusion’s
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; cure lives not
Life and these lips have long been separated: In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Death lies on her like an untimely frost Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. And all the better is it for the maid:
Your part in her you could not keep from death,
NURSE O lamentable day! But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
LADY CAPULET O woful time! The most you sought was her promotion;
For ’twas your heaven she should be advanced:
CAPULET Death, that hath ta’en her hence And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced
to make me wail, Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak. O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS, She’s not well married that lives married long;
with Musicians] But she’s best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
FRIAR LAURENCE Come, is the bride ready to go On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
to church? In all her best array bear her to church:
For though fond nature bids us an lament,
CAPULET Ready to go, but never to return.
Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.
O son! the night before thy wedding-day
Hath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies, CAPULET All things that we ordained festival,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him. Turn from their office to black funeral;
Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir; Our instruments to melancholy bells,
My daughter he hath wedded: I will die, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
And leave him all; life, living, all is Death’s. Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
PARISHave I thought long to see this morning’s face,
And all things change them to the contrary.
And doth it give me such a sight as this?
FRIAR LAURENCE Sir, go you in; and, madam,
LADY CAPULET Accursed, unhappy, wretched,
go with him;
hateful day!
And go, Sir Paris; every one prepare
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
The heavens do lour upon you for some ill;
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
Move them no more by crossing their high will.
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight! [Exeunt CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, PARIS,
NURSE O woe! O woful, woful, woful day! and FRIAR LAURENCE]
Most lamentable day, most woful day,
FIRST MUSICIAN Faith, we may put up our pipes, and
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
be gone.
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this: NURSE Honest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;
O woful day, O woful day! For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.
PARIS Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain! [Exit]
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d,
By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown! FIRST MUSICIAN Ay, by my troth, the case may be
O love! O life! not life, but love in death! amended.
CAPULET Despised, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d! [Enter PETER]
Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity? PETER Musicians, O, musicians, “Heart’s ease, Heart’s
O child! O child! my soul, and not my child! ease”: O, an you will have me live, play “Heart’s ease.”
Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;
And with my child my joys are buried. FIRST MUSICIAN Why “Heart’s ease”?

Volume255
III Book IX 39
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT V

PETER O, musicians, because my heart itself plays “My Answer me like men:
heart is full of woe”: O, play me some merry dump, “When griping grief the heart doth wound,
to comfort me. And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound”
FIRST MUSICIAN Not a dump we; ’tis no time to — why “silver sound”? why “music with her silver
play now. sound”? What say you, Simon Catling?
PETER You will not, then? MUSICIAN Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
FIRST MUSICIAN No. PETER Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
PETER I will then give it you soundly. SECOND MUSICIAN I say “silver sound,” because
FIRST MUSICIAN What will you give us? musicians sound for silver.

PETER No money, on my faith, but the gleek; PETER Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?
I will give you the minstrel. THIRD MUSICIAN Faith, I know not what to say.
FIRST MUSICIAN Then I will give you the PETER O, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say
serving-creature. for you. It is “music with her silver sound,”
PETER Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on because musicians have no gold for sounding:
your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I’ll re you, I’ll fa “Then music with her silver sound
you; do you note me? With speedy help doth lend redress.”

FIRST MUSICIAN An you re us and fa us, you note us. [Exit]

SECOND MUSICIAN Pray you, put up your dagger, and FIRST MUSICIAN What a pestilent knave is this same!
put out your wit.
SECOND MUSICIAN Hang him, Jack! Come, we’ll in here;
PETER Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner.
you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger.
[Exeunt]

ACT V

SCENE I [Enter BALTHASAR, booted]

Mantua. A street.
News from Verona!—How now, Balthasar!
[Enter ROMEO] Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
ROMEO If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand: For nothing can be ill, if she be well.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit BALTHASAR Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead— And her immortal part with angels lives.
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
to think!— And presently took post to tell it you:
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips, O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
That I revived, and was an emperor. Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess’d, ROMEO Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy! Thou know’st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.

40 Volume256
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT V

BALTHASAR I do beseech you, sir, have patience: ROMEO Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import And fear’st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Some misadventure. Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;
ROMEO Tush, thou art deceived: The world is not thy friend nor the world’s law;
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar? Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
BALTHASAR No, my good lord. APOTHECARY My poverty, but not my will, consents.
ROMEO No matter: get thee gone, ROMEO I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
And hire those horses; I’ll be with thee straight.
APOTHECARY Put this in any liquid thing you will,
[Exit BALTHASAR] And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let’s see for means: O mischief, thou art swift ROMEO There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men! Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
I do remember an apothecary,— Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows, Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones: To Juliet’s grave; for there must I use thee.
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins [Exeunt]
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes, SCENE II
Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, FRIAR LAURENCE’s cell.
Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show. [Enter FRIAR JOHN]
Noting this penury, to myself I said
“An if a man did need a poison now, FRIAR JOHN Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
[Enter FRIAR LAURENCE]
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.”
O, this same thought did but forerun my need; FRIAR LAURENCE This same should be the voice of
And this same needy man must sell it me. Friar John.
As I remember, this should be the house. Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut. Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
What, ho! apothecary!
FRIAR JOHN Going to find a bare-foot brother out
[Enter Apothecary] One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
APOTHECARY Who calls so loud? And finding him, the searchers of the town,
ROMEO Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor: Suspecting that we both were in a house
Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth;
As will disperse itself through all the veins So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.
That the life-weary taker may fall dead FRIAR LAURENCE Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently as hasty powder fired FRIAR JOHN I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb. Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
APOTHECARY Such mortal drugs I have; but
Mantua’s law FRIAR LAURENCE Unhappy fortune! by my
Is death to any he that utters them. brotherhood,

Volume257
III Book IX 41
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT V

The letter was not nice but full of charge [Retires]

Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence; [Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a torch,
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight mattock, &c.]
Unto my cell.
ROMEO Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
FRIAR JOHN Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee. Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
[Exit] Give me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,
Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof,
FRIAR LAURENCE Now must I to the monument alone;
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Within three hours will fair Juliet wake:
Why I descend into this bed of death,
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Is partly to behold my lady’s face;
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
But I will write again to Mantua,
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come;
In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:
Poor living corse, closed in a dead man’s tomb!
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
[Exit] In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint
SCENE III And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
A churchyard; in it a tomb belonging The time and my intents are savage-wild,
More fierce and more inexorable far
to the CAPULETS. Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
[Enter PARIS, and his Page bearing flowers BALTHASAR I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
and a torch]
ROMEO So shalt thou show me friendship.
PARIS Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof: Take thou that:
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.
Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground; BALTHASAR [Aside] For all this same, I’ll hide
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread, me hereabout:
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves, His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear’st something approach. [Retires]
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
ROMEO Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
PAGE [Aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure. Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
And, in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food!
[Retires]
[Opens the tomb]
PARIS Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed
I strew,— PARIS This is that banish’d haughty Montague,
O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;— That murder’d my love’s cousin, with which grief,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew, It is supposed, the fair creature died;
Or, wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans: And here is come to do some villanous shame
The obsequies that I for thee will keep To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
[Comes forward]
[The Page whistles] Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague!
The boy gives warning something doth approach. Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night, Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite? Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.
What with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.

42 Volume258
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT V

ROMEO I must indeed; and therefore came I hither. And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man; Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone; O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
Put not another sin upon my head, To sunder his that was thine enemy?
By urging me to fury: O, be gone! Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,
By heaven, I love thee better than myself; Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
For I come hither arm’d against myself: That unsubstantial death is amorous,
Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
A madman’s mercy bade thee run away. Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
PARISI do defy thy conjurations, And never from this palace of dim night
And apprehend thee for a felon here. Depart again: here, here will I remain
ROMEO Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy! With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
[They fight] And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
PAGE O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch. Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
[Exit] A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
PARIS O, I am slain! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
[Falls] Here’s to my love!
If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. [Drinks]
O true apothecary!
[Dies] Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
ROMEO In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris! [Dies]
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think [Enter, at the other end of the churchyard, FRIAR
He told me Paris should have married Juliet: LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade]
Said he not so? or did I dream it so? FRIAR LAURENCE Saint Francis be my speed!
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, How oft to-night
To think it was so? O, give me thy hand, Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who’s there?
One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book!
I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave; BALTHASAR Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows
A grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter’d youth, you well.
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light. FRIAR LAURENCE Bliss be upon you! Tell me,
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d. good my friend,
What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light
[Laying PARIS in the tomb] To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,
It burneth in the Capel’s monument.
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call BALTHASAR It doth so, holy sir; and there’s my master,
A lightning before death: O, how may I One that you love.
Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath, FRIAR LAURENCE Who is it?
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: BALTHASAR Romeo.
Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, FRIAR LAURENCE How long hath he been there?

Volume259
III Book IX 43
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT V

BALTHASAR Full half an hour. JULIET Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
FRIAR LAURENCE Go with me to the vault. [Exit FRIAR LAURENCE]
BALTHASAR I dare not, sir: What’s here? a cup, closed in my true love’s hand?
My master knows not but I am gone hence; Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
And fearfully did menace me with death, O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
If I did stay to look on his intents. To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
FRIAR LAURENCE Stay, then; I’ll go alone. Fear comes
To make die with a restorative.
upon me:
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing. [Kisses him]
BALTHASAR As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, Thy lips are warm.
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him. FIRST WATCHMAN [Within] Lead, boy: which way?
FRIAR LAURENCE Romeo! JULIET Yea, noise? then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger!

[Advances] [Snatching ROMEO’s dagger]

Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains This is thy sheath;
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords [Stabs herself]
To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?
there rust, and let me die.
[Enters the tomb]
[Falls on ROMEO’s body, and dies]
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?
And steep’d in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour [Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS]
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
The lady stirs. PAGE This is the place; there, where the torch
doth burn.
[JULIET wakes] FIRST WATCHMAN The ground is bloody; search about
JULIET O comfortable friar! where is my lord? the churchyard:
I do remember well where I should be, Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach.
And there I am. Where is my Romeo? Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
[Noise within] Who here hath lain these two days buried.
Go, tell the prince: run to the Capulets:
FRIAR LAURENCE I hear some noise. Lady, come Raise up the Montagues: some others search:
from that nest We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep: But the true ground of all these piteous woes
A greater power than we can contradict We cannot without circumstance descry.
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead; [Re-enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR]
And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns: SECOND WATCHMAN Here’s Romeo’s man; we found
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming; him in the churchyard.
Come, go, good Juliet, FIRST WATCHMAN Hold him in safety, till the prince
come hither.
[Noise again]
I dare no longer stay. [Re-enter others of the Watch, with FRIAR
LAURENCE]

44 Volume260
III Book IX
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT V

THIRD WATCHMAN Here is a friar, that trembles, PRINCE Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
sighs and weeps: Till we can clear these ambiguities,
We took this mattock and this spade from him, And know their spring, their head, their
As he was coming from this churchyard side. true descent;
And then will I be general of your woes,
FIRST WATCHMAN A great suspicion: stay the friar too. And lead you even to death: meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
[Enter the PRINCE and Attendants] Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
PRINCE What misadventure is so early up, FRIAR LAURENCE I am the greatest, able to do least,
That calls our person from our morning’s rest? Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me of this direful murder;
[Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and others] And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
CAPULET What should it be, that they so shriek abroad? Myself condemned and myself excused.

LADY CAPULET The people in the street cry Romeo, PRINCE Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run,
FRIAR LAURENCE I will be brief, for my short
With open outcry toward our monument.
date of breath
PRINCE What fear is this which startles in our ears? Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
FIRST WATCHMAN Sovereign, here lies the And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife:
County Paris slain; I married them; and their stol’n marriage-day
And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, Was Tybalt’s dooms-day, whose untimely death
Warm and new kill’d. Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from the city,
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
PRINCESearch, seek, and know how this foul You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
murder comes. Betroth’d and would have married her perforce
FIRST WATCHMAN Here is a friar, and slaughter’d To County Paris: then comes she to me,
Romeo’s man; And, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean
With instruments upon them, fit to open To rid her from this second marriage,
These dead men’s tombs. Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor’d by my art,
CAPULET O heavens! O wife, look how our A sleeping potion; which so took effect
daughter bleeds! As I intended, for it wrought on her
This dagger hath mista’en—for, lo, his house The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,
Is empty on the back of Montague,— That he should hither come as this dire night,
And it mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom! To help to take her from her borrow’d grave,
Being the time the potion’s force should cease.
LADY CAPULET O me! this sight of death is as a bell, But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
That warns my old age to a sepulchre. Was stay’d by accident, and yesternight
Return’d my letter back. Then all alone
[Enter MONTAGUE and others] At the prefixed hour of her waking,
PRINCE Come, Montague; for thou art early up, Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault;
To see thy son and heir more early down. Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo:
MONTAGUE Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; But when I came, some minute ere the time
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath: Of her awaking, here untimely lay
What further woe conspires against mine age? The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
PRINCE Look, and thou shalt see. And bear this work of heaven with patience:
MONTAGUE O thou untaught! what manners is in this? But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
To press before thy father to a grave? And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.

Volume261
III Book IX 45
 Romeo and Juliet: ACT V

All this I know; and to the marriage Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal
Her nurse is privy: and, if aught in this Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time, See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
Unto the rigour of severest law. That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
And I for winking at your discords too
PRINCEWe still have known thee for a holy man. Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish’d.
Where’s Romeo’s man? what can he say in this?
CAPULET O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
BALTHASAR I brought my master news of Juliet’s death; This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
And then in post he came from Mantua Can I demand.
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father, MONTAGUE But I can give thee more:
And threatened me with death, going in the vault, For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
I departed not and left him there. That while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
PRINCE Give me the letter; I will look on it. As that of true and faithful Juliet.
Where is the county’s page, that raised the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place? CAPULET As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!
PAGE He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave;
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did: PRINCE A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
And by and by my master drew on him; Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
And then I ran away to call the watch. Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
PRINCE This letter doth make good the friar’s words, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
And here he writes that he did buy a poison [Exeunt]

46 Volume262
III Book IX