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Of her swift-turning slippery wheel, then fleets her friendship straight.

O wondrous change, even with the twinkling of an eye

Whom erst herself had rashly set in pleasant place so high,

The same in great despite down headlong doth she throw,

And while she treads and spurneth at the lofty state laid low,

More sorrow doth she shape within an hour's space,

Than pleasure in an hundred years; so geason is her grace.

The proof whereof in me, alas, too plain appears,

Whom tenderly my careful friends have fostered with my feres,

In prosperous high degree, maintainéd so by fate,

That, as yourself did see, my foes envied my noble state.

One thing there was I did above the rest desire,

To which as to the sovereign good by hope I would aspire.

That by our marriage mean we might within a while,

To work our perfect happiness, our parents reconcile:

That safely so we might, not stopped by sturdy strife,

Unto the bounds that God hath set, guide forth our pleasant life.

But now, alack, too soon my bliss is overblown,

And upside down my purpose and my enterprise are thrown.

And driven from my friends, of strangers must I crave;

Oh, grant it God, from dangers dread that I may surety have.

For lo, henceforth I must wander in lands unknown

(So hard I find the Prince's doom), exiléd from mine own.

Which thing I have thought good to set before your eyes

And to exhort you now to prove yourself a woman wise,

That patiently you bear my absent long abode,

For what above by fatal dooms decreéd is, that God"--

And more than this to say, it seeméd, he was bent,

But Juliet in deadly grief, with brackish tears besprent,

Brake off his tale begun, and whilst his speech he stayed,

These selfsame words, or like to these, with dreary cheer she said:

"Why, Romeus, can it be thou hast so hard a heart;

So far removed from ruth; so far from thinking on my smart;

To leave me thus alone, thou cause of my distress,

Besiegéd with so great a camp of mortal wretchedness,

That every hour now, and moment in a day,

A thousand times Death brags, as he would reave my life away?

Yet such is my mishap, O cruel destiny,

That still I live, and wish for death, but yet can never die;

So that just cause I have to think, as seemeth me,

That froward Fortune did of late with cruel Death agree

To lengthen loathéd life, to pleasure in my pain,

And triumph in my harm, as in the greatest hopéd gain.

And thou, the instrument of Fortune's cruel will,

Without whose aid she can no way her tyrannous lust fulfil,

Art not a whit ashamed, as far as I can see,

To cast me off, when thou hast culled the better part of me.

Whereby, alas, too soon, I, seely wretch, do prove,

That all the ancient sacred laws of friendship and of love

Are quelled and quenchéd quite, since he, on whom alway

My chief hope and my steady trust was wonted still to stay,

For whom I am become unto myself a foe,

Disdaineth me, his steadfast friend, and scorns my friendship so.

Nay, Romeus, nay, thou may'st of two things choose the one,

Either to see thy castaway, as soon as thou art gone,

Headlong to throw herself down from the window's height,

And so to break her slender neck with all the body's weight,

Or suffer her to be companion of thy pain,

Whereso thou go, Fortune thee guide, till thou return again.

So wholly into thine transforméd is my heart,

That even as oft as I do think that thou and I shall part,

So oft, methinks, my life withdraws itself away,

Which I retain to no end else but to the end I may,

In spite of all thy foes, thy present parts enjoy,

And in distress to bear with thee the half of thine annoy.

Wherefore, in humble sort, Romeus, I make request,

If ever tender pity yet were lodged in gentle breast,

Oh, let it now have place to rest within thy heart;

Receive me as thy servant, and the fellow of thy smart.

Thy absence is my death, thy sight shall give me life;

But if perhaps thou stand in dread to lead me as a wife,

Art thou all counsel-less? Canst thou no shift devise?

What letteth but in other weed I may myself disguise?