Romeo and Juliet
Scene 1. A street
ABRAHAM
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON
I do bite my thumb, sir.
ABRAHAM
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON
[Aside to GREGORY] Is the law of our side, if I say ay?
Enter PRINCE, with Attendants
PRINCE
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,
You should not be mixing in a public place
Know you not this virus is real?
Where are your masks, where social distancing?
Get thee home, for there will be no appeal
If charges are brought against you for ignoring
The restrictions of this lockdown….
MONTAGUE
My Lord, I will send them home with all due haste.
Exit Prince
LADY MONTAGUE
O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
BENVOLIO
Still whining about Rosaline somewhere I think
I’ll try to cure him – it’s driving me to drink….
Scene 2. Another street
BENVOLIO
Tomorrow at the feast of Capulet's
Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest,
With all the admired beauties of Verona:
Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
ROMEO
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.
BENVOLIO
Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself poised with herself in either eye:
ROMEO
I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.
Scene 3 The Capulets’ House
LADY CAPULET
Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET
It is an honour that I dream not of.
LADY CAPULET
Well, think of marriage now; Thus then in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
NURSE
No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men. (Sniggers)
Enter a Servant
Servant
Good madam, your husband seeks you downstairs
He’s bloody annoyed.
Enter Lord Capulet
CAPULET
The Prince says we are not to have our ball:
Even though we are to be masked, as the law demands
Indoors, ‘tis said, thirty folk may mix
As long as we with social distancing and masks comply.
'Tis since the nuptials of Lucentio,
Come pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five and twenty years; and then we mask'd.
But now the rules have changèd yet again
And into lockdown one more time we plunge
So tonight’s party’s been called off.
Blast the Prince, the virus and all to hell.
All stomp off.
Scene 4. Yet another street
MERCUTIO
Well that’s that, no Rosaline for you tonight
Another lockdown has put paid to our evening fun.
ROMEO
I dream'd a dream to-night.
MERCUTIO
And so did I.
ROMEO
Well, what was yours?
MERCUTIO
That dreamers often lie.
ROMEO
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
MERCUTIO
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
But hear my dream, for from it you’ve made good escape.
I dreamed about the Capulet Montague feud
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the sound and clamour as their parents weep,
For, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Was now the two hours' traffic of my sleep;
ROMEO
What a stupid dream
BENVOLIO
Nay – I dreamed too…
That you had killed Tybalt and been banished to Mantua…
ROMEO
Well he would have deserved it, bighead that he is….
BENVOLIO
…and you returned to Verona to find the gracious Juliet dead.
ROMEO
Who??
MERCUTIO
Nay, in my dream she did not die, but slept…
BENVOLIO
I foresaw your death too Mercutio…
MERCUTIO
What?? A plague on both your houses.
But Romeo in my dream did kill himself.
BENVOLIO
See – you’re better off out of it mate.
ROMEO
Yeah – guess you’re right. Come on, lets get some beers in and watch the football.
EXEUNT.
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