Page 3139 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

ROMEO

Well, in that hit you miss; she’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit,
And in strong proof of chastity well arm’d [210]
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’d.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold;
O she is rich in beauty, only poor [215]
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.

BENVOLIO

Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

ROMEO

She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste.
For beauty starv’d with her severity
Cuts beauty off from all posterity. [220]
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

BENVOLIO

Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her. [225]

ROMEO

O teach me how I should forget to think.

BENVOLIO

By giving liberty unto thine eyes:
Examine other beauties.

ROMEO

’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows, [230]
Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.