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Friar Laurence, Lines 1-22
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Act 2,
Scene 3
Lines 1-22

Friar Laurence performs a scene from Act 2, Scene 3 of myShakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. 

myShakespeare | Romeo and Juliet 2.3 Performance: Friar Laurence, Lines 1-22

[Outside Friar Laurence's cottage.  Enter Friar Laurence with a basket]

Friar Laurence

The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And fleckled darkness, like a drunkard, reels
From forth day's path and Titan's burning wheels.
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juicèd flowers.
The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb.  
And from her womb children of diverse kind
We, sucking on her natural bosom, find;
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.               
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometime, by action, dignified.