Juliet eagerly awaits nightfall and her wedding night with Romeo. She calls upon night to come quickly so she can be with her new husband, expressing her passionate anticipation with vivid celestial imagery.
Act 3, Scene 2. Juliet is alone in her chamber in the Capulet house, waiting. Earlier that day she was secretly married to Romeo in Friar Lawrence's cell. She does not yet know that in the time since the wedding, Romeo has killed her cousin Tybalt in the street and been banished from Verona. The Nurse is on her way to bring the news but has not arrived. What Juliet is doing in this speech is summoning night — willing the sun down so that Romeo can come to her bed for the first time. The dramatic irony is brutal: the audience knows the wedding night is already destroyed before it begins. The speech is bracketed by innocence on one side and catastrophe on the other; the Nurse will enter within twenty lines with the rope ladder and the news of Tybalt's death.
Juliet is thirteen, newly married, and about to have sex for the first time with a boy she has known for roughly thirty-six hours. She is not naive about what she wants — the speech is remarkably specific about bodies, "amorous rites," losing "a winning match / Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods." But the wanting is braided with terror. She talks herself toward courage by talking to night itself, casting night as a co-conspirator, a teacher, a gentle covering. What she wants from the night, specifically, is permission and privacy — a world arranged so she can become a wife without being seen becoming one. Underneath is the knowledge that everything she is doing is forbidden, and the speech's velocity comes partly from the need to outrun that knowledge.
The first trap is sentimentality. This is not a wistful speech; it is an impatient, sexually frank, almost feverish summoning. "Gallop apace" is a command — to horses, to time, to the sun. Drive it. The second trap is generalising "night" into something poetic and abstract. Make her specific: she is talking to a presence, asking it for things, negotiating. Mark the change at "Come, civil night, / Thou sober-suited matron, all in black" — she shifts from addressing the sun's horses to addressing night as a chaperone-figure, which is funny and revealing if you let it be. The "Hood my unmann'd blood" passage uses falconry imagery; she is comparing herself to a young hawk being trained. Know what the words mean physically. Allow the speech to be erotic without being knowing — she is anticipating something she has never done. Finally, when the Nurse enters with the rope ladder, the speech is interrupted mid-flight. Do not pre-empt the bad news; play the full joy until it shatters.
An excellent classical choice for younger women, particularly for drama school auditions, MFA programs, and classical company generals where they need to see whether you can carry verse over a sustained emotional climb. It shows youth without playing youth, sexual specificity without coyness, and the capacity to drive a long speech with internal momentum rather than external incident. It is moderately well-used in audition rooms but nowhere near the saturation of "What's in a name." It works best for actors who can genuinely play thirteen-to-sixteen; if you read older it will fight you. Avoid it if you cannot speak frankly about sex on stage without flinching — the speech demands physical specificity. Also avoid for screen-comedy or contemporary television castings, where the verse will read as showy. Best paired with a contemporary piece that shows a different register entirely.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy'd.