missed him, for, unable to stay away from the house where he had left
his heart, he leaped the wall of an orchard which was at the back of
Juliet's house. Here he had not been long, ruminating on his new love,
when Juliet appeared above at a window, through which her exceeding
beauty seemed to break like the light of the sun in the east; and the
moon, which shone in the orchard with a faint light, appeared to Romeo
as if sick and pale with grief at the superior lustre of this new sun.
And she, leaning her cheek upon her hand, he passionately wished himself
a glove upon that hand, that he might touch her cheek. She all this
while thinking herself alone, fetched a deep sigh, and exclaimed, "Ah
me!" Romeo, enraptured to hear her speak, said softly, and unheard by
her, "O speak again, bright angel, for such you appear, being over my
head, like a winged messenger from heaven whom mortals fall back to gaze
upon." She, unconscious of being overheard, and full of the new passion
which that night's adventure had given birth to, called upon her lover
by name (whom she supposed absent): "O Romeo, Romeo!" said she,
"wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name, for my
sake; or if thou wilt not, be but my sworn love, and I no longer will be
a Capulet." Romeo, having this encouragement, would fain have spoken,
but he was desirous of hearing more; and the lady continued her
passionate discourse with herself (as she thought), still chiding Romeo
for being Romeo and a Montague, and wishing him some other name, or that
he would put away that hated name, and for that name which was no part
of himself, he should take all herself. At this loving word Romeo could
no longer refrain, but taking up the dialogue as if her words had been
addressed to him personally, and not merely in fancy, he bade her call
him Love, or by whatever other name she pleased, for he was no longer
Romeo, if that name was displeasing to her. Juliet, alarmed to hear a
man's voice in the garden, did not at first know who it was, that by
favour of the night and darkness had thus stumbled upon the discovery of
her secret; but when he spoke again, though her ears had not yet drunk a
hundred words of that tongue's uttering, yet so nice is a lover's
hearing, that she immediately knew him to be young Romeo, and she
expostulated with him on the danger to which he had exposed himself by
climbing the orchard walls, for if any of her kinsmen should find him
there, it would be death to him being a Montague. "Alack," said Romeo,
"there is more peril in your eye, than in twenty of their swords. Do you
but look kind upon me, lady, and I am proof against their enmity. Better
my life should be ended by their hate, than that hated life should be
prolonged, to live without your love."--"How came you into this place,"
said Juliet, "and by whose direction?"--"Love directed me," answered
Romeo: "I am no pilot, yet wert thou as far apart from me, as that vast
shore which is washed with the farthest sea, I should venture for such
merchandise." A crimson blush came over Juliet's face, yet unseen by
Romeo by reason of the night, when she reflected upon the discovery
which she had made, yet not meaning to make it, of her love to Romeo.
She would fain have recalled her words, but that was impossible: fain
would she have stood upon form, and have kept her lover at a distance,
as the custom of discreet ladies is, to frown and be perverse, and give
their suitors harsh denials at first; to stand off, and affect a coyness
or indifference, where they most love, that their lovers may not think
them too lightly or too easily won; for the difficulty of attainment
increases the value of the object. But there was no room in her case for
denials, or puttings off, or any of the customary arts of delay and
protracted courtship. Romeo had heard from her own tongue, when she did
not dream that he was near her, a confession of her love. So with an
honest frankness, which the novelty of her situation excused, she
confirmed the truth of what he had before heard, and addressing him by
the name of _fair Montague_ (love can sweeten a sour name), she begged
him not to impute her easy yielding to levity or an unworthy mind, but
that he must lay the fault of it (if it were a fault) upon the accident
of the night which had so strangely discovered her thoughts. And she
added, that though her behaviour to him might not be sufficiently
prudent, measured by the custom of her sex, yet that she would prove
more true than many whose prudence was dissembling, and their modesty
artificial cunning.
Romeo was beginning to call the heavens to witness, that nothing was
farther from his thoughts than to impute a shadow of dishonour to such
an honoured lady, when she stopped him, begging him not to swear; for
although she joyed in him, yet she had no joy of that night's contract:
it was too rash, too unadvised, too sudden. But he being urgent with her
to exchange a vow of love with him that night, she said that she already
had given him hers before he requested it; meaning, when he overheard
her confession; but she would retract what she then bestowed, for the
pleasure of giving it again, for her bounty was as infinite as the sea,
and her love as deep. From this loving conference she was called away by
her nurse, who slept with her, and thought it time for her to be in bed,
for it was near to daybreak; but hastily returning, she said three or
four words more to Romeo, the purport of which was, that if his love was
indeed honourable, and his purpose marriage, she would send a messenger
to him to-morrow, to appoint a time for their marriage, when she would
lay all her fortunes at his feet, and follow him as her lord through the
world. While they were settling this point, Juliet was repeatedly called
for by her nurse, and went in and returned, and went and returned again,
for she seemed as jealous of Romeo going from her, as a young girl of
her bird, which she will let hop a little from her hand, and pluck it
back with a silken thread; and Romeo was as loath to part as she; for
the sweetest music to lovers is the sound of each other's tongues at
night. But at last they parted, wishing mutually sweet sleep and rest
for that night.
[Illustration: AT THE CELL OF FRIAR LAWRENCE]
The day was breaking when they parted, and Romeo, who was too full of
thoughts of his mistress and that blessed meeting to allow him to sleep,
instead of going home, bent his course to a monastery hard by, to find
Friar Lawrence. The good friar was already up at his devotions, but
seeing young Romeo abroad so early, he conjectured rightly that he had
not been abed that night, but that some distemper of youthful affection
had kept him waking. He was right in imputing the cause of Romeo's
wakefulness to love, but he made a wrong guess at the object, for he
thought that his love for Rosaline had kept him waking. But when Romeo
revealed his new passion for Juliet, and requested the assistance of the
friar to marry them that day, the holy man lifted up his eyes and hands
in a sort of wonder at the sudden change in Romeo's affections, for he
had been privy to all Romeo's love for Rosaline, and his many complaints
of her disdain: and he said, that young men's love lay not truly in
their hearts, but in their eyes. But Romeo replying, that he himself had
often chidden him for doting on Rosaline, who could not love him again,
whereas Juliet both loved and was beloved by him, the friar assented in
some measure to his reasons; and thinking that a matrimonial alliance
between young Juliet and Romeo might happily be the means of making up
the long breach between the Capulets and the Montagues; which no one
more lamented than this good friar, who was a friend to both the
families and had often interposed his mediation to make up the quarrel
without effect; partly moved by policy, and partly by his fondness for
young Romeo, to whom he could deny nothing, the old man consented to
join their hands in marriage.
Now was Romeo blessed indeed, and Juliet, who knew his intent from a
messenger which she had despatched according to promise, did not fail to
be early at the cell of Friar Lawrence, where their hands were joined in
holy marriage; the good friar praying the heavens to smile upon that
act, and in the union of this young Montague and young Capulet to bury
the old strife and long dissensions of their families.
The ceremony being over, Juliet hastened home, where she stayed
impatient for the coming of night, at which time Romeo promised to come
and meet her in the orchard, where they had met the night before; and
the time between seemed as tedious to her, as the night before some
great festival seems to an impatient child, that has got new finery
which it may not put on till the morning.
That same day, about noon, Romeo's friends, Benvolio and Mercutio,
walking through the streets of Verona, were met by a party of the
Capulets with the impetuous Tybalt at their head. This was the same
angry Tybalt who would have fought with Romeo at old Lord Capulet's
feast. He, seeing Mercutio, accused him bluntly of associating with
Romeo, a Montague. Mercutio, who had as much fire and youthful blood in
him as Tybalt, replied to this accusation with some sharpness; and in
spite of all Benvolio could say to moderate their wrath, a quarrel was
beginning, when Romeo himself passing that way, the fierce Tybalt turned
from Mercutio to Romeo, and gave him the disgraceful appellation of
villain. Romeo wished to avoid a quarrel with Tybalt above all men,
because he was the kinsman of Juliet, and much beloved by her; besides,
this young Montague had never thoroughly entered into the family
quarrel, being by nature wise and gentle, and the name of a Capulet,
which was his dear lady's name, was now rather a charm to allay
resentment, than a watchword to excite fury. So he tried to reason with
Tybalt, whom he saluted mildly by the name of _good Capulet_, as if he,
though a Montague, had some secret pleasure in uttering that name: but
Tybalt, who hated all Montagues as he hated hell, would hear no reason,
but drew his weapon; and Mercutio, who knew not of Romeo's secret motive
for desiring peace with Tybalt, but looked upon his present forbearance
as a sort of calm dishonourable submission, with many disdainful words
provoked Tybalt to the prosecution of his first quarrel with him; and
Tybalt and Mercutio fought, till Mercutio fell, receiving his death's
wound while Romeo and Benvolio were vainly endeavouring to part the
combatants. Mercutio being dead, Romeo kept his temper no longer, but
returned the scornful appellation of villain which Tybalt had given him;
and they fought till Tybalt was slain by Romeo. This deadly broil
falling out in the midst of Verona at noonday, the news of it quickly
brought a crowd of citizens to the spot, and among them the old Lords
Capulet and Montague, with their wives; and soon after arrived the
prince himself, who being related to Mercutio, whom Tybalt had slain,
and having had the peace of his government often disturbed by these
brawls of Montagues and Capulets, came determined to put the law in
strictest force against those who should be found to be offenders.
Benvolio, who had been eye-witness to the fray, was commanded by the
prince to relate the origin of it; which he did, keeping as near the
truth as he could without injury to Romeo, softening and excusing the
part which his friends took in it. Lady Capulet, whose extreme grief for
the loss of her kinsman Tybalt made her keep no bounds in her revenge,
exhorted the prince to do strict justice upon his murderer, and to pay
no attention to Benvolio's representation, who, being Romeo's friend and
a Montague, spoke partially. Thus she pleaded against her new
son-in-law, but she knew not yet that he was her son-in-law and Juliet's
husband. On the other hand was to be seen Lady Montague pleading for her
child's life, and arguing with some justice that Romeo had done nothing
worthy of punishment in taking the life of Tybalt, which was already
forfeited to the law by his having slain Mercutio. The prince, unmoved
by the passionate exclamations of these women, on a careful examination
of the facts, pronounced his sentence, and by that sentence Romeo was
banished from Verona.
Heavy news to young Juliet, who had been but a few hours a bride, and
now by this decree seemed everlastingly divorced! When the tidings
reached her, she at first gave way to rage against Romeo, who had slain
her dear cousin, she called him a beautiful tyrant, a fiend angelical, a
ravenous dove, a lamb with a wolf's nature, a serpent-heart hid with a
flowering face, and other like contradictory names, which denoted the
struggles in her mind between her love and her resentment: but in the
end love got the mastery, and the tears which she shed for grief that
Romeo had slain her cousin, turned to drops of joy that her husband
lived whom Tybalt would have slain. Then came fresh tears, and they were
altogether of grief for Romeo's banishment. That word was more terrible
to her than the death of many Tybalts.
Romeo, after the fray, had taken refuge in Friar Lawrence's cell, where
he was first made acquainted with the prince's sentence, which seemed to
him far more terrible than death. To him it appeared there was no world
out of Verona's walls, no living out of the sight of Juliet. Heaven was
there where Juliet lived, and all beyond was purgatory, torture, hell.
The good friar would have applied the consolation of philosophy to his
griefs: but this frantic young man would hear of none, but like a madman
he tore his hair, and threw himself all along upon the ground, as he
said, to take the measure of his grave. From this unseemly state he was
roused by a message from his dear lady, which a little revived him; and
then the friar took the advantage to expostulate with him on the unmanly
weakness which he had shown. He had slain Tybalt, but would he also slay
himself, slay his dear lady, who lived but in his life? The noble form
of man, he said, was but a shape of wax, when it wanted the courage
which should keep it firm. The law had been lenient to him, that instead
of death, which he had incurred, had pronounced by the prince's mouth
only banishment. He had slain Tybalt, but Tybalt would have slain him:
there was a sort of happiness in that. Juliet was alive, and (beyond all
hope) had become his dear wife; therein he was most happy. All these
blessings, as the friar made them out to be, did Romeo put from him
like a sullen misbehaved wench. And the friar bade him beware, for such
as despaired (he said) died miserable. Then when Romeo was a little
calmed, he counselled him that he should go that night and secretly take
his leave of Juliet, and thence proceed straightways to Mantua, at which
place he should sojourn, till the friar found fit occasion to publish
his marriage, which might be a joyful means of reconciling their
families; and then he did not doubt but the prince would be moved to
pardon him, and he would return with twenty times more joy than he went
forth with grief. Romeo was convinced by these wise counsels of the
friar, and took his leave to go and seek his lady, proposing to stay
with her that night, and by daybreak pursue his journey alone to Mantua;
to which place the good friar promised to send him letters from time to
time, acquainting him with the state of affairs at home.
That night Romeo passed with his dear wife, gaining secret admission to
her chamber, from the orchard in which he had heard her confession of
love the night before. That had been a night of unmixed joy and rapture;
but the pleasures of this night, and the delight which these lovers took
in each other's society, were sadly allayed with the prospect of
parting, and the fatal adventures of the past day. The unwelcome
daybreak seemed to come too soon, and when Juliet heard the morning song
of the lark, she would have persuaded herself that it was the
nightingale, which sings by night; but it was too truly the lark which
sang, and a discordant and unpleasing note it seemed to her; and the
streaks of day in the east too certainly pointed out that it was time
for these lovers to part. Romeo took his leave of his dear wife with a
heavy heart, promising to write to her from Mantua every hour in the
day; and when he had descended from her chamber-window, as he stood
below her on the ground, in that sad foreboding state of mind in which
she was, he appeared to her eyes as one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Romeo's mind misgave him in like manner: but now he was forced hastily
to depart, for it was death for him to be found within the walls of
Verona after daybreak.
This was but the beginning of the tragedy of this pair of star-crossed
lovers. Romeo had not been gone many days, before the old Lord Capulet
proposed a match for Juliet. The husband he had chosen for her, not
dreaming that she was married already, was Count Paris, a gallant,
young, and noble gentleman, no unworthy suitor to the young Juliet, if
she had never seen Romeo.
The terrified Juliet was in a sad perplexity at her father's offer. She
pleaded her youth unsuitable to marriage, the recent death of Tybalt,
which had left her spirits too weak to meet a husband with any face of
joy, and how indecorous it would show for the family of the Capulets to
be celebrating a nuptial feast, when his funeral solemnities were hardly
over: she pleaded every reason against the match, but the true one,
namely, that she was married already. But Lord Capulet was deaf to all
her excuses, and in a peremptory manner ordered her to get ready, for by
the following Thursday she should be married to Paris: and having found
her a husband, rich, young, and noble, such as the proudest maid in
Verona might joyfully accept, he could not bear that out of an affected
coyness, as he construed her denial, she should oppose obstacles to her
own good fortune.
In this extremity Juliet applied to the friendly friar, always her
counsellor in distress, and he asking her if she had resolution to
undertake a desperate remedy, and she answering that she would go into
the grave alive rather than marry Paris, her own dear husband living; he
directed her to go home, and appear merry, and give her consent to marry
Paris, according to her father's desire, and on the next night, which
was the night before the marriage, to drink off the contents of a phial
which he then gave her, the effect of which would be that for
two-and-forty hours after drinking it she should appear cold and
lifeless; and when the bridegroom came to fetch her in the morning, he
would find her to appearance dead; that then she would be borne, as the
manner in that country was, uncovered on a bier, to be buried in the
family vault; that if she could put off womanish fear, and consent to
this terrible trial, in forty-two hours after swallowing the liquid
(such was its certain operation) she would be sure to awake, as from a
dream; and before she should awake, he would let her husband know their
drift, and he should come in the night, and bear her thence to Mantua.
Love, and the dread of marrying Paris, gave young Juliet strength to
undertake this horrible adventure; and she took the phial of the friar,
promising to observe his directions.
Going from the monastery, she met the young Count Paris, and modestly
dissembling, promised to become his bride. This was joyful news to the
Lord Capulet and his wife. It seemed to put youth into the old man; and
Juliet, who had displeased him exceedingly, by her refusal of the count,
was his darling again, now she promised to be obedient. All things in
the house were in a bustle against the approaching nuptials. No cost was
spared to prepare such festival rejoicings as Verona had never before
witnessed.
On the Wednesday night Juliet drank off the potion. She had many
misgivings lest the friar, to avoid the blame which might be imputed to
him for marrying her to Romeo, had given her poison; but then he was
always known for a holy man: then lest she should awake before the time
that Romeo was to come for her; whether the terror of the place, a vault
full of dead Capulets' bones, and where Tybalt, all bloody, lay
festering in his shroud, would not be enough to drive her distracted:
again she thought of all the stories she had heard of spirits haunting
the places where their bodies were bestowed. But then her love for
Romeo, and her aversion for Paris returned, and she desperately
swallowed the draught, and became insensible.
When young Paris came early in the morning with music to awaken his
bride, instead of a living Juliet, her chamber presented the dreary
spectacle of a lifeless corse. What death to his hopes! What confusion
then reigned through the whole house! Poor Paris lamenting his bride,
whom most detestable death had beguiled him of, had divorced from him
even before their hands were joined. But still more piteous it was to
hear the mournings of the old Lord and Lady Capulet, who having but this
one, one poor loving child to rejoice and solace in, cruel death had
snatched her from their sight, just as these careful parents were on the
point of seeing her advanced (as they thought) by a promising and
advantageous match. Now all things that were ordained for the festival
were turned from their properties to do the office of a black funeral.
The wedding cheer served for a sad burial feast, the bridal hymns were
changed for sullen dirges, the sprightly instruments to melancholy
bells, and the flowers that should have been strewed in the bride's
path, now served but to strew her corse. Now, instead of a priest to
marry her, a priest was needed to bury her; and she was borne to church
indeed, not to augment the cheerful hopes of the living, but to swell
the dreary numbers of the dead.
Bad news, which always travels faster than good, now brought the dismal
story of his Juliet's death to Romeo, at Mantua, before the messenger
could arrive, who was sent from Friar Lawrence to apprise him that these
were mock funerals only, and but the shadow and representation of death,
and that his dear lady lay in the tomb but for a short while, expecting
when Romeo would come to release her from that dreary mansion. Just
before, Romeo had been unusually joyful and light-hearted. He had
dreamed in the night that he was dead (a strange dream, that gave a dead
man leave to think), and that his lady came and found him dead, and
breathed such life with kisses in his lips, that he revived, and was an
emperor! And now that a messenger came from Verona, he thought surely it
was to confirm some good news which his dreams had presaged. But when
the contrary to this flattering vision appeared, and that it was his
lady who was dead in truth, whom he could not revive by any kisses, he
ordered horses to be got ready, for he determined that night to visit
Verona, and to see his lady in her tomb. And as mischief is swift to
enter into the thoughts of desperate men, he called to mind a poor
apothecary, whose shop in Mantua he had lately passed, and from the
beggarly appearance of the man, who seemed famished, and the wretched
show in his show of empty boxes ranged on dirty shelves, and other
tokens of extreme wretchedness, he had said at the time (perhaps having
some misgivings that his own disastrous life might haply meet with a
conclusion so desperate), "If a man were to need poison, which by the
law of Mantua it is death to sell, here lives a poor wretch who would
sell it him." These words of his now came into his mind, and he sought
out the apothecary, who after some pretended scruples, Romeo offering
him gold, which his poverty could not resist, sold him a poison, which,
if he swallowed, he told him, if he had the strength of twenty men,
would quickly despatch him.
With this poison he set out for Verona, to have a sight of his dear lady
in her tomb, meaning, when he had satisfied his sight, to swallow the
poison, and be buried by her side. He reached Verona at midnight, and
found the churchyard, in the midst of which was situated the ancient
tomb of the Capulets. He had provided a light, and a spade, and
wrenching iron, and was proceeding to break open the monument, when he
was interrupted by a voice, which by the name of _vile Montague_, bade
him desist from his unlawful business. It was the young Count Paris, who
had come to the tomb of Juliet at that unseasonable time of night, to
strew flowers and to weep over the grave of her that should have been
his bride. He knew not what an interest Romeo had in the dead, but
knowing him to be a Montague, and (as he supposed) a sworn foe to all
the Capulets, he judged that he was come by night to do some villanous
shame to the dead bodies; therefore in an angry tone he bade him desist;
and as a criminal, condemned by the laws of Verona to die if he were
found within the walls of the city, he would have apprehended him. Romeo
urged Paris to leave him, and warned him by the fate of Tybalt, who lay
buried there, not to provoke his anger, or draw down another sin upon
his head, by forcing him to kill him. But the count in scorn refused his
warning, and laid hands on him as a felon, which Romeo resisting, they
fought, and Paris fell. When Romeo, by the help of a light, came to see
who it was that he had slain, that it was Paris, who (he learned in his
way from Mantua) should have married Juliet, he took the dead youth by
the hand, as one whom misfortune had made a companion, and said that he
would bury him in a triumphal grave, meaning in Juliet's grave, which he
now opened: and there lay his lady, as one whom death had no power upon
to change a feature or complexion, in her matchless beauty; or as if
Death were amorous, and the lean abhorred monster kept her there for his
delight; for she lay yet fresh and blooming, as she had fallen to sleep
when she swallowed that benumbing potion; and near her lay Tybalt in his
bloody shroud, whom Romeo seeing, begged pardon of his lifeless corse,
and for Juliet's sake called him _cousin_, and said that he was about to
do him a favour by putting his enemy to death. Here Romeo took his last
leave of his lady's lips, kissing them; and here he shook the burden of
his cross stars from his weary body, swallowing that poison which the
apothecary had sold him, whose operation was fatal and real, not like
that dissembling potion which Juliet had swallowed, the effect of which
was now nearly expiring, and she about to awake to complain that Romeo
had not kept his time, or that he had come too soon.
For now the hour was arrived at which the friar had promised that she
should awake; and he, having learned that his letters which he had sent
to Mantua, by some unlucky detention of the messenger, had never reached
Romeo, came himself, provided with a pickaxe and lantern, to deliver the
lady from her confinement; but he was surprised to find a light already
burning in the Capulets' monument, and to see swords and blood near it,
and Romeo and Paris lying breathless by the monument.
Before he could entertain a conjecture, to imagine how these fatal
accidents had fallen out, Juliet awoke out of her trance, and seeing the
friar near her, she remembered the place where she was, and the occasion
of her being there, and asked for Romeo, but the friar, hearing a noise,
bade her come out of that place of death, and of unnatural sleep, for a
greater power than they could contradict had thwarted their intents; and
being frightened by the noise of people coming, he fled: but when Juliet
saw the cup closed in her true love's hands, she guessed that poison had
been the cause of his end, and she would have swallowed the dregs if any
had been left, and she kissed his still warm lips to try if any poison
yet did hang upon them; then hearing a nearer noise of people coming,
she quickly unsheathed a dagger which she wore, and stabbing herself,
died by her true Romeo's side.
The watch by this time had come up to the place. A page belonging to
Count Paris, who had witnessed the fight between his master and Romeo,
had given the alarm, which had spread among the citizens, who went up
and down the streets of Verona confusedly exclaiming, A Paris! a Romeo!
a Juliet! as the rumour had imperfectly reached them, till the uproar
brought Lord Montague and Lord Capulet out of their beds, with the
prince, to inquire into the causes of the disturbance. The friar had
been apprehended by some of the watch, coming from the churchyard,
trembling, sighing, and weeping, in a suspicious manner. A great
multitude being assembled at the Capulets' monument, the friar was
demanded by the prince to deliver what he knew of these strange and
disastrous accidents.