Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.
ROMEO.
Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Enter Juliet.
Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.
A lover may bestride the gossamers
That idles in the wanton summer air
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.
JULIET.
Good even to my ghostly confessor.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.
JULIET.
As much to him, else is his thanks too much.
ROMEO.
Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heap’d like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue
Unfold the imagin’d happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.
JULIET.
Conceit more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars that can count their worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, come with me, and we will make short work,
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
Till holy church incorporate two in one.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT III
SCENE I. A public Place.
Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, Page and Servants.
BENVOLIO.
I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,
For now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.
MERCUTIO.
Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the confines of
a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says ‘God send me no
need of thee!’ and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the
drawer, when indeed there is no need.
BENVOLIO.
Am I like such a fellow?
MERCUTIO.
Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as
soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.
BENVOLIO.
And what to?
MERCUTIO.
Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would
kill the other. Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a
hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel
with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou
hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?
Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy
head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast
quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath
wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall
out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with
another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt
tutor me from quarrelling!
BENVOLIO.
And I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee
simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.
MERCUTIO.
The fee simple! O simple!
Enter Tybalt and others.
BENVOLIO.
By my head, here comes the Capulets.
MERCUTIO.
By my heel, I care not.
TYBALT.
Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good-den: a word with one of you.
MERCUTIO.
And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a
word and a blow.
TYBALT.
You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me
occasion.
MERCUTIO.
Could you not take some occasion without giving?
TYBALT.
Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.
MERCUTIO.
Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of
us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s
that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!
BENVOLIO.
We talk here in the public haunt of men.
Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.
MERCUTIO.
Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.
Enter Romeo.
TYBALT.
Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.
MERCUTIO.
But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.
Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower;
Your worship in that sense may call him man.
TYBALT.
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this: Thou art a villain.
ROMEO.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.
TYBALT.
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.
ROMEO.
I do protest I never injur’d thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love.
And so good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.
MERCUTIO.
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
[_Draws._] Alla stoccata carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?
TYBALT.
What wouldst thou have with me?
MERCUTIO.
Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to
make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest
of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears?
Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.
TYBALT.
[_Drawing._] I am for you.
ROMEO.
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
MERCUTIO.
Come, sir, your passado.
[_They fight._]
ROMEO.
Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage,
Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath
Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!
[_Exeunt Tybalt with his Partizans._]
MERCUTIO.
I am hurt.
A plague o’ both your houses. I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?
BENVOLIO.
What, art thou hurt?
MERCUTIO.
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough.
Where is my page? Go villain, fetch a surgeon.
[_Exit Page._]
ROMEO.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO.
No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis
enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a
grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both
your houses. Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to
death. A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
arithmetic!—Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your
arm.
ROMEO.
I thought all for the best.
MERCUTIO.
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses.
They have made worms’ meat of me.
I have it, and soundly too. Your houses!
[_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]
ROMEO.
This gentleman, the Prince’s near ally,
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation stain’d
With Tybalt’s slander,—Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my cousin. O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel.
Re-enter Benvolio.
BENVOLIO.
O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio’s dead,
That gallant spirit hath aspir’d the clouds,
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.
ROMEO.
This day’s black fate on mo days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.
Re-enter Tybalt.
BENVOLIO.
Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.
ROMEO.
Again in triumph, and Mercutio slain?
Away to heaven respective lenity,
And fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now!
Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again
That late thou gav’st me, for Mercutio’s soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company.
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.
TYBALT.
Thou wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence.
ROMEO.
This shall determine that.
[_They fight; Tybalt falls._]
BENVOLIO.
Romeo, away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
Stand not amaz’d. The Prince will doom thee death
If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!
ROMEO.
O, I am fortune’s fool!
BENVOLIO.
Why dost thou stay?
[_Exit Romeo._]
Enter Citizens.
FIRST CITIZEN.
Which way ran he that kill’d Mercutio?
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?
BENVOLIO.
There lies that Tybalt.
FIRST CITIZEN.
Up, sir, go with me.
I charge thee in the Prince’s name obey.
Enter Prince, attended; Montague, Capulet, their Wives and others.
PRINCE.
Where are the vile beginners of this fray?
BENVOLIO.
O noble Prince, I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.
LADY CAPULET.
Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother’s child!
O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill’d
Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,
For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.
O cousin, cousin.
PRINCE.
Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?
BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay;
Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink
How nice the quarrel was, and urg’d withal
Your high displeasure. All this uttered
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow’d
Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,
‘Hold, friends! Friends, part!’ and swifter than his tongue,
His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled.
But by and by comes back to Romeo,
Who had but newly entertain’d revenge,
And to’t they go like lightning; for, ere I
Could draw to part them was stout Tybalt slain;
And as he fell did Romeo turn and fly.
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.
LADY CAPULET.
He is a kinsman to the Montague.
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.
Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
And all those twenty could but kill one life.
I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give;
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.
PRINCE.
Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio.
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?
MONTAGUE.
Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend;
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.
PRINCE.
And for that offence
Immediately we do exile him hence.
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding.
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body, and attend our will.
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Enter Juliet.
JULIET.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a waggoner
As Phaeton 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, grow 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 upon a raven’s back.
Come gentle night, come loving black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo, and when I 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. So tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my Nurse,
And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.
Enter Nurse, with cords.
Now, Nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?
NURSE.
Ay, ay, the cords.
[_Throws them down._]
JULIET.
Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?
NURSE.
Ah, well-a-day, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone.
Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead.
JULIET.
Can heaven be so envious?
NURSE.
Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo.
Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!
JULIET.
What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but Ay,
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
I am not I if there be such an I;
Or those eyes shut that make thee answer Ay.
If he be slain, say Ay; or if not, No.
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
NURSE.
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.
JULIET.
O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, break at once.
To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.
Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.
NURSE.
O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had.
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead.
JULIET.
What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead?
My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?
NURSE.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.
JULIET.
O God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?
NURSE.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did.
JULIET.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.
NURSE.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo.
JULIET.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
NURSE.
Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?
JULIET.
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three-hours’ wife have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you mistaking offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
That murder’d me. I would forget it fain,
But O, it presses to my memory
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.
That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there.
Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
Why follow’d not, when she said Tybalt’s dead,
Thy father or thy mother, nay or both,
Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?
But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death,
‘Romeo is banished’—to speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. Romeo is banished,
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.
Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?
NURSE.
Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse.
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
JULIET.
Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exil’d.
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come cords, come Nurse, I’ll to my wedding bed,
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.
NURSE.
Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo
To comfort you. I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.
I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.
JULIET.
O find him, give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.
Enter Friar Lawrence.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.
Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts
And thou art wedded to calamity.
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company.
I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.
ROMEO.
What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.
ROMEO.
Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say banishment.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hence from Verona art thou banished.
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
ROMEO.
There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence banished is banish’d from the world,
And world’s exile is death. Then banished
Is death misterm’d. Calling death banished,
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath brush’d aside the law,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment.
This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.
ROMEO.
’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
They are free men but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
To mangle me with that word banished?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Thou fond mad man, hear me speak a little,
ROMEO.
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
ROMEO.
Yet banished? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, then I see that mad men have no ears.
ROMEO.
How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO.
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
[_Knocking within._]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.
ROMEO.
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.
[_Knocking._]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise,
Thou wilt be taken.—Stay awhile.—Stand up.
[_Knocking._]
Run to my study.—By-and-by.—God’s will,
What simpleness is this.—I come, I come.
[_Knocking._]
Who knocks so hard? Whence come you, what’s your will?
NURSE.
[_Within._] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.
I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Welcome then.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE.
O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
NURSE.
O, he is even in my mistress’ case.
Just in her case! O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament. Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man.
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
ROMEO.
Nurse.
NURSE.
Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.
ROMEO.
Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
With blood remov’d but little from her own?
Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?
NURSE.
O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
ROMEO.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
[_Drawing his sword._]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold thy desperate hand.
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz’d me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?
Since birth, and heaven and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy.
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.
A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But like a misshaped and sullen wench,
Thou putt’st up thy Fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.
NURSE.
O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.
ROMEO.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
NURSE.
Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
[_Exit._]
ROMEO.
How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go hence, good night, and here stands all your state:
Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand; ’tis late; farewell; good night.
ROMEO.
But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and Paris.
CAPULET.
Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily
That we have had no time to move our daughter.
Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I. Well, we were born to die.
’Tis very late; she’ll not come down tonight.
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been abed an hour ago.
PARIS.
These times of woe afford no tune to woo.
Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.
LADY CAPULET.
I will, and know her mind early tomorrow;
Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.
CAPULET.
Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child’s love. I think she will be rul’d
In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed,
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love,
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next,
But, soft, what day is this?
PARIS.
Monday, my lord.
CAPULET.
Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
A Thursday let it be; a Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?
We’ll keep no great ado,—a friend or two,
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much.
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?
PARIS.
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.
CAPULET.
Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.
Farewell, my lord.—Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me, it is so very very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.
Enter Romeo and Juliet.
JULIET.
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET.
Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhales
To be to thee this night a torchbearer
And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.
ROMEO.
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death,
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.
Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go.
Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.
JULIET.
It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes.
O, now I would they had chang’d voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O now be gone, more light and light it grows.
ROMEO.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE.
Madam.
JULIET.
Nurse?
NURSE.
Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.
The day is broke, be wary, look about.
[_Exit._]
JULIET.
Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
ROMEO.
Farewell, farewell, one kiss, and I’ll descend.
[_Descends._]
JULIET.
Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay husband, friend,
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days.
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo.
ROMEO.
Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
JULIET.
O thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO.
I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
JULIET.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.
ROMEO.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.
[_Exit below._]
JULIET.
O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle,
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune;
For then, I hope thou wilt not keep him long
But send him back.
LADY CAPULET.
[_Within._] Ho, daughter, are you up?
JULIET.
Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET.
Why, how now, Juliet?
JULIET.
Madam, I am not well.
LADY CAPULET.
Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.
Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love,
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
JULIET.
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
LADY CAPULET.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.
JULIET.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
LADY CAPULET.
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death
As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.
JULIET.
What villain, madam?
LADY CAPULET.
That same villain Romeo.
JULIET.
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
God pardon him. I do, with all my heart.
And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
LADY CAPULET.
That is because the traitor murderer lives.
JULIET.
Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands.
Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.
LADY CAPULET.
We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.
JULIET.
Indeed I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d.
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it,
That Romeo should upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.
LADY CAPULET.
Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
JULIET.
And joy comes well in such a needy time.
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
LADY CAPULET.
Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
One who to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.
JULIET.
Madam, in happy time, what day is that?
LADY CAPULET.
Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
JULIET.
Now by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste, that I must wed
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.
LADY CAPULET.
Here comes your father, tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.
Enter Capulet and Nurse.
CAPULET.
When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother’s son
It rains downright.
How now? A conduit, girl? What, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind.
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood, the winds, thy sighs,
Who raging with thy tears and they with them,
Without a sudden calm will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?
Have you deliver’d to her our decree?
LADY CAPULET.
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave.
CAPULET.
Soft. Take me with you, take me with you, wife.
How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
JULIET.
Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.
Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate that is meant love.
CAPULET.
How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this?
Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not;
And yet not proud. Mistress minion you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next
To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!
LADY CAPULET.
Fie, fie! What, are you mad?
JULIET.
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
CAPULET.
Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That God had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her.
Out on her, hilding.
NURSE.
God in heaven bless her.
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
CAPULET.
And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
NURSE.
I speak no treason.
CAPULET.
O God ye good-en!
NURSE.
May not one speak?
CAPULET.
Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,
For here we need it not.
LADY CAPULET.
You are too hot.
CAPULET.
God’s bread, it makes me mad!
Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match’d, and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied,
Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man,
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love,
I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’
But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you.
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.
Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise.
And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.
[_Exit._]
JULIET.
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O sweet my mother, cast me not away,
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
LADY CAPULET.
Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
[_Exit._]
JULIET.
O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself.
What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, Nurse.
NURSE.
Faith, here it is.
Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing
That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you.
Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the County.
O, he’s a lovely gentleman.
Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.
JULIET.
Speakest thou from thy heart?
NURSE.
And from my soul too,
Or else beshrew them both.
JULIET.
Amen.
NURSE.
What?
JULIET.
Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in, and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell,
To make confession and to be absolv’d.
NURSE.
Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
[_Exit._]
JULIET.
Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais’d him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy.
If all else fail, myself have power to die.
[_Exit._]
ACT IV
SCENE I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.
PARIS.
My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course; I like it not.
PARIS.
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she do give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears,
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
[_Aside._] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.—
Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.
Enter Juliet.
PARIS.
Happily met, my lady and my wife!
JULIET.
That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
PARIS.
That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.
JULIET.
What must be shall be.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s a certain text.
PARIS.
Come you to make confession to this father?
JULIET.
To answer that, I should confess to you.
PARIS.
Do not deny to him that you love me.
JULIET.
I will confess to you that I love him.
PARIS.
So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
JULIET.
If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back than to your face.
PARIS.
Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears.
JULIET.
The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.
PARIS.
Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.
JULIET.
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
PARIS.
Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.
JULIET.
It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
PARIS.
God shield I should disturb devotion!—
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye,
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
[_Exit._]
JULIET.
O shut the door, and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this County.
JULIET.
Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
If in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel, or behold
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it.
And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.
JULIET.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower,
Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk
Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble,
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow;
Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest,
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part depriv’d of supple government,
Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death.
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
Then as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes, uncover’d, on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come, and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
JULIET.
Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear!
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.
JULIET.
Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse and Servants.
CAPULET.
So many guests invite as here are writ.
[_Exit first Servant._]
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.
SECOND SERVANT.
You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their
fingers.
CAPULET.
How canst thou try them so?
SECOND SERVANT.
Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers;
therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.
CAPULET.
Go, begone.
[_Exit second Servant._]
We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time.
What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?
NURSE.
Ay, forsooth.
CAPULET.
Well, he may chance to do some good on her.
A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.
Enter Juliet.
NURSE.
See where she comes from shrift with merry look.
CAPULET.
How now, my headstrong. Where have you been gadding?
JULIET.
Where I have learnt me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d
By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here,
To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you.
Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you.
CAPULET.
Send for the County, go tell him of this.
I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.
JULIET.
I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell,
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.
CAPULET.
Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up.
This is as’t should be. Let me see the County.
Ay, marry. Go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now afore God, this reverend holy Friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.
JULIET.
Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?
LADY CAPULET.
No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.
CAPULET.
Go, Nurse, go with her. We’ll to church tomorrow.
[_Exeunt Juliet and Nurse._]
LADY CAPULET.
We shall be short in our provision,
’Tis now near night.
CAPULET.
Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.
I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone.
I’ll play the housewife for this once.—What, ho!—
They are all forth: well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare him up
Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Juliet’s Chamber.
Enter Juliet and Nurse.
JULIET.
Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin.
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET.
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?
JULIET.
No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you,
For I am sure you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business.
LADY CAPULET.
Good night.
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.
[_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]
JULIET.
Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
[_Laying down her dagger._]
What if it be a poison, which the Friar
Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink! I drink to thee.
[_Throws herself on the bed._]
SCENE IV. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.
LADY CAPULET.
Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, Nurse.
NURSE.
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.
Enter Capulet.
CAPULET.
Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow’d,
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.
Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica;
Spare not for cost.
NURSE.
Go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow
For this night’s watching.
CAPULET.
No, not a whit. What! I have watch’d ere now
All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.
LADY CAPULET.
Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;
But I will watch you from such watching now.
[_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]
CAPULET.
A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!
Enter Servants, with spits, logs and baskets.
Now, fellow, what’s there?
FIRST SERVANT.
Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.
CAPULET.
Make haste, make haste.
[_Exit First Servant._]
—Sirrah, fetch drier logs.
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.
SECOND SERVANT.
I have a head, sir, that will find out logs
And never trouble Peter for the matter.
[_Exit._]
CAPULET.
Mass and well said; a merry whoreson, ha.
Thou shalt be loggerhead.—Good faith, ’tis day.
The County will be here with music straight,
For so he said he would. I hear him near.
[_Play music._]
Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, Nurse, I say!
Re-enter Nurse.
Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up.
I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,
Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already.
Make haste I say.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE.
Mistress! What, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.
Why, lamb, why, lady, fie, you slug-abed!
Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweetheart! Why, bride!
What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now.
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The County Paris hath set up his rest
That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!
Marry and amen. How sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the County take you in your bed,
He’ll fright you up, i’faith. Will it not be?
What, dress’d, and in your clothes, and down again?
I must needs wake you. Lady! Lady! Lady!
Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead!
O, well-a-day that ever I was born.
Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET.
What noise is here?
NURSE.
O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET.
What is the matter?
NURSE.
Look, look! O heavy day!
LADY CAPULET.
O me, O me! My child, my only life.
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee.
Help, help! Call help.
Enter Capulet.
CAPULET.
For shame, bring Juliet forth, her lord is come.
NURSE.
She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s dead; alack the day!
LADY CAPULET.
Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!
CAPULET.
Ha! Let me see her. Out alas! She’s cold,
Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
NURSE.
O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET.
O woful time!
CAPULET.
Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.
Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris with Musicians.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
CAPULET.
Ready to go, but never to return.
O son, the night before thy wedding day
Hath death lain with thy bride. There she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir;
My daughter he hath wedded. I will die
And leave him all; life, living, all is death’s.
PARIS.
Have I thought long to see this morning’s face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?
LADY CAPULET.
Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day.
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage.
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight.
NURSE.
O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day.
Most lamentable day, most woeful day
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day, O day, O day, O hateful day.
Never was seen so black a day as this.
O woeful day, O woeful day.
PARIS.
Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain.
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d,
By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown.
O love! O life! Not life, but love in death!
CAPULET.
Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d.
Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?
O child! O child! My soul, and not my child,
Dead art thou. Alack, my child is dead,
And with my child my joys are buried.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Peace, ho, for shame. Confusion’s cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid.
Your part in her you could not keep from death,
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion,
For ’twas your heaven she should be advanc’d,
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill
That you run mad, seeing that she is well.
She’s not well married that lives married long,
But she’s best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,
And in her best array bear her to church;
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.
CAPULET.
All things that we ordained festival
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,
And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave.
The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;
Move them no more by crossing their high will.
[_Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar._]
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.
NURSE.
Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up,
For well you know this is a pitiful case.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
[_Exit Nurse._]
Enter Peter.
PETER.
Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’ ‘Heart’s ease’, O, and you
will have me live, play ‘Heart’s ease.’
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Why ‘Heart’s ease’?
PETER.
O musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is full’. O play
me some merry dump to comfort me.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Not a dump we, ’tis no time to play now.
PETER.
You will not then?
FIRST MUSICIAN.
No.
PETER.
I will then give it you soundly.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
What will you give us?
PETER.
No money, on my faith, but the gleek! I will give you the minstrel.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Then will I give you the serving-creature.
PETER.
Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will
carry no crotchets. I’ll re you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?
FIRST MUSICIAN.
And you re us and fa us, you note us.
SECOND MUSICIAN.
Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.
PETER.
Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and
put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.
‘When griping griefs the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound’—
Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’? What say you,
Simon Catling?
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
PETER.
Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
SECOND MUSICIAN.
I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.
PETER.
Prates too! What say you, James Soundpost?
THIRD MUSICIAN.
Faith, I know not what to say.
PETER.
O, I cry you mercy, you are the singer. I will say for you. It is
‘music with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for
sounding.
‘Then music with her silver sound
With speedy help doth lend redress.’
[_Exit._]
FIRST MUSICIAN.
What a pestilent knave is this same!
SECOND MUSICIAN.
Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay
dinner.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT V
SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,—
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv’d, and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.
Enter Balthasar.
News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.
BALTHASAR.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
ROMEO.
Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.
BALTHASAR.
I do beseech you sir, have patience.
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.
ROMEO.
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?
BALTHASAR.
No, my good lord.
ROMEO.
No matter. Get thee gone,
And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight.
[_Exit Balthasar._]
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
Let’s see for means. O mischief thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples, meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.
What, ho! Apothecary!
Enter Apothecary.
APOTHECARY.
Who calls so loud?
ROMEO.
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.
Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
APOTHECARY.
Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.
ROMEO.
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear’st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it and take this.
APOTHECARY.
My poverty, but not my will consents.
ROMEO.
I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
APOTHECARY.
Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
ROMEO.
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Enter Friar John.
FRIAR JOHN.
Holy Franciscan Friar! Brother, ho!
Enter Friar Lawrence.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
This same should be the voice of Friar John.
Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
FRIAR JOHN.
Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth,
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
FRIAR JOHN.
I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge,
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,
Get me an iron crow and bring it straight
Unto my cell.
FRIAR JOHN.
Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.
[_Exit._]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now must I to the monument alone.
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come.
Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb.
[_Exit._]
SCENE III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.
Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.
PARIS.
Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof.
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,
Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear’st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
PAGE.
[_Aside._] I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.
[_Retires._]
PARIS.
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans.
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
[_The Page whistles._]
The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?
What, with a torch! Muffle me, night, awhile.
[_Retires._]
Enter Romeo and Balthasar with a torch, mattock, &c.
ROMEO.
Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death
Is partly to behold my lady’s face,
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
BALTHASAR.
I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
ROMEO.
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.
Live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.
BALTHASAR.
For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout.
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
[_Retires_]
ROMEO.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
[_Breaking open the door of the monument._]
And in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food.
PARIS.
This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died,—
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.
[_Advances._]
Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague.
Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.
Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.
ROMEO.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.
Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O be gone.
By heaven I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm’d against myself.
Stay not, be gone, live, and hereafter say,
A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.
PARIS.
I do defy thy conjuration,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.
ROMEO.
Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!
[_They fight._]
PAGE.
O lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.
[_Exit._]
PARIS.
O, I am slain! [_Falls._] If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
[_Dies._]
ROMEO.
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet.
Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book.
I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
A grave? O no, a lantern, slaught’red youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.
[_Laying Paris in the monument._]
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! Which their keepers call
A lightning before death. O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife,
Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquer’d. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that I still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again. Here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide.
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
Here’s to my love! [_Drinks._] O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[_Dies._]
Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar Lawrence, with a
lantern, crow, and spade.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Saint Francis be my speed. How oft tonight
Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who’s there?
Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?
BALTHASAR.
Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,
It burneth in the Capels’ monument.
BALTHASAR.
It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,
One that you love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who is it?
BALTHASAR.
Romeo.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
How long hath he been there?
BALTHASAR.
Full half an hour.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go with me to the vault.
BALTHASAR.
I dare not, sir;
My master knows not but I am gone hence,
And fearfully did menace me with death
If I did stay to look on his intents.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me.
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.
BALTHASAR.
As I did sleep under this yew tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo! [_Advances._]
Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?
[_Enters the monument._]
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?
And steep’d in blood? Ah what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance?
The lady stirs.
[_Juliet wakes and stirs._]
JULIET.
O comfortable Friar, where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
[_Noise within._]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.
Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.
JULIET.
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
[_Exit Friar Lawrence._]
What’s here? A cup clos’d in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl. Drink all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.
[_Kisses him._]
Thy lips are warm!
FIRST WATCH.
[_Within._] Lead, boy. Which way?
JULIET.
Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger.
[_Snatching Romeo’s dagger._]
This is thy sheath. [_stabs herself_] There rest, and let me die.
[_Falls on Romeo’s body and dies._]
Enter Watch with the Page of Paris.
PAGE.
This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.
FIRST WATCH.
The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.
Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach.
[_Exeunt some of the Watch._]
Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain this two days buried.
Go tell the Prince; run to the Capulets.
Raise up the Montagues, some others search.
[_Exeunt others of the Watch._]
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.
Re-enter some of the Watch with Balthasar.
SECOND WATCH.
Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard.
FIRST WATCH.
Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.
Re-enter others of the Watch with Friar Lawrence.
THIRD WATCH. Here is a Friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.
We took this mattock and this spade from him
As he was coming from this churchyard side.
FIRST WATCH.
A great suspicion. Stay the Friar too.
Enter the Prince and Attendants.
PRINCE.
What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning’s rest?
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and others.
CAPULET.
What should it be that they so shriek abroad?
LADY CAPULET.
O the people in the street cry Romeo,
Some Juliet, and some Paris, and all run
With open outcry toward our monument.
PRINCE.
What fear is this which startles in our ears?
FIRST WATCH.
Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,
And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill’d.
PRINCE.
Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.
FIRST WATCH.
Here is a Friar, and slaughter’d Romeo’s man,
With instruments upon them fit to open
These dead men’s tombs.
CAPULET.
O heaven! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,
And it mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.
LADY CAPULET.
O me! This sight of death is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
Enter Montague and others.
PRINCE.
Come, Montague, for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.
MONTAGUE.
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath.
What further woe conspires against mine age?
PRINCE.
Look, and thou shalt see.
MONTAGUE.
O thou untaught! What manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?
PRINCE.
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent,
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder.
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excus’d.
PRINCE.
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,
And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife.
I married them; and their stol’n marriage day
Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death
Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin’d.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth’d, and would have married her perforce
To County Paris. Then comes she to me,
And with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutored by my art,
A sleeping potion, which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo
That he should hither come as this dire night
To help to take her from her borrow’d grave,
Being the time the potion’s force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stay’d by accident; and yesternight
Return’d my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking
Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault,
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
But when I came, some minute ere the time
Of her awaking, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth
And bear this work of heaven with patience.
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
Her Nurse is privy. And if ought in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific’d, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
PRINCE.
We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?
BALTHASAR.
I brought my master news of Juliet’s death,
And then in post he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father,
And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.
PRINCE.
Give me the letter, I will look on it.
Where is the County’s Page that rais’d the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
PAGE.
He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave,
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb,
And by and by my master drew on him,
And then I ran away to call the watch.
PRINCE.
This letter doth make good the Friar’s words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death.
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague,
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.
CAPULET.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand.
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.
MONTAGUE.
But I can give thee more,
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
CAPULET.
As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.
PRINCE.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
[_Exeunt._]