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 revoltTurn 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 knifeShall play the empire, arbitrating thatWhich the commission of thy years and artCould 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 executionAs that is desperate which we would prevent.If, rather than to marry County ParisThou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,Then is it likely thou wilt undertakeA 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 lurkWhere 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 consentTo 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 runA cold and drowsy humour; for no pulseShall keep his native progress, but surcease.No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest,The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fadeTo 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 deathThou shalt continue two and forty hours,And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.Now when the bridegroom in the morning comesTo 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 vaultWhere 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 IWill watch thy waking, and that very nightShall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.And this shall free thee from this present shame,If no inconstant toy nor womanish fearAbate 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 prosperousIn this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speedTo 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 theirfingers.
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 sinOf disobedient oppositionTo you and your behests; and am enjoin’dBy 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 ornamentsAs 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 myselfTo County Paris, to prepare him upAgainst tomorrow. My heart is wondrous lightSince 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 orisonsTo 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 necessariesAs 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 allIn 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 veinsThat 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 FriarSubtly 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 RomeoCome 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 bonesOf 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 ghostSeeking out Romeo that did spit his bodyUpon 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 tomorrowFor this night’s watching.
CAPULET.No, not a whit. What! I have watch’d ere nowAll 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 logsAnd 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 restThat 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 frostUpon 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 dayHath 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 dieAnd 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 sawIn 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 dayThat 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 nowTo 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 notIn these confusions. Heaven and yourselfHad 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’dAbove the clouds, as high as heaven itself?O, in this love, you love your child so illThat 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 rosemaryOn 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 festivalTurn 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 prepareTo 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 youwill 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 playme 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 willcarry 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, andput 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 forsounding.‘Then music with her silver soundWith 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 staydinner.
[_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 spiritLifts 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 importSome 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 swiftTo enter in the thoughts of desperate men.I do remember an apothecary,—And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I notedIn 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 skinsOf ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelvesA beggarly account of empty boxes,Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of rosesWere 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 haveA dram of poison, such soon-speeding gearAs will disperse itself through all the veins,That the life-weary taker may fall dead,And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breathAs violently as hasty powder fir’dDoth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
APOTHECARY.Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s lawIs 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 willAnd drink it off; and, if you had the strengthOf twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
ROMEO.There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,Doing more murder in this loathsome worldThan 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 meTo 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 houseWhere 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 itMay do much danger. Friar John, go hence,Get me an iron crow and bring it straightUnto 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 RomeoHath 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 aloneHere 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 morningSee 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 aloofAnd do not interrupt me in my course.Why I descend into this bed of deathIs partly to behold my lady’s face,But chiefly to take thence from her dead fingerA precious ring, a ring that I must useIn dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.But if thou jealous dost return to pryIn 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 farThan 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 MontagueThat murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,It is supposed, the fair creature died,—And here is come to do some villainous shameTo 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 headBy 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 soulDid not attend him as we rode? I thinkHe 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 makesThis 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 deathHave they been merry! Which their keepers callA lightning before death. O, how may ICall 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 yetIs 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 theeThan with that hand that cut thy youth in twainTo sunder his that was thine enemy?Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet,Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believeThat unsubstantial death is amorous;And that the lean abhorred monster keepsThee here in dark to be his paramour?For fear of that I still will stay with thee,And never from this palace of dim nightDepart again. Here, here will I remainWith worms that are thy chambermaids. O, hereWill I set up my everlasting rest;And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O youThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kissA dateless bargain to engrossing death.Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide.Thou desperate pilot, now at once run onThe 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 alantern, crow, and spade.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.Saint Francis be my speed. How oft tonightHave 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 lightTo 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 deathIf 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 stainsThe stony entrance of this sepulchre?What mean these masterless and gory swordsTo 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 hourIs 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 nestOf death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.A greater power than we can contradictHath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of theeAmong 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 dropTo 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 woesWe 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 himAs 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 runWith 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 openThese dead men’s tombs.
CAPULET.O heaven! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his houseIs 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 bellThat 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 placeDoth make against me, of this direful murder.And here I stand, both to impeach and purgeMyself 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 breathIs 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 dayWas Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely deathBanish’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 perforceTo County Paris. Then comes she to me,And with wild looks, bid me devise some meansTo 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 effectAs I intended, for it wrought on herThe form of death. Meantime I writ to RomeoThat he should hither come as this dire nightTo 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 yesternightReturn’d my letter back. Then all aloneAt the prefixed hour of her wakingCame I to take her from her kindred’s vault,Meaning to keep her closely at my cellTill I conveniently could send to Romeo.But when I came, some minute ere the timeOf her awaking, here untimely layThe noble Paris and true Romeo dead.She wakes; and I entreated her come forthAnd 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 marriageHer Nurse is privy. And if ought in thisMiscarried by my fault, let my old lifeBe 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 MantuaTo 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 poisonOf a poor ’pothecary, and therewithalCame 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 moreCan 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 setAs 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 woeThan this of Juliet and her Romeo.
[_Exeunt._]