Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper, | Come, cordial, and not poison; go with me And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.
Bal. Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus: Your looks are pale and wild, and do import Some misadventure.
Rom. Tush, thou art deceiv'd;
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do:
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?
Bal. No, my good lord.
Rom. No matter: get thee gone,
And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.
[exit Balthasar.
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
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,-whom 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-shap'd 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—
An 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 fore-run 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!
Ap. Who calls so loud?
Rom. Come hither, man.-I see, that thou art
Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have
A dram of poison; such soon-speeding geer
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.
Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's
Is death, to any he that utters them. [law
Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Upon thy back hangs ragged misery,
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.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Ap. 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.
Rom. There is thy gold; worse poison to men's
souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou may'st not
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. [sell:
Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh.-
To Juliet's grave, for there must I use thee. [exeunt.
SCENE II. FRIAR LAURENCE'S CELL.
John. Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!
Enter Friar Laurence.
Lau. 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.
John. Going to find a bare-foot 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,
Sealed up the doors, and would not let us forth :
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.
Lau. Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
John. I could not send it,-here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
Lau. 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.
John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee. [erit
Lau. Now must I to the monument alone:
Within these 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 CHURCH-YARD; IN IT, A MONUMENT,
BELONGING TO THE CAPULETS.
Enter Paris; and his Paye, bearing flowers and
a torch.
Par. Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. [aloof;—
Under yon yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the church-yard 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. I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the church-yard; yet I will adventure.
[retires.
Par. Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy
Enter Romeo; and Balthasar, with a torch, mat.
Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning [iron.
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 church-yard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce and more inexorable far,
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.
Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship.-Take
thou that:
Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.
Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout;
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [retires.
Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
[breaks open the door of the monument.
And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!
Par. 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.
Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague;
Can vengeance be pursu'd farther than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.
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, slaughter'd 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 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 will still 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 thy yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.-Eyes, look your
last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you,
The door 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
Rom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
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,
Heap not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury:-O, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I came hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, be gone:-live, and hereafter say—
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,
And do attach thee as a felon here.
Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee,
boy.
[they fight.
Page. Ó lord! they fight: I will go call the watch.
[exit Page.
Par. O, I am slain?-[falls]-If thou be mer-
ciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
Rom. 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:
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 church-yard, Friar
Laurence, with a lantern, crow, and spade.
Fri. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves?—Who's
Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead? [there?
Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows
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.
Jul. 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. Fri. I hear some noise.-Lady, come from that Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep; [nest 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,—[noise again] I dare stay no longer. [exit.
Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.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 leave 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!
I Watch. [within] Lead, boy:—which way? Jul. Yea, noise?—then I'll be brief.-O happy dagger! [snatching Romeo's dagger. This is thy sheath; [stabs herself] there rust, 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. [the church-yard. 1 Watch. The ground is bloody; search about Go, some of you, who'er you find, attach.
[exeunt some. Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain ;And Juliet, bleeding; warm, and newly dead, Who here hath lain these two days buried.— Go, tell the prince,-run to the Capulets,Raise up the Montagues,-some others search. [exeunt other Watchmen. We see the ground whereon these woes do lie; But the true ground of all these piteous woes, We cannot without circumstance descry.
Enter some of the Watch, with Balthasar. 2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man, we found him in the church-yard. [come hither. 1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince Enter another Watchman, with Friar Laurence. 2 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs,
We took this mattock and this spade from him, As he was coming from this church-yard side.
1 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. Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad? Lady C. The people in the street cry-Romeo, Some Juliet, and some-Paris; and all run, With open outcry, toward our monument. [ears? Prince. What fear is this which startles in our 1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, [slain; Warm and new kill'd.
Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes. [man; 1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo' With instruments upon them, fit to open These dead men's tombs. [daughter bleeds
Cap. O, heavens!-O, wife! look how our This dagger hath mista'en,-for lo! his house Is empty on the back of Montague,——— And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom. Lady C. O me! this sight of death is as a bell, That warns my old age to a sepulchre. Enter Montague.
Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up, To see thy son and heir more early down.
Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath: What further woe conspires against mine age? Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.
Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this To press before thy father to a grave?
Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for awhile Till we can clear these ambiguities, [scent; And know their spring, their head, their true de And then will I be general of your woes, And lead you even to death. Mean time, forbear, And let mischance be slave to patience.— Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
Fri. 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 accus'd.
Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know ir Fri. 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 stolen marriage day Was Tybalt's dooms-day, 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, bids 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 tutor'd by my art, A sleeping-potion; which so took effect As I intended, for it wrought on her The form of death: mean time 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 staid 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 awakening), 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 aught 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 Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?
Bal. 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
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did: [grave;
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. [words,
Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's
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.
Cap. O, brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter's jointure for no more
Can I demand.
Mon. But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold:
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!
[brings.
Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it
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.
Poet. I have not seen you long; how goes the Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows. Poet. Ay, that's well known: But what particular rarity? what strange, Which manifold record not matches? See, Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power Hath conjur'd to attend. I know the merchant. Pain. I know them both: t'other's a jeweller. Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord!
Jew. Nay, that's most fix'd.
Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it To an untirable and continuate goodness: He passes.
Jew. I have a jewel here.
Mer. O, pray, let's see't: for the lord Timon, sir? Jew. If he will touch the estimate: but, for thatPoet. When we for recompense have prais'd the It stains the glory in that happy verse [vile, Which aptly sings the good.
[looking at the jewel. Jew. And rich: here is a water, look you. Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some To the great lord. [dedication
Poet. A thing slipp'd idly from me.
Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes
From whence 'tis nourished: the fire i'the flint
Shows not, till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies
Each bound it chafes. What have you there?
Pain. A picture, sir.-And when comes your
book forth?
Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.
Let's see your piece.
Pain. "Tis a good piece.
Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.
Pain. Indifferent.
Poet. Admirable! how his grace
Speaks his own standing! what a mental power This eye shoots forth! how big imagination Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture One might interpret.
Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life. Here is a touch; is't good?
Poet. I'll say of it,
It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life. Enter certain Senators, and pass over. Pain. How this lord's follow'd!
Poet. The senators of Athens:-happy men!
Pain. Look, more!
Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood
I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man,
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment: my free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself
In a wide sea of wax: no levell'd malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold;
But flies an eagle-flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.
Pain. How shall I understand you?
Poet. I'll unbolt to you.
You see how all conditions, how all minds,
(As well of glib and slippery creatures, as
Of grave and austere quality), tender down
Their services to lord Timon: his large fortune,
Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
Subdue and properties to his love and tendance
All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer
To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
The knee before him, and returns in peace
Most rich in Timon's nod.
Pain. I saw them speak together.
Poet. Sir, I have, upon a high and pleasant hill, Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: the base o'the mount
|