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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.

Fri. L. Stay, then; I'll go alone: fear comes upon me; O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,

I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

Fri. L.

Romeo!

[Advances. 140

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 tomb.
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.

Jul. O comfortable friar! where is my lord?

I do remember well where I should be,

[Juliet wakes.

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And there I am: where is my Romeo? [Noise within. Fri. L. 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.

Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.

160 [Exit Fri. L

What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
O churl! drunk 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.
Thy lips are warm.

[Kisses him.

First 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 [Falls on Romeo's body, and dies.

me die.

Enter Watch, with the Page of Paris.

Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth

burn.

171

First Watch. The ground is bloody; search about the

churchyard:

Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.
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:
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.

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Sec. 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 Friar Laurence, and another Watchman.

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's 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 rest?

Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, and others.
Cap. What should it be that they so shriek abroad?
La. Cap. The people in the street cry Romeo,

Some Juliet, and some Paris, and all run

With open outcry toward our monument.

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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.

200

Cap. O heavens! 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 !
La. Cap. 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.

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 a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,

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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.

Fri. L. 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 excused.
Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
Fri. L. 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 dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
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,

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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: 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

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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 sacrificed 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 in this ?

Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death,
And then in post he came from Mantua

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