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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. [Kisses him.

Thy lips are warm.

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 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.
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:
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. Sec. Watch. Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.

First Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither.

162. timeless, untimely.

181. circumstance, further particulars.

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Re-enter others of the Watch, with FRIAR
LAURENCE.

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 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.

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.

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,

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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,

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 ;

216. outrage, outcry.

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230

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 mean
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: 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.

247. as this dire night, this dire night. ('As' served to define expressions of time, cf.

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'as this very day was Cassius born,' Jul. Cæs. v. I. 72; 'as now,' etc.).

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
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 raised 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.
Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand:

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