And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food! [Opens the tomb. Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague, 49 That murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief, It is supposed, the fair creature died; And here is come to do some villanous shame To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.

[Comes forward. Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague! Can vengeance be pursued further than death? Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee: Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Rom. 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 bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at
thee, boy!
[They fight. 70
Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the
watch.
[Exit.

Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.] If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

[Dies.

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:

80

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 tomb.
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 90
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 chamber-maids; 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 apothe-
cary!

Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. 120 [Dies.

Enter, at the other end of the churchyard, FRIAR LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade. Fri. L. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night

Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?

Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

Fri. L. 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.
Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my
master,

One that you love. Fri. L.

Bal.

Who is it?

Romeo.

Fri. L. How long hath he been there?
Bal.
Full half an hour. 130

Fri. L. Go with me to the vault.

Bal.

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.

Fri. L. Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes

[Advances. Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains 140 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.

[Juliet wakes. Ful. O comfortable friar! where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

150

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 no longer stay.

159

Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. [Exit Fri. L. What's herei 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. [Kisses him.
Thy lips are warm.

First Watch. [Within] Lead, boy: which way? Ful. 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. 170 [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 180
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.

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's rest? Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and others. Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad? 190 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.

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;

219

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

230

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,

239

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;

250

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 aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

260

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man.

270 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? 280 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. 290
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Monta-
gue!

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's by his lady's lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

300

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. 310

I am glad you're well.

Poet. I have not seen you long: how goes the world?

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 conjured to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.
Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord.
Few.
Nay, that's most fix'd.
Mer. A most incomparable man, breathed, as
it were,

To an untirable and continuate goodness:
He passes.

Few. I have a jewel here

IO

Mer. O, pray, let's see't: for the Lord Timon, sir?

Few. If he will touch the estimate: but, for that

Poet. [Reciting to himself] 'When we for recompense have praised the vile, It stains the glory in that happy verse Which aptly sings the good.' Mer.

'Tis a good form. [Looking at the jewel. Few. And rich: here is a water, look ye. Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication

To the great lord.
Poet.
A thing slipp'd idly from me. 20
Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes
From whence 'tis nourish'd: 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?

CAPHIS, PHILOTUS,

TITUS,

servants to Timon's creditors.

LUCIUS,

HORTENSIUS, And others,

A Page. A Fool. Three Strangers.
PHRYNIA,

TIMANDRA, mistresses to Alcibiades.

Cupid and Amazons in the mask.

Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Banditti, and Attendants.

SCENE: Athens, and the neighbouring woods.

Pain. A picture, sir. When comes your

forth?

book

Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir. Let's see your piece.

'Tis a good piece.

Pain.
Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.
Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

Admirable: how this grace 30

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 will 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 is follow'd!
Poet. The senators of Athens: happy man!
Pain. Look, more!

4I

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

I have, in this rough work, shaped 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.

50

Pain. How shall I understand you? Poet. I will 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 Subdues and properties to his love and tendance All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced flat

terer

To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down 60

Old Ath. Tim.

Enter an old Athenian.
Lord Timon, hear me speak.

Freely, good father. 110 Old Ath. Thou hast a servant named Lucilius. Tim. I have so: what of him?

Old Ath. Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.

Tim. Attends he here, or no? Lucilius!
Luc. Here, at your lordship's service.
Old Ath. This fellow here, Lord Timon, this
thy creature,

By night frequents my house. I am a man
That from my first have been inclined to thrift;
And my estate deserves an heir more raised
Than one which holds a trencher.

Tim.
Well; what further? 120
Old Ath. One only daughter have I, no kin
else,

On whom I may confer what I have got:
The maid is fair, o' the youngest for a bride,
And I have bred her at my dearest cost

In qualities of the best. This man of thine
Attempts her love: I prithee, noble lord,
Join with me to forbid him her resort;
Myself have spoke in vain.

Does she love him?
Old Ath. She is young and apt:
Our own precedent passions do instruct us
What levity's in youth.

Tim. [To Lucilius] Love you the maid?
Luc. Ay, my good lord, and she accepts of it.
Old Ath. If in her marriage my consent be
missing,

I call the gods to witness, I will choose
Mine heir from forth the beggars of the world,
And dispossess her all.

Tim.

How shall she be endow'd, If she be mated with an equal husband? 140 Old Ath. Three talents on the present; in future, all.

Tim. This gentleman of mine hath served me long:

To build his fortune I will strain a little,
For 'tis a bond in men. Give him thy daughter:
What you bestow, in him I'll counterpoise,
And make him weigh with her.

Old Ath.
Most noble lord,
Pawn me to this your honour, she is his.
Tim. My hand to thee; mine honour on my
promise.

Luc. Humbly I thank your lordship: never