Enter, at the end of the Churchyard, 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 there? Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead ?h

Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well. Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond', that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless sculls? as I discern,

It burneth in the Capels' monument.

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

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. 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,i
And that my master slew him.

Fri.

Romeo?

[Advances.

nate lovers. But he undoubtedly had never read the Italian novel or any literal translation of it, and was misled by the poem of Romeus and Juliet, the author of which departed from the Italian story, making the poison take effect on Romeo before Juliet awakes.-MALONE.

Have my old feet stumbled at graves?] This accident was reckoned ominous. -STEEVENS.

h consorts,] i.e. Keeps company with.-STEEVENS.

1 I dreamt my master and another fought,] This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakspeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream. Homer, book 8th, represents Rhesus dying fast asleep, and as it were beholding his enemy in a dream plunging a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality, but a vision.-STEEVENS.

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 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,-[Noise again.] I dare stay no

longer.

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.

Thy lips are warm!

[Exit.

་

[Kisses him.

1 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 [Falls on ROMEO's Body, and dies.

die.

Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS.

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

burn.

1 Watch. The ground is bloody; Search about the

churchyard:

Go, some of you, whoe'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 churchyard.

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

Enter another Watchman, with Friar LAURENCE. 3 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.

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? 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? 1 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.

1 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,—

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 exíle 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: 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 excus'd.

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
Fri. I will be brief,' for my short date of breath

* 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.] Shakspeare quaintly represents the dagger as having mistaken its place, and "it mis-sheathed," i. e. "missheathed itself" in the bosom of Juliet. It appears that the dagger was anciently worn behind the back.-STEEVENS.

I will be brief.] It is much to be lamented, that the poet did not conclude the dialogue with the action, and avoid a narrative of events which the audience already knew.-JOHNSON.

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 doomsday, 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, bid 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: 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 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.