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.

280

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.

272 in post] in post haste.

279 what made your master] what was your master's business. 283 by and by immediately. Cf. II, ii, 151, III, i, 167, III, iii, 76, supra. 294 a brace of kinsmen] Mercutio and Paris. Cf. III, i, 106, 142, supra, where the prince's kinship with Mercutio is mentioned. Paris, though

290

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 whiles 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!

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.

described as "of noble parentage" III, v, 180, and as "Mercutio's kinsman," V, iii, 75, is not elsewhere more specifically described as related to the prince.

304-309 A glooming peace . . . her Romeo] These lines form a sixain in the stanza of Venus and Adonis. Cf. I, ii, 45-50, and note. 307 Some shall . . . some punished] In Brooke's Poem varied penalties are allotted to many of the surviving actors in the tragedy. The nurse is banished for concealing Juliet's marriage; the apothecary is hanged; Friar Laurence is suffered to retire to a hermitage, where he dies tranquilly six years afterwards; Romeo's servant is pardoned on the ground that he merely acted in obedience to his master's orders.

800

UCIUS. "Ah, that this sight should make so deep

La round,

And yet detested life not shrink thereat!"

ACT III, SCFNE 1, line 247.

CARE