A damned Saint, an honourable Villain:
O Nature! what hadft thou to do in Hell,
When thou didst bower the Spirit of a Fiend
In mortal Paradife of fuch fweet Flesh?
Was ever Book containing fuch vile matter
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
In fuch a gorgeous Palace.
Nur. There's no Truft, no Faith, no Honefty in Men, All Perjur'd; all Forfworn; all Naught; all Diffemblers; Ah, where's my Man? Give me fome Aqua-vita
Thefe Griefs, thefe Woes, thefe Sorrows make me old!
Shame come to Romeo.
Jul. Blifter'd be thy Tongue
For fuch a Wish, he was not born to fhame,
Upon his Brow Shame is afham'd to fit:
For 'tis a Throne where Honour may be Crown'd,
Sole Monarch of the univerfal Earth.
O what a Beaft was I chide him fo?
Nur. Will you fpeak well of him That kill'd your Coufin?
Jul. Shall I fpeak ill of him that is my Husband?
Ah poor my Lord, what Tongue fhall smooth thy Name,
When I thy three Hours Wife have mangled it!
But wherefore Villain did'ft thou kill my Coufin?
That Villain Coufin would have kill'd my Husband:
Back foolish Tears, back to your native Spring,
Your tributary drops belong to Woe,
Which you mistaking offer up to Joy:
My Husband lives that Tybalt would have flain,
And Tybalt dead that would have kill'd my Husband;
All this is Comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was worfer than Tybalt's Death
That murdered me; I would forget it fain,
But oh it preffes to my Memory,
Like damned guilty deeds to Sinners minds;
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished,
That Banished, that one word Banished,
Hath flain ten thoufand Tybalts: Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
Or if fower Woe delights in Fellowship,
And needly will be rank'd with other Griefs,
Why followed not, when the faid Tybalt's dead,
Thy Father or thy Mother, nay, or both,
Which modern Lamentation might have mov'd.
But with a Rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
Romeo is banished-to fpeak that word,
Is Father, Mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Fuliet,
All flain, all dead: Romeo is banished :
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death, no words can that woe found.
Where is my Father, and my Mother, Nurfe?
Nur. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's Coarfe.
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
Jul. Wash they his wounds with Tears; mine shall be spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo's Banishment.
Take up thofe Cords, poor Ropes you are beguil'd,
Both you and I, for Romeo is Exil'd:
He made you for an Highway to my Bed,
But I a Maid, die Maiden-widowed.
Come Cord, come Nurfe, I'll to my Wedding-bed,
And Death, not Romeo, take my Maiden-head.
Nur. Hie to your Chamber, I'li find Romeo
To comfort you, I wot well where he is :
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at Night;
I'll to him, he is hid at Lawrence Cell.
Jul. O find him, give this Ring to my true Knight,
And bid him come, to take his last Farewel.
SCENE III. The Monaftery,
Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.
Fri. Romeo, come for th, come forth, thou fearful Man, Affliction is enamour'd of thy Parts;
And thou art wedded to Calamity.
Rom. Father, what News?
What is the Prince's Doom?
What Sorrow craves admittance at my Hand,
That I yet know not?
Is my dear Son in fuch fower Company:
I bring thee Tydings of the Prince's Doom.
Rom. What, lefs than Dooms-day, is the Prince's Doom? Fri. A gentle Judgment vanish'd from his Lips, Not Body's Death, but Body's Banishment.
Rom. Ha, Banishment! Be merciful, fay Death;
For Exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than Death: Do not fay Banifhment.
Fri. Here from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the World is broad and wide..
Rom. There is no World without Verona Walls,
But Purgatory, Torture, Hell it self:
Hence banished, is banish'd from the World,
And World's Exile is Death. Then banished
Is Death mis-term'd, calling Death Banished.
Thou cut'ft my Head off with a Golden Ax,
And fmil'ft upon the ftroak that murders me.
Fri. O deadly Sin! O rude Unthankfulness!
Thy Fault our Law calls Death, but the kind Prince
Taking thy part hath rusht aside the Law,
And turn'd that black word Death to Banishment.
That is dear Mercy, and thou feest it not.
Rom. 'Tis Torture, and not Mercy: Heav'n is herë
Where Juliet lives, and every Cat and Dog,
And little Moufe, every unworthy thing
Lives here in Heav'n, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More Validity,
More honourable State, more Courtship lives
In Carrion Flies, than Romeo: They may feize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's Hand,
And teal immortal Bleffings from her Lips.
Who even in pure and veftal Modefty
Still blush, and thinking their own Kiffes fin.
This may Flies do, when I from this must fly,
And fay'st thou yet, that Exile is not Death?
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
Hadft thou no Poifon mixt, no fharp-ground Knife
No fudden mean of Death, tho' ne'er fo mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Friar, the Damned use that word in Hell;
Howlings attend it, how haft thou the Heart.
Being a Divine, a Ghoftly Confeffor,
A Sin-Abfolver, and my Friend profeft,
To mangle me with that word Banished?
Fri. Fond Mad-man, hear me speak.
Rom. O thou wilt speak again of Banishment.
Fri. I'll give thee Armour to keep off that Word,
Adverfity's fweet Milk, Philosophy,
To comfort thee, tho' thou art banished.
Rom. Yet banished? Hang up Philosophy,
Unless Philofophy can make a Juliet,
Difplant a Town, reverfe a Prince's Doom,
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more-
· Fri. O then I fee that mad Men have no Ears. Rom. How fhou'd they.
When wife Men have no Eyes?
Fri. Let me defpair with thee of thy Eftate.
Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou doft not feel: Wert thou as young as Juliet my Love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then might'st thou fpeak, then might'ft thou tear thy Hair, And fall upon the Ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade Grave.
Fri. Arife, one knocks;
Good Romeo hide thy felf.
[Throwing himself on the Ground.
Unless the breath of Heart-fick Groans,
Mift-like, infold me from the fearch of Eyes.
By and by-God's Will;
I come, I come.
Fri. Hark, how they knock.
Who's there?.
Thou wilt be taken
Who knocks fo hard?
Whence come you? what's your Will?
Nur. [Within.] Let me come in,
And you fball know my Errand:
I come from Lady Juliet.
Fri. Welcome then.
Nur. O holy Friar, O tell me holy Friar,
Where is my Lady's Lord? where's Romeo?
Fri. There, on the Ground,
With his own Tears made drunk.
Nur. O he is even in my Mistress's Case,
Just in her Cafe, O woful Sympathy!
Piteous Predicament, even fo lyes fhe,
Blubbring and weeping, weeping and blubbring.
Stand up, ftand up, ftand and you be a Man,
For Juliet's fake, for her fake rife and ftand:
Why should you fall into fo deep an Oh! -
Rom. Nurfe.
Nur. Ah Sir! Ah Sir!-Death's the end of all.
Rom. Speak'ft thou of Juliet? How is't with her?
Doth not the think me an old Murtherer,
Now I have ftain'd the Child-hood of our Joy
With Blood, removed but little from her own?
Where is the? and how does fhe? and what fays
My conceal'd Lady to our conceal'd Love?
Nur. O fhe fays nothing, Sir, but weeps and weeps,
And now falls on her Bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
Rom. As if that Name
Shot from the deadly level of a Gun
Did murder her, as that Names curfed Hand
Murdered her Kinfman. O tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this Anatomy
Doth my Name lodge? Tell me, that I may fack
The hateful Manfion.
Fri. Hold thy defperate Hand:
Art thou a Man? Thy form cries out, thou art:
Thy Tears are Womanish, thy wild A&s do note
The unreafonable fury of a Beaft.
Unfeemly Woman, in a feeming Man,
And ill befeeming Beaft in feeming both,
Thou haft amaz'd me. By my holy Order,
I thought thy difpofition better temper'd.
Haft thou flain Tybalt? Wilt thou flay thy felf?
And flay thy Lady, that in thy Life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thy felf?
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