And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
I am not I, if there be such an I;

Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer 'I.'
If he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, no:
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine
eyes-

God save the mark!-here on his manly breast:
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
All in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.
Jul. O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break
at once!

To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!

Vile earth, to earth resign, end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!

Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead!

Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?
My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished:
Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.

Jul. O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

Nurse. It did, it did; alas the day, it did!
Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical

53. God save the mark phrase originally used to avert the evil omen attaching to some token or 'mark,' by invoking

Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain !
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!

Nurse

80

No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,

All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitæ :
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me

old.

Shame come to Romeo!

Blister'd be thy tongue

90

Jul.
For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;

For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?

Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy

name,

When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?

But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? 100 That villain cousin 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 slain; And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:

All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murder'd me: I would forget it fain;
But, O, it presses to my memory,

Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo-banished;'
That banished,' that one word 'banished,'
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship

And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,
Why follow'd not, when she said "Tybalt 's dead,'
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have moved?
But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,
'Romeo is banished,' to speak that word,
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!'
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,

In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.
Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?

Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse : 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 those cords: poor ropes, you are beguiled,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exiled:

He made you for a highway to my bed;
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.

117. needly will, needs must.
120. modern, common, ordinary.

Come, cords, come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-
bed;

And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!
Nurse. Hie to your chamber: I'll 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 Laurence' cell.

Jul. O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.

[Exeunt.

140

Fri. L. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou
fearful man:

Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,

And thou art wedded to calamity.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's
doom?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?

Fri. L.

Too familiar

Is my dear son with such sour company:

I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.

Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince's
doom?

Fri. L. A gentler judgement vanish'd from his
lips,

Not body's death, but body's banishment.

Rom. Ha, banishment! be merciful, say 'death ;'

10. vanish'd, issued.

ΤΟ

For exile hath more terror in his look,

Much more than death: do not say 'banishment.'
Fri. L. Hence 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 itself.

Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exile is death: then banished,
Is death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,
Phou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

Fri. L. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
And turn'd that black word death to banishment :
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.

Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is
here,

Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not: more validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives-
In carrion-flies than Romeo:they may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin
But Romeo may not; he is banished:
This flies may do, but I from this must fly:

26. rush'd aside the law, with impetuous eagerness eluded, or contravened, the law.

28. dear, in full measure, genuine.

33. validity, worth.

34. courtship, courtly be