Enter County Paris and his Page, <with flowers,
PARIS:
Give me thy torch boy, hence and stand aloof,
Ye put it out, for I would not be seen:
Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground,
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st some thing approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
PAGE:
I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard, yet I will adventure.
<Paris strews the tomb with flowers.>
PARIS:
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew:
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans,
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
The Page whistles and calls:
The boy gives warning, something doth approach,
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies, and true love's rite?
What with a torch? Muffle me night a while.
Enter Romeo and Balthasar <with a torch,
mattock, and a crow of iron>.
ROMEO:
Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron,
Hold take this letter, early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my Lord and father,
Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee
Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is partly to behold my Lady's face:
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger,
A precious ring: a ring that I must use,
In dear enjoyment, therefore hence be gone:
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I farther shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage wild,
More fierce and more inexorable far,
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.
MAN:
I will be gone sir, and not trouble ye.
ROMEO:
So shalt thou show me friendship, take thou that,
Live and be prosperous, and farewell good fellow.
MAN:
For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout,
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
ROMEO:
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg'd with the dearrest morsel of the earth:
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
And in despite I'll cram thee with more food.
PARIS:
This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
That murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief
It is suppos'd the fair creature died,
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.
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.
ROMEO:
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 bid thee run away.
PARIS:
I do defy thy conjurations,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.
ROMEO:
Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee boy.
PAGE:
O Lord they fight, I will go call the watch.
PARIS:
O I am slain, if thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
ROMEO:
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.
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.
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
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. O true apothecary:
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. <Falls.>
Enter Friar with a lantern, crow, and spade.
FRIAR LAURENCE:
Saint Francis be my speed, how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who's there?
MAN:
Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
FRIAR LAURENCE:
Bliss be upon you. Tell me good my freind
What torch is yond that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls: as I discern,
It burneth in the Capels' monument.
MAN:
It doth so holy sir, and there's my master,
FRIAR LAURENCE:
Who is it?
FRIAR LAURENCE:
How long hath he been there?
FRIAR LAURENCE:
Go with me to the vault.
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.
FRIAR LAURENCE:
Stay, then I'll go alone, fear comes upon me.
O much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.
<Friar stoops and looks on the blood and weapons.>
MAN:
As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.
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?
Romeo, oh pale! who else, what Paris too?
And steep'd in blood? Ah what un unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
JULIET:
O comfortable Friar, where is my Lord?
I do remember well where I should be:
And there I am, where is my Romeo?
FRIAR LAURENCE:
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, I dare no longer stay.
JULIET:
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, 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.
WATCH:
Lead boy, which way.
JULIET:
Yea noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger.
This is thy sheath, there rust and let me die.
<She stabs herself and falls.>
PAGE:
This is the place, there where the torch doth burn.
WATCH:
The ground is bloody, search about the church-yard.
Go some of you, who'er you find attach.
Pitiful sight, here lies the County slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead:
Who here hath lain this 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
We cannot without circumstance descry.
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 Friar and another Watchman.
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's side.
1 WATCH:
A great suspicion, stay the Friar too.
PRINCE:
What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning rest?
Enter Capulet and his Wife.
CAPULET:
What should it be that they so shriek abroad?
LADY CAPULET:
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 your ears?
1 WATCH:
Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,
And Romeo dead, and Juliet dead before,
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
CAPULET:
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-sheath'd in my daughter's bosom.
LADY CAPULET:
O me, this sight of death, is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
PRINCE:
Come Montague, for thou art early up
To see thy son and heir, now early down.
MONTAGUE:
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.
MONTAGUE:
O thou untaught, what manners is in 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 descrent,
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.
FRIAR LAURENCE:
I am the greatest able to do least,
Yet most suspected as the time and place
Doth make against me of this direful murther:
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.
FRIAR LAURENCE:
I will be brief, for my short date of breath
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:
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 mean
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I hear (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,
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 sacrific'd some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
PRINCE:
We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where's Romeo's man? What can he say to this?
MAN:
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 rais'd 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.
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.
CAPULET:
O brother Montague, give me thy hand,
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
MONTAGUE:
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.
CAPULET:
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.