Enter APOTHECARY

Ap. Who calls so loud?

Rom. Come hither, man.-I see, that thou art poor;

Hold, there is forty ducats let me have

A dram of poison; such soon-speeding geer*
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law Is death, to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Upon thy back hangs ragged misery,

The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will,
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
Rom. There is thy gold; worse poison to men's
souls,

Doing more murders in this lothsome world,

Sweet tomb, that in thy circuit dost contain
The perfect model of eternity;

Fair Juliet, that with angels dost remain,
Accept this latest favour at my hands;
That living honour'd thee, and, being dead,
With funeral praises do adorn thy_tomb!
[The Boy whistles.
The boy gives warning, something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to night,
To cross my obsequies, and true-love's rites?
What, with a torch -Muffle me, night, a while.
[Retires.

Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a Torch,
Mattock, &c.

Rom. 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:

John. Holy Franciscan friar! Brother, ho!
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE.

Lau. This same should be the voice of friar
John.-

Welcome from Mantua: What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,

And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was staid.
Lau. Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
John. I could not send it,-here it is again,-
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

Lau. Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice t, but full of charge,
Of dear import; and the neglecting it

May do much danger: Friar John, go hence;
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight
Unto my cell.

[Exit.

John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee. Lau. Now must I to the monument alone: Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake; She will beshrew me much, that Romeo Hath had no notice of these accidents: But I will write again to Mantua,

And keep her at my cell till Romeo come:
Poor living corse, closed in a dead man's tomb!

[Exit.

SCENE III-A Church-yard; in it, a Monument belonging to the Capulets.

Enter PARIS; and his PAGE, bearing Flowers and a Torch.

Par. Give me thy torch, boy: Hence, and stand aloof ;

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yon yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the church-yard tread
(Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves),
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

A precious ring; a ring that I must use

In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone :-
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,

By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry church-yard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce, and more inexorable far,

Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.

Bal. I will be gone, Sir, and not trouble you. Rom. So shalt thou shew me friendship.-Take

thou that:

Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.
Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout;
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires.
Rom. Thou détestable maw, thou womb of death
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the Door of the Monument. And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food! Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague, That murder'd my love's cousin with which

grief,

It is supposed the fair creature died ;-
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies: 1 will apprehend him.-

[Advances.

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.

Rom. 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, Heap not another sin upon my head,

By urging me to fury :-0, be gone!

By heaven, I love thee better than myself:

For I come hither arm'd against myself:

Stay not, begone ;-live, and hereafter say
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations †,
And do attach thee as a felon here.

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy.

[They fight.

[Exit Page.

Page. O lord! they fight: I will go call the

watch.

Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.]-If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

[Dies.

Rom. 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 ?-0, give me thy hand,

i. e. Action of importance.

+I do refuse to do as thou conjurest me to do, i. e. depart.

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.
[Laying Paris in the Monument.
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry? which their keepers call
A lightning before death: 0, how may I
Call this a lightuing?-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 will still stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again; here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids; 0, 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 yon
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!—
Come, bitter conduct 1, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love -[Drinks.] O, true, apothe-
cary!

Thy drugs are quick.-Thus with a kiss I die.

[Dies.

Enter at the other End of the Church-yard, FRIAR LAURENCE, with a Lantern, Crow, and Spade. Fri. Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight

Have my old feet stumbled at graves ?-Who's there?

Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?

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, One that you love.

Fri. Who is it?

Bal. Romeo.

[Advances.

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 1-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. Ó, comfortable friar! Where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am:-Where is my Romeo?

[Noise within.

The allusion is to a louvre or turret full of windows, by means of which ancient halls, &c. are illuminated. + Presence-chamber. Conductor.

Fri. I hear some noise.-Lady, come from the

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 puns:

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, closed in my true love's

hand?

I Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:-Which way! Jul. Yea, noise ?-Then I'll be brief.-0 happy [Snatching Romeo's Dagger. This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rust, and let me die.

dagger!

[Falls on Romeo's Body, and dies.

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 church yard:

Go, some of you, who e'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 searh ;-
[Exeunt other Watchmen.
We see the ground whereon these woes do he;
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 church-yard.

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 church-yard 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 Pans 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!-0, wife! Look how our daugh ter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista'en,-for, lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,-
And is mis-sheated 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
To see thy son and heir more early down.
i. e. The scabbard.

Mon. 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.

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 de

scent;

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 excused."

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

Fri. 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 stolen-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 pined.
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;

• Seat.

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 sacrificed, 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 in this.
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 do I:
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.
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, while 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 by his lady lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it

Ege. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,
And, by the doom of death, end woes and all.
Duke. Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more;
I am not partial, to infringe our laws:
The enmity and discord, which of late
Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,-
Who, wanting gilders to redeem their lives,
Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,-
Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.
For, since the mortal and intestine jars
'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
It hath in solemn synods been decreed,
Both by the Syracusans and ourselves,
To admit no traffic to our adverse towns:
Nay, more,

If any, born at Ephesus, be seen
At any Syracusan martst and fairs;
Again, If any Syracusan born

Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies,

His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose:
Unless a thousand marks be levied,
To quit the penalty, and to ransome him.
Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,
Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
Therefore, by law thou art condemn'd to die.
Ege. Yet this my comfort; when your words are
done,

My woes end likewise with the evening sun.

Duke. Well, Syracusan, say, in brief, the cause
Why thou departed'st from thy native home;
And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.
Ege. A heavier task could not have been im-
posed,

Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable:
Yet, that the world may witness, that my end
Was wrought by nature t, not by vile offence,
I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.
In Syracusa was I born; and wed
Unto a woman, happy but for me,

And by me too, had not our hap been bad.
With her I lived in joy; our wealth increased,
By prosperous voyages I often made
To Epidamnum, till my factor's death;
And he (great care of goods at random left)
Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:
From whom my absence was not six months old,
Before herself (almost at fainting, under
The pleasing punishment that women bear),
Had made provision for her following me,
And soon, and safe, arrived where I was.
There she had not been long, but she became
Name of a coin.
+ Markets.

1 Natural affection.

A joyful mother of two goodly sons;

And, which was strange, the one so like the other,
As could not be distinguish'd but by names.
That very hour, and in the self-same inn,
A poor mean woman was delivered

Of such a burden, male twins, both alike
Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,
I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.
My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,
Made daily motions for our home return :
Unwilling I agreed; alas, too soon.
We came aboard:

A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd,
Before the always-wind-obeying deep
Gave any tragic instance of our harm:
But longer did we not retain much hope;
For what obscured light the heavens did grant
Did but convey unto our fearful minds

A doubtful warrant of immediate death;
Which, though myself would gladly have em-

braced,

Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,
Weeping before for what she saw must come,
And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,
That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,
Forced me to seek delays for them and me.
And this it was,-for other means was none,-
The sailors sought for safety by our boat,
And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us:
My wife, more careful for the latter born,
Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast,
Such as sea-faring men provide for storms:
To him one of the other twins was bound,
Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.
The children thus disposed, my wife and I,
Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,
Fasten'd ourselves at either end the mast;
And floating straight, obedient to the stream,
Were carried towards Corinth, as we thought.
At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,
Dispersed those vapours that offended us;
And, by the benefit of his wish'd light,
The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered
Two ships from far making amain to us,
Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this:
But ere they came,-0, let me say no more!
Gather the sequel by that went before.
Duke. Nay, forward, old man, do not break of

For we may pity, though not pardon thee.
Ege. O, had the gods done so, I had not now
Worthily term'd them merciless to us!
For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,
We were encounter'd by a mighty rock;
Which being violently borne upon,
Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst,
So that, in this unjust divorce of us,
Fortune had left to both of us alike
What to delight in, what to sorrow for
Her part, poor soul! seeming as burdened
With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,