The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 455

by William Shakespeare


  50

  It is supposed 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 pursu’d further than death?

  55

  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.

  60

  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.

  65

  Stay not, be gone, live, and hereafter say

  A mad man’s mercy bid thee run away.

  PARIS I do defy thy conjuration

  And apprehend thee for a felon here.

  ROMEO Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!

  70

  [They fight.]

  PAGE O Lord, they fight! I will go call the Watch.

  Exit Page.

  PARIS O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,

  Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. [Paris dies.]

  ROMEO In faith I will. Let me peruse this face.

  Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!

  75

  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,

  80

  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

  85

  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

  90

  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,

  95

  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?

  100

  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?

  105

  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 chambermaids. O here

  Will I set up my everlasting rest

  110

  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.

  115

  Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide,

  Thou desperate pilot now at once run on

  The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark.

  Here’s to my love! [He drinks.] O true apothecary,

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

  120

  [He falls.]

  Enter FRIAR LAURENCE with lantern, crow and spade.

  FRIAR LAURENCE

  Saint Francis be my speed. How oft tonight

  Have my old feet stumbled at graves. Who’s there?

  BALTHASAR

  Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

  FRIAR LAURENCE

  Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend,

  What torch is yond that vainly lends his light

  125

  To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,

  It burneth in the Capels’ monument.

  BALTHASAR

  It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,

  One that you love.

  FRIAR LAURENCE Who is it?

  BALTHASAR Romeo.

  FRIAR LAURENCE How long hath he been there?

  BALTHASAR Full half an hour.

  130

  FRIAR LAURENCE Go with me to the vault.

  BALTHASAR I dare not, sir.

  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.

  135

  O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.

  BALTHASAR As I did sleep under this yew tree here

  I dreamt my master and another fought,

  And that my master slew him.

  FRIAR LAURENCE Romeo!

  [Friar stoops and looks on the blood and weapons.]

  Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains

  140

  The stony entrance of this sepulchre?

  What mean these masterless and gory swords

  To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?

  Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?

  And steep’d in blood? Ah what an unkind hour

  145

  Is guilty of this lamentable chance?

  The lady stirs.

  JULIET rises.

  JULIET O comfortable Friar, where is my lord?

  I do remember well where I should be,

  And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

  150

  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,

  155

  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.

  160

  Exit Friar Laurence.

  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

  165

  To make me die with a restorative. [She kisses him.]

  Thy lips are warm!

  WATCHMAN [within] 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.]

  Enter Page and Watchmen.

  PAGE

  This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.

  170

  1 WATCHMAN

  The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.

  Go, some of you: who
e’er you find, attach.

  Exeunt some watchmen.

  Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain

  And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,

  Who here hath lain this two days buried.

  175

  Go tell the Prince. Run to the Capulets.

  Raise up the Montagues. Some others search.

  Exeunt some watchmen.

  We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,

  But the true ground of all these piteous woes

  We cannot without circumstance descry.

  180

  Enter several Watchmen with BALTHASAR.

  2 WATCHMAN Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard.

  1 WATCHMAN

  Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.

  Enter another Watchman with FRIAR LAURENCE.

  3 WATCHMAN

  Here is a friar that trembles, sighs and weeps.

  We took this mattock and this spade from him

  185

  As he was coming from this churchyard’s side.

  1 WATCHMAN 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 rest?

  Enter CAPULET and LADY CAPULET and servants.

  CAPULET What should it be that is so shriek’d abroad?

  190

  LADY CAPULET O, 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 WATCHMAN

  Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,

  195

  And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,

  Warm, and new kill’d.

  PRINCE

  Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

  1 WATCHMAN

  Here is a friar, and slaughter’d Romeo’s man,

  With instruments upon them fit to open

  200

  These dead men’s tombs.

  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-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.

  205

  LADY CAPULET

  O me! This sight of death is as a bell

  That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

  Enter MONTAGUE and servants.

  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 tonight.

  210

  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 this,

  To press before thy father to a grave?

  215

  PRINCE Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while

  Till we can clear these ambiguities

  And know their spring, their head, their true descent,

  And then will I be general of your woes

  And lead you, even to death. Meantime forbear,

  220

  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 murder.

  225

  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.

  230

  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 doomsday, whose untimely death

  Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city;

  235

  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

  240

  To rid her from this second marriage,

  Or in my cell there would she kill herself.

 

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