Romeo can,

Nurse.

Ay, ay, the cords.

[Throws them down. Jul. Ah me! what news! why dost thou wring

thy hands? Nurse. Ah well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's

dead! We are undone, lady, we are undone !Alack the day!-he's gone, he's kill’d, he's dead!

Jul. Can heaven be so envious ?

Nurse.
Though heaven cannot:- Romeo! Romeo !
Who ever would have thought it ?-Romeo!
Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me

thus?
This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 1,5
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 bedawbʼd in blood,
All in gore blood; I swoonded 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 !

5

say thou but I,] In Shakspeare's time the affirmative particle ay was usually written I, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling

6 God save the mark!] This proverbial exclamation occurs again, with equal obscurity, in Othello, Act I. sc. i.

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-lov'd 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 flow’ring face ! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical ! 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 did'st 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.

There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur’d, 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 ! Jul.

Blister'd be thy tongue, For such a wish! he was not born to shame: Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit; For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd. Sole monarch of the universal earth.

G

VOL. IX.

7

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 ? 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 hus

band: 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 lamentationo might have mov'd? But, with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death, Romeo is bunished,—to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,

7

what tongue shall smooth thy name,] To smooth, in ancient language, is to stroke, to caress, to fondle.

8 Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.] That is, is worse than the loss of ten thousand Tybalts. 9 Which modern lamentation, &c.] i. e. trite, common.

f

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 beguild,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exild:
He made you for a high way to my bed;
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
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.

SCENE III.

Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and Romeo. Fri. Romeo, come forth; 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 acquaintance at my hand,

yet know not!

That I

Fri.

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. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips, Not body's death, but body's banishment.

Rom. "Ha! banishment? be merciful, say-death: For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death: do not say—banishment.

Fri. 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 exíle is death:—then banishment
Is death mis-term’d: calling death-banishment,
Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me.

Fri. 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

1

2

This is dear mercy,] The old copies read mere mercy, which in ancient language, signifies absolute mercy.

More validity,
More konourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion flies, than Romeo:] Validity seems here to mean worth or dignity. By courtship, the author seems to mean, the