| ACT VSCENE III | A churchyard; in it a tomb belonging to the Capulets. | |
| | Enter PARIS, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch | |
| PARIS | Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof: | |
| | Yet 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; | 5 |
| | 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 something approach. | |
| | Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go. | 10 |
| PAGE | Aside | |
| | Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure. | |
| | Retires | |
| 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: | 15 |
| | The obsequies that I for thee will keep | |
| | Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep. | |
| | The Page whistles | |
| | The boy gives warning something doth approach. | |
| | What cursed foot wanders this way to-night, | |
| | To cross my obsequies and true love's rite? | 20 |
| | What with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile. | |
| | Retires | |
| | Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a torch,mattock, &c | |
| 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, | 25 |
| | 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 | 30 |
| | 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 | 35 |
| | 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. | |
| BALTHASAR | I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you. | 40 |
| ROMEO | So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that: | |
| | Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow. | |
| BALTHASAR | Aside | |
| | His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. | |
| | Retires | |
| ROMEO | Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, | |
| | Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth, | 45 |
| | Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, | |
| | And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food! | |
| | Opens the tomb | |
| PARIS | This is that banish'd haughty Montague, | |
| | That murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief, | |
| | It is supposed, the fair creature died; | 50 |
| | And here is come to do some villanous shame | |
| | To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him. | |
| | Comes forward | |
| | Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague! | |
| | Can vengeance be pursued further than death? | |
| | Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee: | 55 |
| | 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, | 60 |
| | 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, | 65 |
| | A madman's mercy bade 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! | |
| | They fight | |
| PAGE | O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch. | 70 |
| | Exit | |
| PARIS | O, I am slain! | |
| | Falls | |
| | If thou be merciful, | |
| | Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. | |
| | 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. | |
| | Laying PARIS in the tomb | |
| | 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 chamber-maids; 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 sea-sick weary bark! | |
| | Here's to my love! | |
| | Drinks | |
| | O true apothecary! | 120 |
| | Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. | |
| | Dies | |
| | Enter, at the other end of the churchyard, FRIARLAURENCE, 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? | |
| BALTHASAR | Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well. | |
| FRIAR LAURENCE | Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, | 125 |
| | What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light | |
| | To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern, | |
| | It burneth in the Capel's monument. | |
| BALTHASAR | It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, | |
| | One that you love. | 130 |
| FRIAR LAURENCE | Who is it? | |
| BALTHASAR | Romeo. | |
| FRIAR LAURENCE | How long hath he been there? | |
| BALTHASAR | Full half an hour. | |
| FRIAR LAURENCE | Go with me to the vault. | 135 |
| 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: | 140 |
| | O, much I fear some ill unlucky 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! | 145 |
| | 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 tomb | |
| | Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too? | 150 |
| | And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour | |
| | Is guilty of this lamentable chance! | |
| | The lady stirs. | |
| | JULIET wakes | |
| JULIET | O comfortable friar! where is my lord? | |
| | I do remember well where I should be, | 155 |
| | And there I am. Where is my Romeo? | |
| | Noise within | |
| 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. | 160 |
| | 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, | 165 |
| | Noise again | |
| | I dare no longer stay. | |
| JULIET | Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. | |
| | Exit FRIAR LAURENCE | |
| | What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand? | |
| | Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end: | |
| | O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop | 170 |
| | To help me after? I will kiss thy lips; | |
| | Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, | |
| | To make die with a restorative. | |
| | Kisses him | |
| | Thy lips are warm. | |
| First Watchman | Within | |
| JULIET | Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger! | 175 |
| | Snatching ROMEO's dagger | |
| | This is thy sheath; | |
| | Stabs herself | |
| | there rust, and let me die. | |
| | 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. | |
| First Watchman | The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard: | |
| | Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach. | 180 |
| | 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 search: | 185 |
| | We see the ground whereon these woes do lie; | |
| | But the true ground of all these piteous woes | |
| | We cannot without circumstance descry. | |
| | Re-enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR | |
| Second Watchman | Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard. | |
| First Watchman | Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither. | 190 |
| | Re-enter others of the Watch, with FRIAR LAURENCE | |
| Third Watchman | 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 side. | |
| First Watchman | A great suspicion: stay the friar too. | |
| | Enter the PRINCE and Attendants | |
| PRINCE | What misadventure is so early up, | 195 |
| | That calls our person from our morning's rest? | |
| | Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and others | |
| 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. | 200 |
| PRINCE | What fear is this which startles in our ears? | |
| First Watchman | Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain; | |
| | And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, | |
| | Warm and new kill'd. | |
| PRINCE | Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes. | 205 |
| First Watchman | Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man; | |
| | With instruments upon them, fit to open | |
| | These dead men's tombs. | |
| CAPULET | O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds! | |
| | This dagger hath mista'en--for, lo, his house | 210 |
| | Is empty on the back of Montague,-- | |
| | And it mis-sheathed 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. | |
| | Enter MONTAGUE and others | |
| PRINCE | Come, Montague; for thou art early up, | 215 |
| | To see thy son and heir more 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. | 220 |
| MONTAGUE | 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 | 225 |
| | true descent; | |
| | 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. | 230 |
| 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; | |
| | And here I stand, both to impeach and purge | |
| | Myself condemned and myself excused. | 235 |
| 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: | 240 |
| | I married them; and their stol'n marriage-day | |
| | Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death | |
| | Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city, | |
| | For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined. | |
| | You, to remove that siege of grief from her, | 245 |
| | 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. | 250 |
| | 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, | 255 |
| | 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 | 260 |
| | 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 | 265 |
| | 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; | 270 |
| | 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 | 275 |
| | 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? | |
| BALTHASAR | I brought my master news of Juliet's death; | 280 |
| | 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 threatened me with death, going in the vault, | |
| | I departed not and left him there. | 285 |
| 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 I did: | 290 |
| | 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: | 295 |
| | 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, | 300 |
| | 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 | 305 |
| | Can I demand. | |
| MONTAGUE | 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. | 310 |
| 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; | 315 |
| | Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: | |
| | For never was a story of more woe | |
| | Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. | |
| | Exeunt | |
