The Tragedy Of Romeo And Juliet

1 Enter Juliet.
2 JULIET.
3 Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
4 Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a waggoner
5 As Phaeton would whip you to the west
6 And bring in cloudy night immediately.
7 Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
8 That runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo
9 Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
10 Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
11 By their own beauties: or, if love be blind,
12 It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
13 Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
14 And learn me how to lose a winning match,
15 Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
16 Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,
17 With thy black mantle, till strange love, grow bold,
18 Think true love acted simple modesty.
19 Come, night, come Romeo; come, thou day in night;
20 For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
21 Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.
22 Come gentle night, come loving black-brow’d night,
23 Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
24 Take him and cut him out in little stars,
25 And he will make the face of heaven so fine
26 That all the world will be in love with night,
27 And pay no worship to the garish sun.
28 O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
29 But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,
30 Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day
31 As is the night before some festival
32 To an impatient child that hath new robes
33 And may not wear them. O, here comes my Nurse,
34 And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks
35 But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.
36 Enter Nurse, with cords.
37 Now, Nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
38 The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?
39 NURSE.
40 Ay, ay, the cords.
41 [_Throws them down._]
42 JULIET.
43 Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?
44 NURSE.
45 Ah, well-a-day, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
46 We are undone, lady, we are undone.
47 Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead.
48 JULIET.
49 Can heaven be so envious?
50 NURSE.
51 Romeo can,
52 Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo.
53 Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!
54 JULIET.
55 What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
56 This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
57 Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but Ay,
58 And that bare vowel I shall poison more
59 Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
60 I am not I if there be such an I;
61 Or those eyes shut that make thee answer Ay.
62 If he be slain, say Ay; or if not, No.
63 Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
64 NURSE.
65 I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
66 God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
67 A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
68 Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
69 All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.
70 JULIET.
71 O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, break at once.
72 To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.
73 Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
74 And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.
75 NURSE.
76 O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had.
77 O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman!
78 That ever I should live to see thee dead.
79 JULIET.
80 What storm is this that blows so contrary?
81 Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead?
82 My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
83 Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom,
84 For who is living, if those two are gone?
85 NURSE.
86 Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
87 Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.
88 JULIET.
89 O God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?
90 NURSE.
91 It did, it did; alas the day, it did.
92 JULIET.
93 O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
94 Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
95 Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
96 Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
97 Despised substance of divinest show!
98 Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
99 A damned saint, an honourable villain!
100 O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
101 When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
102 In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
103 Was ever book containing such vile matter
104 So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
105 In such a gorgeous palace.
106 NURSE.
107 There’s no trust,
108 No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,
109 All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
110 Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.
111 These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
112 Shame come to Romeo.
113 JULIET.
114 Blister’d be thy tongue
115 For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
116 Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
117 For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
118 Sole monarch of the universal earth.
119 O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
120 NURSE.
121 Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?
122 JULIET.
123 Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
124 Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
125 When I thy three-hours’ wife have mangled it?
126 But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
127 That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband.
128 Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,
129 Your tributary drops belong to woe,
130 Which you mistaking offer up to joy.
131 My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
132 And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.
133 All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
134 Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
135 That murder’d me. I would forget it fain,
136 But O, it presses to my memory
137 Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.
138 Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.
139 That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’
140 Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
141 Was woe enough, if it had ended there.
142 Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,
143 And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
144 Why follow’d not, when she said Tybalt’s dead,
145 Thy father or thy mother, nay or both,
146 Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?
147 But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death,
148 ‘Romeo is banished’—to speak that word
149 Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
150 All slain, all dead. Romeo is banished,
151 There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
152 In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.
153 Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?
154 NURSE.
155 Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse.
156 Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
157 JULIET.
158 Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent,
159 When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
160 Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,
161 Both you and I; for Romeo is exil’d.
162 He made you for a highway to my bed,
163 But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
164 Come cords, come Nurse, I’ll to my wedding bed,
165 And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.
166 NURSE.
167 Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo
168 To comfort you. I wot well where he is.
169 Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.
170 I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.
171 JULIET.
172 O find him, give this ring to my true knight,
173 And bid him come to take his last farewell.
174 [_Exeunt._]