The Tragedy Of Romeo And Juliet

1 Enter Friar Lawrence.
2 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
3 Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.
4 Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts
5 And thou art wedded to calamity.
6 Enter Romeo.
7 ROMEO.
8 Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
9 What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
10 That I yet know not?
11 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
12 Too familiar
13 Is my dear son with such sour company.
14 I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.
15 ROMEO.
16 What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?
17 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
18 A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,
19 Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.
20 ROMEO.
21 Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death;
22 For exile hath more terror in his look,
23 Much more than death. Do not say banishment.
24 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
25 Hence from Verona art thou banished.
26 Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
27 ROMEO.
28 There is no world without Verona walls,
29 But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
30 Hence banished is banish’d from the world,
31 And world’s exile is death. Then banished
32 Is death misterm’d. Calling death banished,
33 Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,
34 And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
35 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
36 O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!
37 Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,
38 Taking thy part, hath brush’d aside the law,
39 And turn’d that black word death to banishment.
40 This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.
41 ROMEO.
42 ’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
43 Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog,
44 And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
45 Live here in heaven and may look on her,
46 But Romeo may not. More validity,
47 More honourable state, more courtship lives
48 In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
49 On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand,
50 And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
51 Who, even in pure and vestal modesty
52 Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
53 But Romeo may not, he is banished.
54 This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
55 They are free men but I am banished.
56 And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
57 Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
58 No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
59 But banished to kill me? Banished?
60 O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.
61 Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
62 Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
63 A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
64 To mangle me with that word banished?
65 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
66 Thou fond mad man, hear me speak a little,
67 ROMEO.
68 O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
69 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
70 I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word,
71 Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
72 To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
73 ROMEO.
74 Yet banished? Hang up philosophy.
75 Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
76 Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom,
77 It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.
78 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
79 O, then I see that mad men have no ears.
80 ROMEO.
81 How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
82 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
83 Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
84 ROMEO.
85 Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
86 Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
87 An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
88 Doting like me, and like me banished,
89 Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
90 And fall upon the ground as I do now,
91 Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
92 [_Knocking within._]
93 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
94 Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.
95 ROMEO.
96 Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
97 Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.
98 [_Knocking._]
99 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
100 Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise,
101 Thou wilt be taken.—Stay awhile.—Stand up.
102 [_Knocking._]
103 Run to my study.—By-and-by.—God’s will,
104 What simpleness is this.—I come, I come.
105 [_Knocking._]
106 Who knocks so hard? Whence come you, what’s your will?
107 NURSE.
108 [_Within._] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.
109 I come from Lady Juliet.
110 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
111 Welcome then.
112 Enter Nurse.
113 NURSE.
114 O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar,
115 Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?
116 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
117 There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
118 NURSE.
119 O, he is even in my mistress’ case.
120 Just in her case! O woeful sympathy!
121 Piteous predicament. Even so lies she,
122 Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
123 Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man.
124 For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
125 Why should you fall into so deep an O?
126 ROMEO.
127 Nurse.
128 NURSE.
129 Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.
130 ROMEO.
131 Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
132 Doth not she think me an old murderer,
133 Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
134 With blood remov’d but little from her own?
135 Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
136 My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?
137 NURSE.
138 O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
139 And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
140 And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
141 And then down falls again.
142 ROMEO.
143 As if that name,
144 Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
145 Did murder her, as that name’s cursed hand
146 Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me,
147 In what vile part of this anatomy
148 Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
149 The hateful mansion.
150 [_Drawing his sword._]
151 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
152 Hold thy desperate hand.
153 Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
154 Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
155 The unreasonable fury of a beast.
156 Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
157 And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
158 Thou hast amaz’d me. By my holy order,
159 I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
160 Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?
161 And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives,
162 By doing damned hate upon thyself?
163 Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?
164 Since birth, and heaven and earth, all three do meet
165 In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
166 Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
167 Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
168 And usest none in that true use indeed
169 Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
170 Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
171 Digressing from the valour of a man;
172 Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
173 Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
174 Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
175 Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
176 Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
177 Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
178 And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
179 What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
180 For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
181 There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
182 But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy.
183 The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,
184 And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.
185 A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
186 Happiness courts thee in her best array;
187 But like a misshaped and sullen wench,
188 Thou putt’st up thy Fortune and thy love.
189 Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
190 Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed,
191 Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.
192 But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
193 For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
194 Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
195 To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
196 Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
197 With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
198 Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
199 Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
200 And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
201 Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
202 Romeo is coming.
203 NURSE.
204 O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
205 To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!
206 My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.
207 ROMEO.
208 Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
209 NURSE.
210 Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
211 Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
212 [_Exit._]
213 ROMEO.
214 How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.
215 FRIAR LAWRENCE.
216 Go hence, good night, and here stands all your state:
217 Either be gone before the watch be set,
218 Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence.
219 Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man,
220 And he shall signify from time to time
221 Every good hap to you that chances here.
222 Give me thy hand; ’tis late; farewell; good night.
223 ROMEO.
224 But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
225 It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
226 Farewell.
227 [_Exeunt._]