ACT 1
Scene 1
...cure as know.
Enter Romeo.
...Good morrow, cousin.
Is the day so young?
...new struck nine.
Ay me, sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?
...lengthens Romeo’s hours?
Not having that which, having, makes them short.
... In love?
Out—
... Of love?
Out of her favor where I am in love.
...rough in proof!
Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should without eyes see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine?—O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
...I rather weep.
Good heart, at what?
...good heart’s oppression.
Why, such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.
...do me wrong.
Tut, I have lost myself. I am not here.
This is not Romeo. He’s some other where.
...that you love?
What, shall I groan and tell thee?
...tell me who.
A sick man in sadness makes his will—
A word ill urged to one that is so ill.
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
...supposed you loved.
A right good markman! And she’s fair I love.
...is soonest hit.
Well in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit,
And, in strong proof of chastity well armed,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty, only poor
That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.
...still live chaste?
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starved with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.
...think of her.
O, teach me how I should forget to think!
...Examine other beauties.
’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair;
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
Where I may read who passed that passing fair?
Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.
...die in debt.
They exit.
Scene 2
...In good time!
Enter Benvolio and Romeo.
...old will die.
Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
...I pray thee?
For your broken shin.
...art thou mad?
Not mad, but bound more than a madman is,
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipped and tormented, and—good e’en, good fellow.
...can you read?
Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
...anything you see?
Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
...Rest you merry.
Stay, fellow. I can read.(He reads the letter.)
Signior Martino and his wife and daughters,
County Anselme and his beauteous sisters,
The lady widow of Vitruvio,
Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces,
Mercutio and his brother Valentine,
Mine Uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters,
My fair niece Rosaline and Livia,
Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt,
Lucio and the lively Helena.
A fair assembly. Whither should they come?
... Up.
Whither? To supper?
...To our house.
Whose house?
... My master’s.
Indeed I should have asked thee that before.
...swan a crow.
When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire;
And these who, often drowned, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.
...now seems best.
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendor of mine own.
They exit.
Scene 4
...to happy days.
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers, Torchbearers, and a Boy with a drum.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?
...and be gone.
Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling.
Being but heavy I will bear the light.
...have you dance.
Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes
With nimble soles. I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
...a common bound.
I am too sore enpiercèd with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
...a tender thing.
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boist’rous, and it pricks like thorn.
...to his legs.
A torch for me. Let wantons light of heart
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels,
For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase:
I’ll be a candle holder and look on;
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.
...burn daylight, ho!
Nay, that’s not so.
...our five wits.
And we mean well in going to this masque,
But ’tis no wit to go.
...may one ask?
I dreamt a dream tonight.
...so did I.
Well, what was yours?
...dreamers often lie.
In bed asleep while they do dream things true.
...This is she—
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace.
Thou talk’st of nothing.
...come too late.
I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail. On, lusty gentlemen.
... Strike, drum.
They march about the stage and then withdraw to the side.
Scene 5
...two years ago.
to a Servingman
What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?
...know not, sir.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear—
Beauty too rich for use, for Earth too dear.
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand
And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight,
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
...to bitt’rest gall.
taking Juliet’s hand
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
...holy palmers’ kiss.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
...use in prayer.
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray: grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
...for prayers’ sake.
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take. He kisses her.
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.
...they have took.
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
He kisses her.
...toward her mother.
What is her mother?
...chinks.Nurse moves away.
aside
Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.
...at the best.
Ay, so I fear. The more is my unrest.
...to my rest.
All but Juliet and the Nurse begin to exit.
ACT 2
Scene 1
...with extreme sweet.
Enter Romeo alone.
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out.
He withdraws.
Scene 2
...to be found.
Romeo comes forward.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Enter Juliet above.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.
It is my lady. O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold. ’Tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
... Ay me.
aside
She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a wingèd messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturnèd wond’ring eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
...be a Capulet.
aside
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
...Take all myself.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized.
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
...on my counsel?
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am.
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
...and a Montague?
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
...find thee here.
With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt.
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.
...will murder thee.
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
...saw thee here.
I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes,
And, but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death proroguèd, wanting of thy love.
...out this place?
By love, that first did prompt me to inquire.
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.
...hath so discoverèd.
Lady, by yonder blessèd moon I vow,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—
...prove likewise variable.
What shall I swear by?
...I’ll believe thee.
If my heart’s dear love—
...within my breast.
O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
...thou have tonight?
Th’ exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.
...to give again.
Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?
...will come again.
O blessèd, blessèd night! I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial.
...will I send.
So thrive my soul—
...times good night.
A thousand times the worse to want thy light.
Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
Going.
...of “My Romeo!”
It is my soul that calls upon my name.
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.
... Romeo.
My dear.
...send to thee?
By the hour of nine.
...call thee back.
Let me stand here till thou remember it.
...love thy company.
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.
...of his liberty.
I would I were thy bird.
...it be morrow.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace so sweet to rest.
Hence will I to my ghostly friar’s close cell,
His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.
He exits.
Scene 3
...by action dignified.
Enter Romeo.
...up that plant.
Good morrow, father.
...in bed tonight.
That last is true. The sweeter rest was mine.
...thou with Rosaline?
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name and that name’s woe.
...been then?
I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessèd man, for, lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
...but riddling shrift.
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When and where and how
We met, we wooed, and made exchange of vow
I’ll tell thee as we pass, but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us today.
...strength in men.
Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline.
...loving, pupil mine.
And bad’st me bury love.
...out to have.
I pray thee, chide me not. Her I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so.
...to pure love.
O, let us hence. I stand on sudden haste.
...that run fast.
They exit.
Scene 4
...bones, their bones!
Enter Romeo.
...fairly last night.
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit
did I give you?
...you not conceive?
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was
great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain
courtesy.
...in the hams.
Meaning, to curtsy.
...kindly hit it.
A most courteous exposition.
...pink of courtesy.
“Pink” for flower.
... Right.
Why, then is my pump well flowered.
...wearing, solely singular.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
singleness.
...My wits faints.
Switch and spurs, switch and spurs, or I’ll cry
a match.
...for the goose?
Thou wast never with me for anything when
thou wast not there for the goose.
...for that jest.
Nay, good goose, bite not.
...most sharp sauce.
And is it not, then, well served into a sweet
goose?
...an ell broad.
I stretch it out for that word “broad,” which
added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a
broad goose.
...her man Peter.
Here’s goodly gear. A sail, a sail!
...man are you?
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made, himself
to mar.
...the young Romeo?
I can tell you, but young Romeo will be older
when you have found him than he was when you
sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for
fault of a worse.
...bawd. So ho!
What hast thou found?
...to dinner thither.
I will follow you.
...of his ropery?
A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself
talk and will speak more in a minute than he will
stand to in a month.
...very weak dealing.
Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress.
I protest unto thee—
...a joyful woman.
What wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not
mark me.
...a gentlemanlike offer.
Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Lawrence’ cell
Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.
Offering her money.
...not a penny.
Go to, I say you shall.
...shall be there.
And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall.
Within this hour my man shall be with thee
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,
Which to the high topgallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell. Be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains.
Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress.
...Hark you, sir.
What sayst thou, my dear nurse?
...putting one away”?
Warrant thee, my man’s as true as steel.
...with a letter?
Ay, nurse, what of that? Both with an R.
...to hear it.
Commend me to thy lady.
...Before and apace.
They exit.
Scene 6
...Honest nurse, farewell.
Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.
...chide us not.
Amen, amen. But come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.
...thanks too much.
Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heaped like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbor air, and let rich music’s tongue
Unfold the imagined happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.
...two in one.
They exit.
ACT 3
Scene 1
...man’s pleasure, I.
Enter Romeo.
...art a villain.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none.
Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.
...turn and draw.
I do protest I never injured thee
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love.
And so, good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.
...for you.He draws.
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
...your passado.They fight.
Draw, Benvolio, beat down their weapons. Romeo draws.
Gentlemen, for shame forbear this outrage!
Tybalt! Mercutio! The Prince expressly hath
Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!
Romeo attempts to beat down their rapiers. Tybalt stabs Mercutio.
...fetch a surgeon.
Courage, man, the hurt cannot be much.
...under your arm.
I thought all for the best.
...too. Your houses!
This gentleman, the Prince’s near ally,
My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt
In my behalf. My reputation stained
With Tybalt’s slander—Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my cousin! O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
And in my temper softened valor’s steel.
...scorn the earth.
This day’s black fate on more days doth depend.
This but begins the woe others must end.
...Tybalt back again.
Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain!
Away to heaven, respective lenity,
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.—
Now, Tybalt, take the “villain” back again
That late thou gavest me, for Mercutio’s soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company.
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.
...with him hence.
This shall determine that.
They fight. Tybalt falls.
...be gone, away.
O, I am Fortune’s fool!
...dost thou stay?
Romeo exits.
Scene 3
...wedded to calamity.
Enter Romeo.
Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand
That I yet know not?
...the Prince’s doom.
What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?
...but body’s banishment.
Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say “death,”
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say “banishment.”
...broad and wide.
There is no world without Verona walls
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence “banishèd” is “banished from the world,”
And world’s exile is death. Then “banishèd”
Is death mistermed. Calling death “banishèd,”
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden ax
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
...seest it not.
’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 honorable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not; he is banishèd.
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.
They are free men, but I am banishèd.
And sayest thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But “banishèd” to kill me? “Banishèd”?
O friar, the damnèd use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin absolver, and my friend professed,
To mangle me with that word “banishèd”?
...a little speak.
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
...thou art banishèd.
Yet “banishèd”? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more.
...have no ears.
How should they when that wise men have no eyes?
...of thy estate.
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murderèd,
Doting like me, and like me banishèd,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair
And fall upon the ground as I do now, Romeo throws himself down.
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
...Romeo, hide thyself.
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans,
Mistlike, enfold me from the search of eyes.
...deep an O?
Nurse.
...end of all.
rising up
Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
Now I have stained the childhood of our joy
With blood removed but little from her own?
Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
My concealed lady to our canceled love?
...down falls again.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursèd hand
Murdered her kinsman.—O, tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
He draws his dagger.
...you will come.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
...give you, sir.
Nurse gives Romeo a ring.
...grows very late.
How well my comfort is revived by this!
...Farewell. Good night.
But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell.
They exit.
Scene 5
...and by.—Good night.
Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft.
...was the nightingale.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
...to be gone.
Let me be ta’en; let me be put to death.
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon gray is not the morning’s eye;
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.
Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go.
Come death and welcome. Juliet wills it so.
How is ’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.
...light it grows.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.
...let life out.
Farewell, farewell. One kiss and I’ll descend.
They kiss, and Romeo descends.
...behold my Romeo.
Farewell.
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
...ever meet again?
I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our times to come.
...thou lookest pale.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.
He exits.
ACT 5
Scene 1
...and stay dinner.
Enter Romeo.
If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne,
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead
(Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!)
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips
That I revived and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possessed
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!
Enter Romeo’s man Balthasar, in riding boots.
News from Verona!—How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How doth my Juliet? That I ask again,
For nothing can be ill if she be well.
...my office, sir.
Is it e’en so?—Then I deny you, stars!—
Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.
...import Some misadventure.
Tush, thou art deceived.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?
...my good lord.
No matter. Get thee gone,
And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight.
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
Let’s see for means. O mischief, thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
I do remember an apothecary
(And hereabouts he dwells) which late I noted
In tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples. Meager were his looks.
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuffed, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves,
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scattered to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said
“An if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.”
O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.—
What ho, Apothecary!
...calls so loud?
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor. He offers money.
Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
...that utters them.
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law.
The world affords no law to make thee rich.
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
...my will, consents.
I pay thy poverty and not thy will.
APOTHECARY, giving him the poison
...dispatch you straight.
handing him the money
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.
Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.
He exits.
Scene 3
...He steps aside.
Enter Romeo and Balthasar.
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,
Whate’er thou hearest 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
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, begone.
But, if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I farther shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint
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.
...not trouble you.
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that. Giving money.
Live and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.
...He steps aside.
beginning to force open the tomb
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
And in despite I’ll cram thee with more food.
...thou must die.
I must indeed, and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp’rate man.
Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone.
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O, begone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself,
For I come hither armed against myself.
Stay not, begone, live, and hereafter say
A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.
...a felon here.
Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!
They draw and fight.
...with Juliet.He dies.
In faith, I will.—Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man when my betossèd 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,
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.— He opens the tomb.
A grave? O, no. A lantern, slaughtered youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.—
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred. Laying Paris in the tomb.
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry, which their keepers call
A light’ning before death! O, how may I
Call this a light’ning?—O my love, my wife,
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advancèd there.—
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favor can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin.—Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
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
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. Kissing Juliet.
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!
Here’s to my love. Drinking.
O true apothecary,
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
He dies.
...with a restorative.
She kisses him.