my Romeo?

[Exit.

And steeped in blood! Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance !-
The lady stirs.

[Juliet wakes, and stirs. Jul. 0 comfortable friar! where is

my

lord ? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am.—Where is

[Noise within. Fri. 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. 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 !--[Noise again.] I dare stay

no longer. Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand ? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. O churl! drink all; and leave no friendly drop, To help me after?-I will kiss thy lips ; Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them, To make me die with a restorative.

[Kisses him. Thy lips are warm !

i Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy.-Which way? Jul. Yea, noise ?-then I'll be brief.-0 happy

dagger! [Snatching Romeo's dagger. This is thy sheath. [Stabs herself.] There rust, and let

[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. 1 Watch. The ground is bloody; search about the

church-yard :

me die.

i Thus the quarto of 1599. That of 1597 reads :

« Ay, noise ? then must I be resolute,

Oh, happy dagger! thou shalt end my fear;
Rest in my bosom: thus I come to thee."

Go, some of you, whoe'er you find, attach.

[Exeunt some. 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 ;

[Exeunt other Watchmen. We see the ground whereon these woes do lie; But the true ground of all these piteous woes, We cannot without circumstance descry.

Enter some of the Watch, with BALTHAZAR. 2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man; we found him in

the church-yard. 1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come

hither.

Enter another Watchman, with Friar LAURENCE. 3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs, and

weeps. We took this mattock and this spade from him, As he was coming from this church-yard side.

1 Watch. A great suspicion ; stay the friar too.

Enter the Prince and Attendants. Prince. What misadventure is so early up, That calls our person from our morning's rest?

Enter Capulet, LADY CAPULET, and others.
Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

La. Cap. The people in the street cry—Romeo,
Some-Juliet, and some-Paris; and all run,
With open outcry, toward our monument.

Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our ears? 1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris slain ;

31

VOL. VII.

And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm, and new killed.
Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul mur-

der comes. 1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughtered Romeo's

man ;
With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.
Cap. O Heavens !-0 wife! look how our daugh-

ter bleeds!
This dagger hath mista'en,--for lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,-
And is missheathed in my daughter's bosom.?

La. Cap. 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,
To see thy son and heir more early down.

Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;' Grief of my son's exile hath stopped her breath. What further woe conspires against mine age ?

Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.

Mon. 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 true descent; And then will I be general of your woes, And lead you even to death. Mean time forbear, And let mischance be slave to patience.Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place

i The words, “ for lo! his house is empty on the back of Montague," are to be considered parenthetical. It appears that the dagger was anciently worn behind the back. 2 After this line, the quarto of 1597 adds :

6 And
young

Benvolio is deceased too."

Doth make against me, of this direful murder;
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excused.
Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in

this.
Fri. 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.
I married them; and their stolen marriage-day
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death
Banished the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
You—to remove that siege of grief from her
Betrothed, and would have married her perforce,
To county Paris.—Then comes she to me;
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutored 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,
To help to take her from her borrowed grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, friar John,
Was stayed by accident; and yesternight
Returned my letter back. Then all alone
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
Of her awakening,) 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;
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 iny fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigor of severest law.

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man. Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this ?

Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death; And then in post he came from Mantua, To this same place, to this same monument. This letter he early bade me give his father; And threatened me with death, going in the vault, If I departed not, and left him there.

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 bade me stand aloof, and so I did.
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 ;
And here he writes—that he did buy a poison

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, 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 punished.

Of a

1 Mercutio and Paris. Mercutio is expressly called the prince's kinsman in Act iii. Sc. 4; and that Paris was also the prince's kinsman, may be inferred from the following passages :—Capulet, speaking of the count, in the fourth act, describes him as “a gentleman of princely parentage;" and after he is killed, Romeo saya :

Let me peruse this face;
Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris.”