A lightning before death: O, how may I
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,
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?
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?
For fear of that, I will still 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,
Will I set up my everlasting rest; [here
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.-Eyes, look
your last!

[hour And steep'd in blood?-Ah, what an unkind 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 my Romeo?

[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.

[Erit. [hand? What's here? a cup, clos'd in my true love's 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!

1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:-Which way?

cary!

Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

[Dies.

Enter at the other end of the Church-Yard, Friar LAURENCE, with a Lantern, Crow, and Spade. Fri. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft tonight [there? Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who's Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead? Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,

What torch is yond', that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless sculls? as I discerp,
It burneth in the Capels' monument.
Bal. It doth so, holy Sir; and there's my
One that you love.
[master,

Fri. Who is it?

Bal. Romeo.

Fri. How long hath he been there?

Bal. Full half an hour.

Fri. Go with me to the vault.

Bal. I dare not, Sir:

Jul. Yea, noise?-then I'll be brief.-0 happy dagger!

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.

1 Watch. The ground is bloody; Search about the church-yard: 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 BALTHASAR. 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?

our ears?

1 Watch. 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.

1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;

With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Cap. O, heavens!-O, wife! look how our daughter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista'en,-for lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,-
And is mis-sheathed 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

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: Meantime for-
bear,

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
Doth make against me, of this direful mur-

der;

And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself accus'd.
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-marriageday

Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death

Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.

* I. e. The scabbard,

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 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 Ro-
meo,

That he should hither come as this dire night,
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 staid by accident; and yesternight
Return'd 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

lady's grave;

And bid 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 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, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!

And I, for winking at your discords too, * Scat.

CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark.

FRANCISCO, a Soldier.

to the present King.

LAERTES, Son to Polonius.

POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain.

HORATIO, Friend to Hamlet.

VOLTIMAND,

CORNELIUS,

Courtiers.

ROSENCRANTZ,

GUILDENSTERN,

OSRIC, a Courtier.

Another Courtier.

Officers.

A PRIEST.

MARCELLUS,

BERNARDO,

A CAPTAIN. An AMBASSADOR.
GHOST of Hamlet's Father.

FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.

GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and Mother of Hamlet.

OPHELIA, Daughter of Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Grave-diggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, Elsinore.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good
Marcellus.

Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again
to-night?

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy; And will not let belief take hold of him, Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us; Therefore I have entreated him along, That, if again this apparition come, With us to watch the minutes of this night; He may approve* our eyes, and speak to it. And let us once again assail your ears, Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear. Ber. Sit down awhile; That are so fortified against our story, What we two nights have seen.

Hor. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Ber. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from

the pole,

Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in angry parle,t
He smote the sledded‡ Polack on the ice.
'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump|| at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not;

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he
that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land;
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore

task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the
Who is't, that can inform me?
[day;

Hor. That can I;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant
Hamlet
[him,)
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd com-
Well ratified by law and heraldry, [páct,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return’d
To the inheritance of Fortinbras, [mart,¶
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-
And carriage of the article design'd,**
His fell to Hamlet: Now, Sir, young Fortin-
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,tt [bras,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd‡‡ up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomachs in't: which is no other

But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsatory, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The source of this our watch; and the chief
head

Of this post-haste and romage* in the land.
[Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so:
Well may it sort,t that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the
king

That was, and is, the question of these wars.
Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy‡ state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, [dead
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire
stands,

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-]

Re-enter GHOST.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again! I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illu

sion!

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing, may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in
death,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it:-stay, and speak.—Stop it, Mar-

cellus.

crew.

Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring¶ spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein This present object made probation.**

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad;