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Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,

It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.

Fri. O then I see that madmen have no ears. Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?

Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost
not feel:

Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished;

Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy hair,

And fall upon the ground, as I do now,

Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

Fri. Arise; one knocks: good Romeo, hide thy

self.

[Knocking within. Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick

groans,

Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.

[Knocking. Fri. Hark, how they knock!- Who's there?Romeo, arise;

Thou wilt be taken.

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Run to my study. By and by: - God's will !
What wilfulness is this! I come, I come.

[Knocking.

Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's

your will?

Nurse. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand :

I come from Lady Juliet.

Fri.

Welcome, then.

Enter the Nurse.

Nurse. O, holy friar! O, tell me! holy friar, Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?

Fri. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case;

Just in her case!

Fri.

O, woful sympathy!

Piteous predicament!

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Nurse.

Even so lies she,

Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.-
Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man:
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
Why should you fall into so deep an O?

Rom. Nurse!

Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir! - Death is the end of all. Rom. Spak'st thou of Juliet? how is it with her? Doth she not think me an old murderer,

Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy
With blood remov'd but little from her own?

Where is she? and how doth she? and what says

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My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?

Nurse. O she says nothing, sir, but weeps and

weeps;

And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
And then falls down again.

Rom.

As if that name, Shot from the deadly level of a gun,

The old copies make these words a part of the Nurse s speech. They were assigned to the Friar, at Farmer's sugges

tion.

u.

The epithet concealed is to be understood, not of the person but of the condition of the lady.

Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand
Murder'd 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.

Fri.

[Drawing his Sword.

Hold thy desperate hand!

Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art;
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman, in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast, in seeming both!"
Thou hast amaz'd me by my holy order,

I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,

By doing damned hate upon thyself?

Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? Since birth and heaven and earth all three do meet In thee at once; which thou at once would'st lose. Fie, fie! thou sham'st thy shape, thy love, thy wit; Which, like an usurer, abound'st in all,

And usest none in that true use indeed

Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,

'Shakespeare has here followed Brooke's poem:

"Art thou, quoth he, a man? thy shape saith, so thou art,
Thy crying and thy weping eyes denote a womans hart ·
For manly reason is quite from of thy mynd outchased,
And in her stead affections lewd, and fancies highly placed;

So that I stoode in doute this howre at the least,
If thou a man or woman wert, or else a brutish beast."

Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skill-less soldier's flask,
Is set a-fire by thine own ignorance,

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And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.
What! rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there art thou happy too
The law, that threaten'd death, becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her;
But look, thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,

8 To understand the force of this allusion, it should be remem. bered that the ancient English soldiers, using match locks, instead of locks with flints, as at present, were obliged to carry a lighted match hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden flask in which they carried their powder. The same allusion occurs in Humor's Ordinary, an old collection of English Epigrams:

"When she his flask and touch-box set on fire,

And till this hour the burning is not out."

And thou torn to pieces with thine own weapons.

Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:

Romeo is coming.

Nurse. O Lord! I could have stay'd here all the night,

To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!
My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.

Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir. Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Exit. Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this! Fri. Go hence: Good night; and here stands all your state:

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Either be gone before the watch be set,

Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you, that chances here.
Give me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.
Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,

It were a grief, so brief to part with thee:
Farewell.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in CAPULET'S House.

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and PARIS.

Cap. Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily, That we have had no time to move our daughter: Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly, And so did I:- Well, we were born to die. 'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night: I promise you, but for your company,

I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

10 The whole of your fortune depends on this.

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