Heap 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 arm'd against myself:
Stay not, begone ;-live, and hereafter say—
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
PARIS. I do defy thy conjurations,
And do attach thee as a felon here.
ROMEO. Wilt thou provoke me; then have at thee,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
ROMEO. In faith, I will:-Let me peruse this
Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris:
What said my man, when my betossed 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,-
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 interr'd.
[Laying Paris in the Monument. How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry? which their keepers call A lightning before death: O, how may 1 Call this a lightning ?—O, my love! my 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 here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.-Eyes, look your
Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death ?—
Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love !-[Drinks the poison.]
apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies.
Friar Laurence's Explanation to the Prince of Verona.
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
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.
You-to remove that siege* of grief from her,—
Betroth'd, 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 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 Romeo,
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 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 my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
The play commences with the arrival at the court of England of Chatillon, ambassador from the French king, who demands King John's abdication in favour of Prince Arthur. This is refused, and war is immediately declared between England and France. The two armies meet before the walls of Angiers, where a marriage is arranged between Lewis, the dauphin of France, and Blanch, niece of King John; thus an alliance is cemented between the French King Philip and John. At this juncture Cardinal Pandulph, the Pope's legate, arrives, to urge on King John the appointment of Stephen Langton to the see of Canterbury. This the king declines to accede to, telling Pandulph that No Italian priest
Shall tithe or toll in his dominions.
On which Pandulph declares him excommunicated, and induces the French king to declare war against him. In a battle which ensues, Prince Arthur is taken and sent to England, under the charge of Hubert, who has been ordered by John to kill the prince by burning out his eyes. Hubert, overcome by the prayers of Prince Arthur, will not execute the command given him; but the prince, in making an effort to escape from Northampton Castle, where he is confined, falls from the walls and is killed. The war continuing, the French land in England, and in a battle which ensues, King John, in accordance with a message he receives from Faulconbridge, leaves the field and retires to Swinstead
Abbey, where he dies, poison having been administered to him by a monk, and the play concludes with a defiant appeal on behalf of England from Faulconbridge.
King John's Defiance to the French Ambassador.
Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For, ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
So hence!
Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, presage of your own decay.
Faulconbridge's Speech on New Titles.
Good den, Sir Richard,-God-a-mercy, fellow;
And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter :
For new-made honour doth forget men's names;
'Tis too respective, and too sociable,
For your conversion. Now your traveller,—
He and his tooth-pick at my worship's mess:
And when my knightly stomach is sufficed,
Why then I suck my teeth and catechize
My picked man of countries.‡- -My dear sir
(Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin),
I shall beseech you-That is question now;
And then comes answer like an A B C-book ;
O sir, says answer, at your best command;
At your employment: at your service, sir :-
No, sir, says question, I, sweet sir, at yours:
And so, ere answer knows what question would,
(Saving in dialogue of compliment;
And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
* Good e'en, good evening.
† Advanced position in life.
Picked man of countries; that is, one who has travelled much.
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