The Works of William Shakespeare

And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you :
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
Rom. Is it even so? then I defy you, stars !—
Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and
paper,

And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.

Bal. I do beseech you, sir, have patience : Your looks are pale and wild, and do import Some misadventure.

Rom. Tush, thou art deceiv'd: Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do : Hast thou no letters to me from the friar? Bal. No, my good lord. Rom.

No matter get thee gone, And hire those horses: I'll be with thee straight. [Exit Balthasar. Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. 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 tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones :
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, 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

Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou may'st 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.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Friar Laurence's Cell.
Enter Friar John.

Fri. J. Holy Franciscan friar ! brother, ho!
Enter Friar Laurence.

Fri. L. This same should be the voice of friar John.

Welcome from Mantua: What says Romeo? Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

Fri. J. Going to find a bare-foot brother out, One of our order, to associate me, Here in this city visiting the sick, And finding him, the searchers of the town, Suspecting that we both were in a house Where the infectious pestilence did reign, Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth; So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.

Fri. L. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo? Fri. 7. I could not send it, here it is Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, [again,So fearful were they of infection. [hood,

Fri. L. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherThe letter was not nice, but full of charge, Of dear import; and the neglecting it May do much danger. Friar John, go hence; Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight Unto my cell.

Fri. J. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.

Under yond' yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the church-yard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
Page. [Aside.] I am almost afraid to stand
alone

Here in the church-yard; yet I will adventure. [Retires. Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,

O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones !Which with sweet water nightly I will dew; Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans: The obsequies, that I for thee will keep, Nightly shall be, to strew thy grave and weep. [The Page whistles. The boy gives warning something doth approach.

What cursed foot wanders this way to-night, To cross my obsequies, and true love's rites? What, with a torch?-muffle me, night, awhile. [Retires.

Enter Romeo and Balthasar, with a torch, mattock, &c.

Rom. 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 hear'st 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; [finger
But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:
But, if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry church-yard with thy
limbs :

The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce, and more inexorable far,
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.
Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship.
Take thou that:

Live, and be prosperous and farewell, good fellow.

Bal. [Aside.] For all this same, I'll hide me

here about:

His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

[Retires. Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,

Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth, Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the door of the monument. And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food! Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague,

That murder'd my love's cousin, -with which
It is supposed, the fair creature died,— grief,
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.-
[Advancing.

Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursu'd farther than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Rom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I

hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate 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, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself,
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, be gone ;-live, and hereafter say---
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,

And apprehend thee for a felon here.
Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at
thee, boy!
[They fight.
Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the
watch.
[Exit.

Par. [Falls.] O, I am slain !-If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. [Dies. Rom. In faith, will.-Let me peruse this

face :

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, slaughter'd 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 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
To sunder his that was thine enemy? [twain,
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 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 chamber-maids; 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!

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.] O true apothe-
cary!

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 no longer stay.

Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. [Exit Fri. L. What's here? a cup, clos'd 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! Watch. Within.] Lead, boy; which way? Jul. Yea, noise? then I'll be brief.-O happy dagger!

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. L. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night [there? This Have my old feet stumbled at graves !-Who's Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that [my friend,

knows you well.

Fri. L. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good What torch is yond', that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern, It burneth in the Capels' monument. Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my One that you love. [master,

Fri. L.

Bal.

Who is it?

Romeo.

Fri. L. How long hath he been there?
Bal.
Full half an hour.
Fri. L. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.

I dare not, sir.
My master knows not, but I am gone hence;
And fearfully did menace me with death,
If I did stay to look on his intents. [upon me:
Fri. L. Stay then, I'll go alone.-Fear comes
O much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him.

Fri. L. [Approaching the tomb.] Romeo !Alack, alack; what blood is this, which stains The stony entrance of this sepulchre ? What mean these masterless and gory swords, To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the tomb. Romeo! O, pale !-Who else? what, Paris too? And steep'd in blood?-Ah, what an unkind Is guilty of this lamentable chance! [hour The lady stirs. [Juliet wakes. Jul. O, 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. L. 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 :1

[Snatching Romeo's dagger. is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rest, 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.

I Watch. The ground is bloody; search about the church-yard: Go, some of you; whoe'er you find, attach. [Exeunt some of the Watch. 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 others of the Watch. We see the ground whereon these woes do lie; But the true ground of all these piteous woes, We cannot without circumstance descry. Re enter some of the Watch, with Balthasar. 2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the church-yard. [come hither. I Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince Re-enter other of the Watch, 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 outery, toward our monument. Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our ears? [Paris slain;

I Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county

And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill'd.

Prince. Search, seek, and know how this
foul murder comes. [Romeo's man;
I Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd
With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs. [daughter bleeds!
Cap. O, heaven !-O wife, look how our
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
That warns my old age to a sepulchre. [bell,
Enter Montague and others.
Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art
early up,

To see thy son and heir more early down.
Mon. Álas, my liege, my wife is dead to-
night;

Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath:
What further woe conspires against mine age?
Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.
Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in
To press before thy father to a grave? [this,
Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a
Till we can clear these ambiguities, [while,
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 forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Was stay'd by accident; and yesternight
Return'd my letter back. Then, all alone,
At the prefixèd hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vauit;
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 sacrific'd, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
Prince. We still have known thee for a holy
Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in
this?
[death;

[man.

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

it.

[watch? Where is the county's page, that rais'd the Sirrah, what made your master in this place? Page. He came with flowers to strew his

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,

Fri. L. I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place Doth make against me, of this direful murder And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned, and myself excus'd. Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this. [breath Fri. L. I will be brief, for my short date of Is not so long as is a tedious tale. Their course of love, the tidings of her death Romeo, there dead, was husband to that And here he writes, that he did buy a poison Juliet; [wife: Of a poor 'pothecary; and therewithal And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. I married them; and their stolen marriage-day Where be these enemies?-Capulet !-MonWas Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely

death

tague!

[city; See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!

Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this
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 per-
force,

To county Paris: then comes she to me;
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some
To rid her from this second marriage, [means
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,

And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen :-all are
punish'd.
[hand:
Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Mon.
But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!
Prince. A glooming peace this morning
with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:

Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. [Exeunt.

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad For never was a story of more woe, things;

Othello, A noble Moor; General in the Vene- Emilia, Wife to Iago.

Cassio, his Lieutenant.

Iago, his Ancient.

[tian Service. Bianca, Mistress to Cassio.

Roderigo, a Venetian Gentleman.

Officers, Gentlemen, Messengers, Musicians,
Sailors, Attendants, &c.

SCENE. The first Act, in Venice; during the rest of the Play, at a Sea-Port in Cyprus.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Venice. A Street.

Enter Roderigo and Iago.

Rod. Tush! Never tell me; I take it much
unkindly

That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of
this.

Iago. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me :-
If ever I did dream of such a matter,
Abhor me.

Rod. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him
in thy hate.
[ones of the city,
Iago. Despise me, if I do not. The great
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp'd to him :--and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place :
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion,

[he,

I would not follow him then. Iago. O, sir, content you; follow him to serve my turn upon him: We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave, That, doting on his own obsequious bondage, Wears out his time, much like his master's ass, For nought but provender; and when he's old, cashier'd: [are,

Nonsuits my mediators; for, Certes," says Whip me such honest knaves. Other there And what Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty, [was he? Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves; And, throwing but shows of service on their lords, [lined their coats, Do well thrive by them, and, when they have Do themselves homage: these fellows have

some soul:

"I have already chose my officer."
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows [theorick,
More than a spinster; unless the bookish
Wherein the togèd consuls can propose
And such a one I do profess myself. For, sir,
As masterly as he mere prattle, without It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
practice,
[election: Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the In following him, I follow but myself;
And I,-of whom his eyes had seen the proof, Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds, But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
Christian and heathen,-must be be-lee'd and For when my outward action doth demonstrate
calm'd
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after

By debitor-and-creditor, this counter-caster ;

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The Works of William Shakespeare: Life, Glossary, &c : Reprinted ..., Volume 1