The most you sought was her promotion,
For 'twas your heaven she should be advanc'd;
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O! in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well :
She's not well married that lives married long;
But she's best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church;
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.

Cap. All things that we ordained festival, Turn from their office to black funeral; Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast, Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change, Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse, And all things change them to the contrary. 90 Fri. Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him; And go, Sir Paris; every one prepare To follow this fair corse unto her grave. The heavens do lour upon you for some ill; Move them no more by crossing their high will. Exeunt CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, PARIS, and Friar. First Mus. Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.

Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah! put up, put

And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv'd, and was an emperor.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

Enter BALTHASAR, booted.

News from Verona! How now, Balthasar!
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar ?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.

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Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill Her body sleeps in Capel's monument, 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 e'en so? then I deny 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

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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-shap'd 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 roses,
Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said
An if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O! this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house :
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.
What, ho! apothecary!

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Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor;

60

Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath,
As violently as hasty powder fir'd
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law Is death to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,

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And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hang upon thy back;
The world is not thy friend nor the world's law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will,
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.
Rom. There is thy gold, worse poison to men's
souls,

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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.
Friar LAURENCE's Cell.
Enter Friar JOHN.
Fri. John. Holy Franciscan friar! brother! ho!
Enter Friar LAURENCE.

SCENE II.-Verona.

Fri. Lau. 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. John. Going to find a bare-foot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,

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

Fri. Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,

The 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.

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

Fri. Lau. Now must I to the monument alone;
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake:
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But I will write again to Mantua,

And keep her at my cell till Romeo come:
Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!
Exit.

SCENE III.-The Same. A Churchyard; in it a tomb belonging to the CAPULETS.

Enter PARIS, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.

Par. Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof;

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground:
So shall no foot upon the churchyard 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. I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.
Retires.

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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 hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance.
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?

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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 no longer stay.

Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
Exit Friar LAURENCE.

What's here a cup clos'd in my true love's

hand?

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Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl! drunk all, and left 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!

First Watch. Within. Lead, boy: which way?
Jul. Yea, noise then I'll be brief. O happy
dagger!
Snatching ROMEO's dagger.
This is thy sheath;
Stabs herself.
There rest, and let me die. Dies.

Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS. Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.

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First Watch. The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard.

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 this 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.

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Re-enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR. Second Watch. Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.

First Watch. Hold him in safety till the prince come hither.

Re-enter others of the Watch, with Friar LAURENCE. Third 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 churchyard side. First Watch. A great suspicion: stay the friar too.

Lady 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?

First 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.

First 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 heaven! O wife! look how
daughter bleeds.

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Our

This dagger hath mista'en, for, lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,
And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.
Lady 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 stopp'd her breath. What further woe conspires against mine age? Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.

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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 stol'n marriage-day
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death
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 mean

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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 stay'd 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 260
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

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,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.
Cap. O brother Montague! give me thy hand;
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.