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Nurse.

Ay, ay, the cords.
[Throws them down.

Jul. Ah me! what news! why dost thou wring

thy hands?

Nurse. Ah well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!

We are undone, lady, we are undone !

Alack the day!-he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!
Jul. Can heaven be so envious?
Nurse.

Romeo can,

Though heaven cannot:-O Romeo! Romeo!-
Who ever would have thought it?-Romeo!

Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?

This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 1,5
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
I am not I, if there be such an I;

Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer, I.
If he be slain, say-I; or if not, no:
Brief sounds determine of my weal, or woe.

Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,—
God save the mark!-here on his manly breast:
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedawb'd in blood,
All in gore blood;-I swoonded at the sight.

Jul. O break, my heart!-poor bankrupt, break at once!

To prison, eyes! ne'er look on liberty!

Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
And thou, and Romeo, press one heavy bier!

5 say thou but I,] In Shakspeare's time the affirmative particle ay was usually written I, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling.

6 God save the mark!] This proverbial exclamation occurs again, with equal obscurity, in Othello, Act I. sc. i.

Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had! O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!

That ever I should live to see thee dead!

Jul. What storm is this, that blows so contrary? Is Romeo slaughter'd; and is Tybalt dead? My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord?— Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom! For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished; Romeo, that kill'd him, he is banished.

Jul. O God!-did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

Nurse. It did, it did; alas the day! it did. Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!-
O, nature! what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou did'st bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?—
Was ever book, containing such vile matter,
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!

Nurse.
There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.-

Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitæ:-
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo!

Jul.
For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;

Blister'd be thy tongue,

For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.

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O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?

Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,7

When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?—
But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin ?
That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband:
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.

My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my

band:

All this is comfort; Wherefore weep I then?

hus

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murder'd me: I would forget it fain;
But, O! it presses to my memory,

Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo-banished;
That-banished, that one word-banished,

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.8 Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,-
Why follow'd not, when she said-Tybalt's dead,
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have mov'd?
But, with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
Romeo is bunished,-to speak that word,

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,

7

what tongue shall smooth thy name,] To smooth, in ancient language, is to stroke, to caress, to fondle.

8 Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.] That is, is worse than the

loss of ten thousand Tybalts.

9 Which modern lamentation, &c.] i. e. trite, common.

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All slain, all dead:-Romeo is banished,-
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death; no words can that woe
sound.-

Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?

Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse: Will you go to them? I will bring you thither. Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? mine shall be spent,

When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. Take up those cords:-Poor ropes, you are beguil'd, Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd:

He made you for a highway to my bed;

But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.

Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding bed;
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!
Nurse. Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo
To comfort you:-I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night;
I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.

Jul. O find him! give this ring to my true knight, And bid him come to take his last farewell.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO.

Fri. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful.

man;

Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,

And thou art wedded to calamity.

Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?

Fri.

Too familiar

Is

my

dear son with such sour company:

I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.

Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince's

doom?

Fri. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips, Not body's death, but body's banishment.

Rom. Ha! banishment? be merciful, say-death: For exile hath more terror in his look,

Much more than death: do not say-banishment.
Fri. Hence from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exíle is death:-then banishment
Is death mis-term'd: calling death-banishment,
Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smil❜st upon the stroke that murders me.
Fri. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
And turn'd that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy,' and thou seest it not.

Rom. "Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat, and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not.-More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies, than Romeo:2 they may seize

1 This is dear mercy,] The old copies read mere mercy, which in ancient language, signifies absolute mercy.

2

More validity,

More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion flies, than Romeo:] Validity seems here to mean worth or dignity. By courtship, the author seems to mean, the

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