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,

Therefore will I, O here, O ever here!
Set up my everlasting rest,

With worms, that are thy chamber-maids.
Come, desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary barge:
Here's to my love.-O, true apothecary!
Thy drugs are swift: thus with a kiss I die."

H.

7 The old copies, except the first quarto, read thus: "I will be lieve, shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous." Where "I will believe" is obviously but another reading for “shall I believe." Collier, however, retains both! - A connection is traceable between parts of this speech and some lines in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, published in 1592. In the first five lines the ghost of Rosamond is speaking of her death, and in the others is reporting what her royal lover spoke when he came and found her dead.

"But now, the poison, spread through all my veins,
'Gan dispossess my living senses quite;

And nought-respecting death, the last of pains,
Plac'd his pale colours, th' ensign of his might,
Upon his new-got spoil before his right."

"Ah! now, methinks, I see, death, dallying, seeks
To entertain itself in love's sweet place:
Decayed roses of discolour'd cheeks
Do yet retain dear notes of former grace,
And ugly death sits fair within her face;
Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red,
That death itself doubts whether she be dead."

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 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 apothecary!
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. St. Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves! 10 - Who's

there?

8 All the old copies except the first quarto have a remarkable corruption here which is not easy to be accounted for. Whether the matter were a various reading by the Poet, or an interpolation by the players, is uncertain; but the confusion it makes shows that it could not have been meant by Shakespeare as a part of the text. It may also be cited as proving that the folio must have been printed from one of the quarto copies. After the words, "Depart again," are added the following lines:

"Come, lie thou in my arms.

Here's to thy health, where'er thou tumblest in.
O, true apothecary! thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die. Depart again."

H.

• Conduct for conductor. So in a former scene: "And fireeyed fury be my conduct now."

10 This accident was reckoned ominous. So in King Richard III., Hastings, going to execution, says, -"Three times to-day

Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows

you well.

Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, 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 master, One that you love.

I dare not, sir:

Fri. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.

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.
Fri. Stay, then, I'll go alone.

me;

Fear comes upon

O! much I fear some ill unthrifty thing."

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.12

my foot-cloth horse did stumble.” — After this line, some editors have added another from the first quarto, thus: "Who is it that consorts so late the dead?"

H.

11 So the quarto of 1599; that of 1609 and the folio have "unlucky thing."

H.

12 This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakespeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream. Homer represents Rhesus dying, fast asleep, and, as it were, beholding his enemy in a dream, plunging a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not reality, but a vision. - STEEVENS.

Fri. [Advancing.]

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?-

[Entering the Monument. 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?

[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.

[Exit.

Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. 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! 13

13 Shakespeare has been arraigned for making Romeo die be

1 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.11 [Falls on ROMEO, and dies

14

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.

fore Juliet awakes from her trance, and thus losing a happy opportunity of introducing an affecting scene between these unfortunate lovers. Schlegel remarks, that "the Poet seems to have hit upon what was best. There is a measure of agitation, beyond which all that is superadded becomes torture, or glides off ineffectually from the already-saturated mind. In case of the cruel reunion of the lovers for an instant, Romeo's remorse for his overhasty self-murder, Juliet's despair over her deceitful hope, at first cherished, then annihilated, that she was at the goal of her wishes, must have deviated into caricatures. Nobody surely doubts that Shakespeare was able to represent these with suitable force; but here every thing soothing was welcome, in order that we may not be frightened out of the melancholy, to which we willingly resign ourselves, by too painful discords. Why should we heap stil! more upon accident, that is already so guilty? Wherefore shall not the tortured Romeo quietly

'Shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From his world-wearied flesh?'

He holds his beloved in his arms, and, dying, cheers himself with a vision of everlasting marriage. She also secks death, in a kiss, upon his lips. These last moments must belong unparticipated to tenderness, that we may hold fast to the thought, that love lives, although the lovers perish."

14 All the old copies except the first quarto have rust instead of rest. Mr. Dyce surely is right in saying that, "at such a moment, the thoughts of Juliet were not likely to wander away to the future rusting of the digger; she only wishes it, by resting in her bosom as in its sheat to give her instant death."

H.