Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare (e novels to read online .TXT) 📗

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.

Balthasar.
It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,
One that you love.

Friar.
Who is it?

Balthasar.
Romeo.

Friar.
How long hath he been there?

Balthasar.
Full half an hour.

Friar.
Go with me to the vault.

Balthasar.
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.

Friar.
Stay then; I'll go alone: - fear comes upon me;
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

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

Friar.
Romeo! [Advances.]
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 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 and stirs.]

Juliet.
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.]

Friar.
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 within], - I dare no longer stay.

Juliet.
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. -

[Exit Friar Lawrence.]

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 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!

1 Watch.
[Within.] Lead, boy: - which way?

Juliet.
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.

[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.

1 Watch.
The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:
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 this 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 churchyard.

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

[Re-enter others of the Watch with Friar Lawrence.]

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 churchyard 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.]

Capulet.
What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

Lady Capulet.
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?

1 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.

1 Watch.
Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man,
With instruments upon them fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Capulet.
O heaven! - O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
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 Capulet.
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.

Montague.
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.

Montague.
O thou untaught! what manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?

Prince.
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
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.

Friar.
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.

Friar.
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
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 tutored 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 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 awaking, - 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 ought 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 man. -
Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?

Balthasar.
I brought my master news of Juliet's death;
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 vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

Prince.
Give me the letter, - I will look on it. -
Where is the county's page that rais'd the watch? -
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

Boy.
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,
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.

Capulet.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Montague.
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.

Capulet.
As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

Prince.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

[Exeunt.]
Imprint

Text: Cover by Ford Maddox Brown, 1870.
Publication Date: 05-22-2008

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