Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.
Lau. Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
John. I could not send it,-here it is again,
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee;
So fearful were they of infection.
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.
John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee
Lau. Now must I to the monument alone;
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She wil 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.—A Church-yard; in it, a Monument
belonging to the Capulets.
Enter PARIS, and his Page, bearing flowers and a
torch.
Par. Give me thy torch, boy: Hence, and stand
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yon 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. I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the church-yard; yet I will adventure.
Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal-bed
[Retires.
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 boy gives warning, something doth approach.
[The Boy whistles.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies, and true-love's rite?"
What, with a torch!-muffle me, night, awhile.
Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR with a torch, mattock, &c.
Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching
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:
But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead finger
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
Live and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow
Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout;
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!
Pur. This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
That murder'd my love's cousin;-with which
It is supposed the fair creature died,
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.-
Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague.
[Advances.
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.
Kom. I must indeed; and therefore came 1
hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man, Fly hence and leave me;-think upon Let them affright thee.-I beseech thee, youth, these gone; Put not another sin upon my head, By urging me to fury:--0 be By heaven, I love thee better than myself; ne! 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 commiseration, And apprehend thee for a felon here. Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy. Page. O lord! they fight: I will go call the [They fight watch. [Exit Page.
Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.]-If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
Rom. In faith, I will: Let me peruse this
[Dies.
face;
Did not attend him as we rode ? I think,
Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris:—
What said my man, when my betossed soul
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 mistortune's book!
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.—
A grave? O, no; a lantern, slaughter'd youth,
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?-0, my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Thou art not conquer d; beauty's ensign yet
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks.
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.-
O, what more favour can I do to thee.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet
Than with that hand that cut thy youth
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 still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again; here, here will I remain
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.
[Erit.
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 left no friendly drop,
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here To help me after ?-1 will kiss thy lips;
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 dishing 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. Fr. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft tonight
Have my old feet stumbled at graves!-Who's there?
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.
Bul. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,
One that you love.
Fri. How long hath he been there?
Bal.
Full half an hour.
Fri. 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.
Fr. Stay then, I'll go alone:-Fear comes upon
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 hin.
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.
Jul. O, comfortable friar! where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am:- where is my Romeo?
Fr. I hear some noise.-Lady, come from that
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;
Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm!
1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:-Which way?
Jul. Yea, noise then I'll be brief. O happy
[Snatching ROMEO's dagger
This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rust, and
[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 church-yard:
Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.
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 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.
Enter some of the Watch, with Balthazar.
2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man, we found him
in the church-yard.
1 Watch. Hold him in safety till the prince
come hither.
Enter another Watchman, 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
This dagger hath mista'en,-for, lo! his house
ROMEO AND JULIET.
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 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 now 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 my age?
Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.
Mon. 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,
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;
But (as it seems) did violence on herself.
And he, too desperate, would not go with me,
Her nurse is privy: And, if aught in this
All this I know: and to the marriage
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific'd, some hour before the 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 to this?
Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;
And then in post he came from Mantua,
And know their spring, their head, their true To this same place, to this same monument.
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.
Fri. 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.
Fr. 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 stolen 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 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,
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:
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?
Page. He came with flowers to strew his lady's
grave;
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:
And, by and by, my master drew on him;
Anon, comes one with light to ope the tomb;
And then I ran away to call the watch.
Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's
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
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!-
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
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.
Mon.
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
But I can give thee more:
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at that 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:
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.
In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: Sixty and nine that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia: and their vow is
made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish'd He en, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps,-and that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage: Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
SCENE L.-Troy. Before Priam's Palace.
Enter TROILUS, armed, and PANDARUS.
Tro. Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again:
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
Pan. Will this geer ne'er be mended?
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenorides, with massy staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts
Sperr up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard:-And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd,-but not in confidence
Of author's pen or actor's voice; but suited
In like conditions as our argument,-
To tell you, tair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.
Tro. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their
strength,
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy.
Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
Tro. Have I not tarried?
Pan. Ay, the bolting: but you must tarry the leavening.
Tro. Still have I tarried.
Pan. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the word hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.
Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,
Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.
At Priam's royal table do I sit;
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,-
So, traitor! when she comes!-When is she thence?
Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than
ever I saw her look, or any woman else.
Tro. I was about to tell thee,- When my heart,
As wedged with a sigh would rive in twain;
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have (as when the sun doth light a storm)
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:
But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness
Pan. Ay, the grinding: but you must tarry the Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. bolting.
Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's (well, go to), there were no more
Tro. Because not there: This woman's answer sorts,
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
comparison between the women. But, for my
part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they
term it, praise her,-But I would somebody had
heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not
dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but-
Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,-
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad
In Cressid's love: Thou answerest, she is fair;
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice;
Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach; to whose soft
seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughiman ;-this thou tell'st
As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balın,
Thou lay st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.
Pan. I speak no more than truth.
Tro. Thou dost not speak so much.
Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair 'tis the better for her; an she be not she has the mends in her own hands.
Tro. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus? Pan. I have had my labour for my travel; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.
Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what,
Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. care not an she Tro. Say I she is not fair? Pan. do not care whether you do or no. a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the She's Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more in the matter.
Tro. Pandarus,—
Pan. Not I.
Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as I found it, and there an end.
[Exit PANDARUS. An alarum. Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace,
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo,
As she is stubborn, chaste, against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself, the merchant; and this sailing Pandar,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
Alarum. Enter ANEAS.
Ene. How now, Prince Troilus? wherefore not
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?
Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Tro. By whom, Æneas?
Ene.
Tro. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn;
Troilus, by Menelaus.
Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.
Ene. Hark! what good sport is out of town
[Alarum.
to-day!
Tro. Better at home, if "would I might" were
"may."-
But to the sport abroad:-Are you bound thither?
Ene. In all swift haste.
Come, go we then together.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.-The same. A Street.
Enter CRESSIDA and ALExander.
Queen Hecuba and Helen.
Cres. Who were those went by?
Alex.
Cres. And whither go they?
Alex.
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fix'd, to-day was mov'd:
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.
Cres.
What was his cause of anger?
Alex. The noise goes, this: There is among the
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.
Good; and what of him
Alex. They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.
Cres. So do ali men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.
Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed of their particular additions; he is as valiant as many beasts the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint hath the joints of everything; but everything so but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: He out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.
Cres. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?
Alex. They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle, and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.
Enter PANDARUS.
Cres. Who comes here?
Alex. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Cres. Hector's a gallant man.
Alex. As may be in the world, lady.
Pan. What's that? what's that?
Cres. Good morrow, uncle Panderus.
Pun. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: What do you talk of?-Good morrow, Alexander.- How do you, cousin? When were vou at Ilium?
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