Enter Nurse with cords. And she brings news; and ev'ry tongue, that speaks But Romeo's name, speaks heav'nly eloquence ; Now, nurse, what news ? what hast thou there? The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch ?

Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.

Jul. Ah me, what news ?
Why dost thou wring thy hands ?

Nurse. Ah welladay, 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 fo envious ?

Nurse. Romeo can,
Though heav'n cannot: O Romeo ! Romeo !
Who ever would have thought it; Romeo ?

Ful. What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus
This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo Alain himself? say thou but, I;
And that bare vowel, I, shall poison more (23)
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.

Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes, (God save the mark) here on his manly breaft. A piteous coarse, a bloody piteous coarse ; Pale, pale as alhes, all bedaub'd in blood, All in gore blood; I swooned at the fight. [once!

Jul. O break, my heart !-poor bankrupt, break at
To prison, eyes! ne'er look on liberty ;
Vile earth to earth resign, end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier:!

Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had :
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman,
That ever I should live to see thee dead !

(23) And that bare vowel, ay, small poison more

Tban tbe dealb darting eye of cockatrice. I question much, whether the grammarians will take this new vowel on trust from Mr. Pope, without suspecting it rather for a ciphthong: In short, we must refore the spelling of the old books, or we lose the Poet's conceit. At his time of day, the affirmative adverb Ay was generally written, 1: and by this means it both becomes a vowel, and answers in found to eye, upon which the conceit turns in the second line.

Jula ,

Jul. What storm is this, that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo Naughter'd ? and is Tybalt dead ?
My dear-lov'd coufin, and my dearer Lord ?
Then let the trumpet found the general doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse. Tybalt is dead, 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 fo fair a cave ?
Beautiful tyrant; fiend angelical !
Dove-feather'd raven! wolvilh-rav'ning lamb! (24)
Despised substance, of divinest show!
Juft opposite to what thou juftly seem'ft,
A damned faint, an honourable villain !
O Nature! what hast thou to do in hell,
When thou didft 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, all forsworn ; all naught; and all diffemblers.
Ah, where's my man? give me some Aqua vitæ
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old !
Shame come to Romeo !

(24) Ravenous dove, feather'd raven,

Wolvish ravening lamb.) This paffage Mr. Pope has thrown out of the text, partly, I presume, because these two noble bemiffichs are, indeed, in harmonious: [but chiefly, because they are obscure and unintelligible at the first view.] But is there no such thing as a crutch for a labouring, halting, verse? I'll venture to restore to the Poet a line that was certainly his, that is in his own mode of thinking, and truly worthy of him. The first word, ravenous, I have no doubt, was blunderingly coin'd out of raven and ravening, which follow ; and if we only ihrow it out, we gain at once an harmonious verse, and a proper contrast of epithets and images. Dove. feather'd raven! wolvish rav’ning lamb!

my

Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue,
For such a wish! he was not born to shame;
Upon his brow fame is alham’d to fit:
For 'uis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide him so?

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

Jul. Shall I speak ill of him, that is my husband ? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, 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, miitaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have fiáin ; And Tibali's dead, that would have kill'd

husband; All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then? Some word there was, worser than lobuli's death, That murder'd ine; I would forget it, fain; But, oh! it preffes to my memory, Like damned guilty deeds to finners' minds ; Tybalt is dead, and Romeo baribid ! 'That lanifher, that one word lanishid', Hath sain ten thousand Tybelis : Tyiali's death Was woe enough, if it had ended there : Or if fow'r woe delights in fellowship, And needly will be rank'd with other griefs, Why follow'd not, when she said "Tyta.r's dead, Thy Father or thy Mother, nay, or both? But with a rear-ward following Tybal's death, Romeo is banisted to speak that word, Is, father, mother, Tybalt, Rime", Juli 1, All sain, all dead! Romeo is baniske!! There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word's death; no words can that woe found. Where is my father, and my mother, nurse ?

Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybali's coarse. Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

Jul

Take up

Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears ? mine shall

be spent, When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.

those cords ;--poor ropes, you are beguild ; Both

you and I ; for Romeo is exil'd. He made you for a high-way to my bed : But I, a maid, die maiden widowed. Come, cord; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed; And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

Nurse. Hie to your chamber, I'll find Romio 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. Oh find him, give this ring to my true knight, And bid him come, to take his last farewel. [Excu:it.

SCENE changes to the Monaflery.

ROM

;

Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo. Fri. OMEO, come forth; come forth, thou fear

ful man ; Ami&tion is enamour'd of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity.

Rom. Father, what news? what is the Prince's doom? What forrow craves acquaintance at my hand, That I

yet

know not? Fri. Too familiar Is my

dear son with such fow'r 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 vanith'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. Here from Verana art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

Rom. There is no world without Verona's walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

Hence

Hence banished, is banish'd from the world,
And world-exil'd, is death. That banished
Is death mif-term'd: calling death banishment,
Thou cutit my head off with a golden ax,
And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me.

Fri. O deadly fin ! O rude unthankfulness !
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath rusht aside the law,
And turn'd that black word death to banishment.
This is dear mercy, and thou seeft it not.

Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy : heav'n is here, Where Juliet lives ; and every cat and dog And little moufe, every unworthy thing, Lives here in heaven, and may look on her ju But Romeo may not.

More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion Aies, than Romeo: they may seize :
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand, ,
And steal immortal blessings from her lips;
(Which even in pure and veftal modesty
Štill blush, as thinking their own kiffes fin.)'
This may flies do, when 1 from this must fly;
(And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death?)
But Romeo may not ;-he is banished,
Hadft thou no poison mixt, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, tho' ne'er so mean,
But banished to kill me ? banished ?
O Friar, the damned use that word in hell;
Howlings attend it : how haft thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A fin-absolver, and my friend profeít,
To mangle me with that word, banishment?

Fri. Fond mad-man, hear me speak.
Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

Fri. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, tho' thou art banished.

Rom. Yet, banished ? hang up philosophy:
Unless philosophy can make a Fuliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince's doom,