Imatges de pàgina
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How, if, when I am laid into the tomb,

I wake before the time that Romeo

Comes to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be ftifled in the vault,

To whofe foul mouth no healthfome air breathes in,
And there be ftrangled ere my Romeo comes ?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,

The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
(As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,

Where, for thefe many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packt;

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies feftring in his fhroud; where, as they fay,
At fome hours in the night fpirits refort-
Alas, alas! is it not like, that I

So early waking, what with loathfome fmells,
And fhrieks, like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.-
Or if I wake, fhall I not be distraught,
(Invironed with all thefe hideous fears)
And madly play with my fore-fathers' joints,
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his fhroud?
And in this rage, with fome great kinfman's bone,
As with a club, dafh out my defp'rate brains?
O look! methinks, I fee my coufin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did fpit his body
Upon a rapier's point.- -Stay, Tybalt, ftay!
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

La.

Cap.

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[She throws herfelf on the bed.

SCENE changes to Capulet's Hall.

Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

OLD, take thefe keys and fetch more
fpices, nurfe.

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Nurfe. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry,

Enter Capulet.

Cap. Come, ftir, ftir, ftir, the fecond cock hath crow'd,"

The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:

Look

Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica. ›
Spare not for cost.

Nurje. Go, go, you cot-quean, go;

Get you to bed; 'faith, you'll be fick to-morrow,
For this night's watching.`

Cap. No, not a whit: what, I have watch'd ere now All night for a less cause, and ne'er been fick.

La. Cap. Ay, you have been a moufe-hunt in your time, · But I will watch you, from fuch watching, now.

[Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurf. Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hoodNow, fellow, what's there?

Enter three or four with Spits, and logs, and baskets.”

Serv. Things for the cook, Sir, but I know not what. Cap. Make hafte, make hafte; firrah, fetch drier logs, Call Peter, he will fhew thee where they are.

Serv. I have a head, Sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter.

Cap. 'Mafs, and well faid, a merry whorefon, ha! Thou shalt be logger-head.-good faith, 'tis day. The County will be here with musick straight,

[Play mufick. For fo, he faid, he would. I hear him near. Nurfe,-wife,-what, ho! what, nurfe, I say? Enter Nurfe

Go, waken Juliet, go and trim her up,

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go and chat with Paris: hie, make hafte, Make hafte, the bride-groom he is come already; Make hafte, I fay. [Exe. Capulet and Nurfe, Jeverally.

SCENE changes to Juliet's Chamber, Juliet

Nürfe.

M

on a bed.

Re-enter Narfe

Iftrefs,what, mistress! Juliet-Faft
I warrant her;

Why, lamb-why, lady-Fy, you flug-a-bed

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Why

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Why, love, I fay-Madam, fweet-heart-why, bride-
What, not a word! you take your pennyworths now;
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The County Paris hath fet up his reft,

That you fhall reft but little-God forgive me-
Marry, and amen! -How found is the asleep?
I must needs wake her: Madam, madam, madam,.
Ay, let the County take you in your bed-
He'll fright you up, i'faith. Will it not be?
What dreft, and in your clothes-and down again?
I muft needs wake you: Lady, lady, lady-
Alas! alas! help! help! my lady's dead.
O well-a-day, that ever I was born!
Some Aqua vita, ho! my lord, my lady!.
Enter Lady Capulet.

La. Cap. What noife is here?
Nurfe. O lamentable day!

La. Cap. What's the matter?

Nurfe. Look,

-oh heavy day!

La. Cap. Oh me, oh me, my child, my only life! Revive, look up, or I will die with thee:

Help, help! call help.

Enter Capulet..

Cap. For fhame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. Narfe. She's dead, deceas'd, fhe's dead: alack the day! Cap. Ha! let me fee her-Out, alas! fhe's cold; Her blood is fettled, and her joints are stiff; Life and thefe lips have long been separated: Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the fweetest flow'r of all the field. Accurfed time! unfortunate old man! Nurfe. O lamentable day!

La. Cap. O woeful time!

Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail, Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.

Enter Friar Lawrence, and Paris with Muficians..

Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

Cap. Ready to go, but never to return.
O fon, the night before thy wedding-day
Hath Death lain with thy wife: fee, there fhe lies,
Flow'r as he was, deflowered now by him :
Death is my fon-in-law.-

Par. Have I thought long to fee this morning's face,, And doth it give me fuch a fight as this!

La. Cap. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day! ' Most miserable hour, that Time e'er faw

In lafting labour of his pilgrimage!

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and folace in,

And cruel death hath catch'd it from my fight.
Nurfe. O woe! oh woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day! most woful day!
That ever, ever, I did yet behold.

Oh day! oh day! oh day! oh hateful day!
Never was feen fo black a day as this:

Oh woful day, oh woful day!

Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, fpighted, flain, Moft deteftable Death, by thee beguil❜d,

By cruel, cruel thee quite over-thrown

:

O love, O life,-not life, but love in death!

9

Cap. Defpis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd, -
Uncomfortable Time! why cam'ft thou now
To murder, murder our folemnity?

O child! O child! my foul, and not my child!
Dead art thou! dead; alack! my child is dead,
And, with my child, my joys are buried.

Fri. Peace, ho, for fhame! Confufion's cure lives not (26)

In thefe confufions: Heaven and yourself

Had

(26) Peace bo for fhame, confufions: Care lives not in thefe confu fions.] This fpeech, tho' it contains good chriftian doctrine, tho' it is perfectly in character for the friar, and not the most defpicable for its poetry, Mr. Pope has curtail'd to little or nothing, because it has not the fanction of the firft old copy. By the fame rule, had he purfued it throughout, we might have loft fome of the finest additional strokes in the two parts of K. Henry IV. But there was ano-" ther reafon, I fufpect, for curtailing: certain corruptions ftarted, D 6

which

Had part in this fair maid; now Heav'n hath alf;
And all the better is it for the maid.

"

Your part in her you could not keep from death,
But Heav'n keeps his part in eternal life.
The moft, you fought, was her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven,, she should be advanc'd::
And weep you now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as Heav'n himself ?
Oh, in this love you love your child fo ill,
That you run, mad, feeing, that he is well..
She's not well married, that lives married long;
But fhe's best married, that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair coarse; and, as the custom is,
And in her beft array, bear her to church.
For tho' fond Nature bids us all lament, (27)
Yet Nature's tears are. Reason's merriment.
Cap. All things, that we ordained festival,,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our inftruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding chear to a fad funeral feast ; ;
Our folemn hymns to fullen dirges change,.
Our bridal flow'rs serve for a buried coarse;
And all things change them to the contrary.

Fri. Sir, go you in, and, Madam, go with him ;
And go, Sir Paris; every one prepare
To follow this fair coarfe unto her grave.

which requir'd the indulging his private fenfe to make them intelli gible, and this was an unreafonable labour As I have reform'd the paffage above quoted, I dare warrant, I have reftor'd our Poet's text; and a fine fenfible reproof it contains, against immoderate grief: for the friar begins with telling them, that the cure of those confufions, into which the melancholy accident had thrown them, did not live in the confus'd and inordinate exclamations which they express'd on

that account.

(27) For tho' fome Nature bids us all lament.] Some Nature? Sure, it is the general rule of Nature, or fhe could not bid us all lament.. I have ventur'd to fubftitute an epithet, which, I fufpect, was loft in the idle, corrupted word, Some; and which admirably quadrates with the verfe fucceeding this; that tho' the fondness of Nature lay fuch an injunction upon us, yet that Reason does but mock our unavailing forrow.

The

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