Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

found him in the churchyard. First Watchman Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither. Re-enter others of the Watch, with Friar Laurence. Third Watchman

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.

First Watchman 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? First Watchman

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. First Watchman

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

Capulet

O heavens! 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 Laurence

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 excused.

Prince Then say at once what thou dost know in this. Friar Laurence

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 dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from the city,
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
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 mean
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:
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 aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, 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,
I departed not and left him there.

Prince

Give me the letter; I will look on it.
Where is the county’s page, that raised 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:
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.

Colophon

Romeo and Juliet
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