Though heaven cannot:-O Romeo! Romeo!— Who ever would have thought it ?-Romeo!

Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?

This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but 19,
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice 10:
I am not I, if there be such an I;

Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer, I.
If he be slain, say-I; or if not, no:

Brief sounds determine of my weal, or woe.

Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,— God save the mark 11!—here on his manly breast: A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse; Pale, pale as ashes, all bedawb'd in blood, All in gore blood; I swoonded at the sight. Jul. O break, my heart!-poor bankrupt, break at once!

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!

Jul. What storm is this, that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter'd: and is Tybalt dead?
My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord?—
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished; Romeo, that kill'd him, he is banished.

9 In Shakspeare's time the affirmative particle ay was usually written I, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling. 10 See what is said of the basilisk, King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

See Othello, Act i. Sc. 1.

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 12!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain !-
O, nature! what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst 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 forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitæ:These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo!

Jul.

Blister'd be thy tongue,

For such a wish! he was not born to shame :
Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;

:

12 The same image occurs in Macbeth :

look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under it.'

The succeeding line has its parallel in King John :—
Rash, inconsiderate, firy voluntaries,

With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens.'

Again in King Henry VIII.:

'You have angels' faces, but Heaven knows your hearts.' The line' Did ever dragon,' &c. and the following eight lines, are not in the quarto, 1597.

So in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, tom. ii. p. 223 :-' Is it possible that under such beautie and rare comelinesse, disloyaltie and treason may have their siege and lodging?'

For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

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

Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy

name,

13

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, mistaking, offer up to joy 14.

My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain; And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:

All this is comfort: Wherefore weep I then?

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murder'd me; I would forget it fain;
But, O! it presses to my memory,

Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds;
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo-banished:

That banished, that one word-banished,

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts 15. Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,-
Why follow'd not, when she said-Tybalt's dead,

13 To smooth is to flatter, to speak fair; it is here metaphorically used for to mitigate or assuage the asperity of censure with which Romeo's name would be now mentioned. See vol. ix. p. 275, notę 9.

14 So in The Tempest:

I am a fool

To weep at what I'm glad of.'

15 i. e. is worse than the loss of ten thousand Tybalts.'

Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
Which modern 16 lamentation might have mov'd?
But, with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
Romeo is banished,—to speak that word,
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead :-Romeo is banished,-
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.—
Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?

Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? mine
shall be spent,

When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. Take up those cords:-Poor ropes, you are beguil'd, Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd:

He made you for a highway to my bed;

But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.

Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding bed; And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead! Nurse. Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo 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. O find him! give this ring to my true knight, And bid him come to take his last farewell.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and ROMEO.

Fri. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful

man;

Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,

And thou art wedded to calamity.

16 Modern is trite, common. So in As You Like It :'Full of wise saws, and modern instances.'

Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?

Fri.

Too familiar

Is my dear son with such sour 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 vanish'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. Hence from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exile is death:-then banishment
Is death misterm'd: calling death-banishment,
Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me.

Fri. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
And turn'd that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy1, and thou seest it not.

Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, Where Juliet lives; and every cat, and dog, And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

The quarto, 1597, reads 'This is mere mercy,' i. e. absolute mercy.

*

2 From this and the foregoing speech of Romeo, Dryden has borrowed in his beautiful paraphrase of Chaucer's Palamon and Arcite :

Heaven is not but where Emily abides,
And where she's absent all is hell besides.'