Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed
I strew.

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 whistles.
The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?
What! with a torch ?-muffle me, night, a while.
[Retires.

Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a torch, mattock, &c.

Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching

iron.

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 churchyard 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 |
thou that:

Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.
Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me here about:
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! Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague. That murder'd my love's cousin,-with which grief, It is supposed, the fair creature died,―

And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.-

[Advancing.

Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague.
Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Rom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence and leave me :-think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee.-I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,

By urging me to fury:-O, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself,
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.
[They fight.

Page. O Lord! they fight: I will go call the watch. [Exit Page.

Par. O! I am slain.-[Falls.] If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

[Dies.

Rom. In faith, I will.-Let me peruse this
face:-

Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris.-
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode ? I think,
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 misfortune's book!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave,—
A grave? O, no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,
For here lies Juliet; and her beauty makes
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?-O, my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.-
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O! what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain,
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin!-Ah! dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? I will believe-
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
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O!
here

Will I set up my everlasting rest,

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.-Eyes, look your

last:

Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade. Fri. 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.

O! much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him.

Romeo!

[Advancing.

Fri.
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?

[Entering 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. Jul. Ó, comfortable friar! where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am.-Where is my Romeo?

[Noise within.

Fri. I hear some noise.-Lady, come from that

nest

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;
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.
[Exit.

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, To help me after?-I will kiss thy lips; Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them, To make me die with a restorative. [Kisses him. 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 let me die.

dagger!

[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 churchyard.

Go, some of you; whoe'er you find, attach.
[Exeunt some.

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 Balthasar.

2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.

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 churchyard 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 rest? Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and others. Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

La. Cap. O! 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 your

ears?

This dagger has mista'en,-for, lo! his house
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 more early down.

Mon. Álas, 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.

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,

And know their spring, their head, their true de

scent;

And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death. Mean time 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.

Fri. 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 dooms-day, 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:
But, when I came, (some minute ere the time
Of her awakening) 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
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Her nurse is privy; and, if aught in this

Be sacrific'd 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? Bal. 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,
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:
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,

"CHORUS"-As Malone suggested, means only that the Prologue was spoken by the same performer who delivered the chorus at the end of act i. The Prologue, as it is in the quarto, 1597, varies from the correction in every line. It runs literatim thus :-

Two household Frends, alike in dignitie,
(In faire Verona, where we lay our Scene,)
From ciuill broy les broke into enmitic,

Whose civil warre makes civill hands vncleane.
From forth the fatall loynes of these two foes
A paire of starre-crosst Lovers tooke their life;
Whose misaduentures, piteous ouerthrowes,

(Through the continuing of their Fathers strife,
And death-markt passage of their Parents' rage,)
Is now the two howres traffique of our Stage.
The which if you with patient cares attend,

What here we want, wee'l studie to amend.

"-fair VERONA."-Verona, the city of Italy where, next to Rome, the antiquary most luxuriates;-where, blended with the remains of theatres, and amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, are the palaces of the fractious nobles, and the tombs of the despotic princes of the Gothic ages;-Verona, so rich in the associations of real history, has even a greater charm for those who would live in the poetry of the past:

Are these the distant turrets of Verona?
And shall I sup where Juliet at the masque

Saw her lov'd Montague, and now sleeps by him?

So felt the tender and graceful poet, Rogers. He adds, in a note, "The old palace of the Cappelletti, with its uncouth balcony and irregular windows, is still standing in a lane near the market-place; and what Englishman can behold it with indifference?" When we enter Verona, we forget ourselves, and are almost inclined to say with Dante,

Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappelletti.

ACT I.-SCENE I.

"Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals."-This phrase was used proverbially for submitting to degradation, putting up with insult. Its origin is thus explained by Mr. Gifford :-" In all great houses, but particularly in the royal residences, there were a number of mean and dirty dependents, whose office it was to attend the wood-yard, sculleries, &c. Of these (for

in the lowest deep there was a lower still) the most forlorn wretches seem to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchen, halls, &c. To this smutty regiment, who attended the progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, which, with every other article of furniture, were then removed from palace to palace, the people in derision gave the name of blackguards; a term since become sufficiently familiar, and never properly explained."

"-thou hadst been POOR JOHN."-Dried and salted fish was so called.

"-which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it."— The meaning of this is shown by the following passage from Decker's "Dead Term," 1608, where he is adverting to the persons who visited the walks in St. Paul's church:-"What swearing is there, what shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what biting of thumbs to beget quarrels !"

"Gregory, remember thy SWASHING blow."-We have "swashing" in As You LIKE IT, "We'll have a swashing and a martial outside." Barret, in his " Alvearie," 1580, states that " to swash is to make a noise with swords against targets." Ben Jonson also, in his "Staple of News," speaks of "a swashing blow."

"Clubs, bills, and partisans !"-The cry of clubs is as thoroughly of English origin as the "bite my thumb" is of Italian. Scott has made the cry familiar to us in "The Fortunes of Nigel;" and when the citizens of Verona here raise it, we involuntarily think of the old watch-maker's hatch-door in Fleet-street, and Jin Vin and Tunstall darting off for the affray. "The great long club," (as described by Stowe,) on the necks of the London apprentices, was as characteristic as the flat cap of the same quarrelsome body, in the days of Elizabeth and James. The use by Shakespeare of home phrases, in the mouths of foreign characters, was a part of his art. It is the same thing as rendering Sancho's Spanish proverbs into the corresponding English proverbs, instead of literally translating them. The cry of clubs, by the citizens of Verona, expressed an idea of popular movements, which could not have been conveyed half so emphatically in a foreign phrase.-KNIGHT.