Can vengeance be pursued 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,
Heap not another sin upon my head,

By urging me to fury:-O, begone
By Heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, begone;-live, and hereafter say,
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,3

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 mer

ciful,

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:

So the quarto of 1597: that of 1599 has commiration; the later copies, commiseration. Conjurations are earnest requests or entreaties: the verb conjure is still much used in the same sense. Mr. Collier, however, retains the later reading, alleging that "the sense of commiseration is clear; not so of conjurations." What can the man mean? Conjurations is just the word wanted for the place.

H.

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: "

4 A lantern does not here signify an enclosure for a lighted candle, but a louvre, or what in ancient records is styled lanternium ; that is, a spacious round or octagonal turret full of windows, by means of which cathedrals and sometimes halls are illuminated; such as the beautiful lantern at Ely Minster. The same word, with the same sense, occurs in Churchyard's Siege of Edinborough Castle: "This lofty seat and lantern of that land like lodestarre stode, and lokte o'er ev'ry streete." And in Holland's translation of Pliny: "Hence came the louvers and lanternes reared over the roofes of temples." A presence is a public room, which is at times the presence-chamber of a sovereign.

5 This idea frequently occurs in old dramas. So in The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

"I thought it was a lightning before death,

Too sudden to be certain."

So in Sidney's Arcadia: "Death being able to divide the soule, but not the beauty, from her body."-This speech yields another apt instance of the care and skill with which the "corrected, augmented, and amended" copy of this play was elaborated. The quarto of 1597 gives merely the following:

"Ah, dear Juliet!

How well thy beauty doth become this grave!

O! I believe that unsubstantial death

Is amorous, and doth court my love:

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? 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 will still stay with thee,

Therefore will I, O here, O ever here!
Set up my everlasting rest,

With worms, that are thy chamber-maids.
Come, desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary barge:
Here's to my love. -O, true apothecary!
Thy drugs are swift: thus with a kiss I die."

H.

7 The old copies, except the first quarto, read thus: "I will believe, shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous." Where "I will believe" is obviously but another reading for "shall I believe." Collier, however, retains both! - A connection is traceable between parts of this speech and some lines in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, published in 1592. In the first five lines the ghost of Rosamond is speaking of her death, and in the others is reporting what her royal lover spoke when he came and found her dead:

"But now, the poison, spread through all my veins,
'Gan dispossess my living senses quite;

And nought-respecting death, the last of pains,
Plac'd his pale colours, th' ensign of his might,
Upon his new-got spoil before his right."

"Ah! now, methinks, I see, death, dallying, seeks
To entertain itself in love's sweet place:
Decayed roses of discolour'd cheeks
Do yet retain dear notes of former grace,
And ugly death sits fair within her face;
Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red,
That death itself doubts whether she be dead."

H.

And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chambermaids; 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!

Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O, you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!—
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love! [Drinks.]-O, true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

-

[Dies.

Enter, at the other end of the Church-yard, Friar LAURENCE, with a Lantern, Crow, and Spade. Fri. St. Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves!1o - Who's there?

10

8 All the old copies except the first quarto have a remarkable corruption here which is not easy to be accounted for. Whether the matter were a various reading by the Poet, or an interpolation by the players, is uncertain; but the confusion it makes shows that it could not have been meant by Shakespeare as a part of the text. It may also be cited as proving that the folio must have been printed from one of the quarto copies. After the words, "Depart again," are added the following lines:

"Come, lie thou in my arms.

Here's to thy health, where'er thou tumblest in.
O, true apothecary! thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die. Depart again."

H.

9 Conduct for conductor. So in a former scene: "And fireeyed fury be my conduct now."

10 This accident was reckoned ominous. So in King Richard III., Hastings, going to execution, says,—« Three times to-day

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.

Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, One that you love.

I dare not, sir:

Fri. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.

My master knows not but I am gone hence,
And fearfully did menace me with death,

If I did stay to look on his intents.

Fri. Stay, then, I'll go alone. Fear comes upon

me;

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."

12

my foot-cloth horse did stumble."— After this line, some editors have added another from the first quarto, thus: "Who is it that consorts so late the dead?"

H.

11 So the quarto of 1599; that of 1609 and the folio have "unlucky thing."

H.

12 This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakespeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream. Homer represents Rhesus dying, fast asleep, and, as it were, beholding his enemy in a dream, plunging a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality, but a vision.- STEEVENS.