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Enter BALTHASAR.

News from Verona !-how now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? is my father well?
How doth my lady Juliet? that I ask again;
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.

BAL. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill;
Her body sleeps in Capels' monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives;

I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

ROM. Is it even so? then I defy* you, stars!Thou knowest my lodging: get me ink and paper, And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.

BAL. I do beseech you, sir, have patience: " Your looks are pale and wild, and do import Some misadventure.

a

(*) First folio, live.

a I do beseech you, sir, have patience:] The quarto, 1597, reads,

(*) First folio, deny.

"Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus."

ROM. Tush, thou art deceiv'd; Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do: Hast thou no letters to me from the friar? BAL. No, my good lord. ROM. No matter: get thee gone, And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight. [Exit BALTHASAR.

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's see for means:-0, mischief! thou art
swift

To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,-(1)

And hereabouts he* dwells,-which late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples: meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins

a

Of ill-shap'd fishes; and, about his shelves,
A beggarly account of empty boxes,

Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said-
An if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.

O, this same thought did but fore-run my need;
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house:
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.—
What, ho! apothecary!

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APOTH. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law

Is death, to any he that utters them.

ROM. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back, The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law: The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this. APOTH. My poverty, but not my will, consents. ROM. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will. APOTH. Put this in any liquid thing you will, And drink it off; and, if you had the strength Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight. ROM. There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls,

*

Doing more murder in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou may'st not
sell:

I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh.-
Come, cordial, and not poison; go with me
To Juliet's grave, for there must I use thee.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Friar Laurence's Cell. Enter Friar JOHN.

JOHN. Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!

Enter Friar LAURENCE.

LAU. This same should be the voice of friar
John.-

Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
JOHN. Going to find a bare-foot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,d
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,

(*) First folio omits, he.

An alligator stuff'd,-] "He made an anatomie of a rat, and after hanged her over his head, instead of an apothecary's crocodile or dried alligator." Nashe's "Have with You to Saffron Walden, 1596."

b Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,-] Otway, in his Caius Marius, much of which is stolen from this play, exhibits the line thus:

"Need and oppression stareth in thy eyes;"

but although this reading has been adopted by several of the modern editors, and is perhaps preferable to the other, I have not felt justified in departing from the old text. The quarto, 1597, has,

"And starved famine dwelleth in thy cheeks."

(*) First folio, pray.

e Hangs upon thy back,-] The quarto, 1597, reads, with at least equal force of expression,

"Upon thy back hangs ragged misery."

d To associate me,-] It was the custom for each friar who had leave of absence to have a companion appointed him by the superior. In the Visitatio Notabilis de Seleburne, printed in White's "Natural History, &c. of Selborne," Wykeham enjoins the canons not to go abroad without leave from the prior, who is ordered on such occasions to assign the brother a companion, "ne suspicio sinistra vel scandalum oriatur.”

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Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth; So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.

LAU. Who bare my letter then to Romeo? JOHN. I could not send it,-here it is again,Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, So fearful were they of infection.

a

LAU. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood, The letter was not nice, but full of charge, Of dear import; and the neglecting it May do much danger: Friar John, go hence; Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight Unto my cell.

JOHN. Brother, I'll go and bring it thec. [Exit. LAU. Now must I to the monument alone; Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake; She will beshrew me much, that Romeo Hath had no notice of these accidents: But I will write again to Mantua, And keep her at my cell till Romeo come; Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!

[Exit.

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Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yon yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
(Being loose, unfirm with digging up of graves,)
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hearest something approach.
Give me those flowers: do as I bid thee, go.
PAGE. I am almost afraid to stand alone,
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.
[Retires.

PAR. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed
I strew,b-

(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.

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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 see'st, 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:

d

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 hereabout;
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires.
ROM. Thou détestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to ope,

[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 :
[Advances.

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

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

(*) First folio, wayes.

"Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy bridal bed:
Sweete tombe, that in thy circuite dost containe
The perfect modell of eternitie;
Fair Juliet, that with angells dost remaine,
Accept this latest fauour at my hands;
That liuing honourd thee, and being dead,
With funerall praises doe adorne thy tombe."

d But if thou, jealous,-] Suspicious.

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, 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 conjurations,b
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.

C

:

[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 Ι 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? (2) O, what more favour can I do to thee,

(*) First folio, those.

a Heap not-] Thus the quarto, 1597. The quartos of 1599 and 1609, and the folio, 1623, have "Put not," for which Mr. Rowe substituted pull.

b Conjurations,-] This is the reading of the quarto, 1597. That of 1599 has "rommiration," which led to the "commiseration" of the quarto, 1609, and the first folio. The meaning in "I defy thy conjurations" may be simply "I contemn your entreaties;" or, as he suspected Romeo had come to do some shame to the dead bodies, he might use conjurations in its ordinary sense of supernatural arts, and mean that he defied his necromantic charms and influence.

A lantern,-] The lantern signified here was a louvre, or, as it was styled in ancient records, lanternium; i. e. a spacious round or octagonal turret, full of windows, by means of which halls, and sometimes cathedrals, as in the noble example at Ely, are illuminated.

d A feasting presence-] Presence means presence-chamber; the state apartment of a palace.

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 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

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