Enter BALTHASAR. News from Verona !-how now, Balthasar? BAL. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill; I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault, 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. 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. To enter in the thoughts of desperate men! And hereabouts he* dwells,-which late I noted O, this same thought did but fore-run my need; 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, Enter Friar LAURENCE. LAU. This same should be the voice of friar Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo? (*) 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." 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." Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth; LAU. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood, JOHN. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee. [Exit. And keep her at my cell till Romeo come; [Exit. SCENE III.—A Church-yard; in it, a monument belonging to the Capulets. Enter PARIS, and his Page, bearing flowers and a torch. PAR. Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof; * Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. PAR. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed (0 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. [SCENE III. Hold, take this letter; early in the morning But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead finger d In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:— BAL. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you. Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow. [Breaking open the door of the monument. Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague; ROм. I must, indeed; and therefore came 1 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, With funerall praises doe adorne thy tombe." d But if thou, jealous,-] Suspicious. Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man; ROM. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, 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? (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 "commiration," 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 f And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you [Dies. 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 sculls? as I discern, It burneth in the Capels' monument. BAL. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, One that you love. FRI. BAL. Who is it? Romeo. FRI. How long hath he been there? BAL. Full half an hour. |