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 1,1
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:2
I am not I, if here be such an I:

Or those eyes shut, that make the 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, 'Twas here, e'en here, upon his manly breast: A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse; Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd3 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.

;

T

JUL. O heaven!- 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! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish ravening lamb!

1) In Shakspeare's time, as we have observed, p. 3, 6), the affirmative particle ay, was usually written 1, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling.

2) Cockatrice, or Basilisk, an imaginary creature, supposed to be produced from a cock's egg; a production long thought to be real. It was said to be in form like a serpent,

with the head of a cock. There was
still a saying, that if the cockatrice
first saw the person, he killed him
by it; but if the animal was first
he died. Nares.
3) Besmeared, soiled.

seen,

4) Blood clotted or congealed. 5) Instead of swooned; to swoon, meaning to faint.

6) Meaning her body.

Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st:
Was ever book, containing such vile matter,
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!

There's no trust,

NURSE.
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,

All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae:
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;

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, When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled2 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; 3 Your tributary drops belong to woe,

Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.

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,

1) To smooth, to make even, to free from blame, or to speak well of.

2) To mangle, to cut with a dull instrument and tear; here figuratively, to touch the honour of one's name, to defame him, to injure his reputation.

occasions; but now you erroneously shed your tributary drops for an event (the death of Tybalt and the subsequent escape of my beloved Romeo) which is in fact to me a subject of joy. Tybalt, if he could, would have slain my husband; but my husband is alive, and has slain 3) Back, says she, to your native Tybalt. This is a source of joy, not source, you foolish tears! Properly of sorrow: wherefore then do I you ought to flow only on melancholy weep? Malone.

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

banished, that one word banished,

Tybalt's death

That
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.
Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship, 2

And needly will be rank'd with other griefs, -
Why follow'd not, when she said Tybalt's dead,
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
Which modern3 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. 4 Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd.

NURSE. Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo To comfort you:

I wot5 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.

FRI. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man; Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,"

And thou art wedded to calamity.

1) That is,

I am more affected] So, in As you like it: "Full of wise by Romeo's banishment than I should saws and modern instances." Johnbe by the death of ten thousand such relations as Tybalt.

2) Thus the Latin hexameter: Solamen miseris socios habuisse malo

rum.

3) Modern means trite, common.

son.

4) To beguile, to delude, to deceive. 5) Wot, formerly used also in the present tense, to know.

6) To enamour, to inflame with love, to charm, with of before the

ROM. Father, what news? what is the prince's doom? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,

That I yet know not?

Is

FRI.

Too familiar

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 -
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death: do not say

death:

banishment.

FRI. Hence from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
ROм. 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 mis-term'd: calling death banishment,
Thou cutt'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 mercy, 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,
Live here in heaven, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,1
More honourable state, more courtship? lives
In carrion flies, than Romeo: they may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips;
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not; he is banished:

person or thing: as, to be enamour-
ed of a lady, of books, etc.; of thy
parts, i. e. of thee. It is now fol-
lowed by with.

1) More value, more worth.

2) Courtship is the state of a lover: that dalliance, in which he who courts or wooes a lady is sometimes indulged. Malone. Johnson, however, explains courtship by the state

Flies may do this, when I from this must fly;
They are free men, but I am banished.

And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death?

Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,1
But, banished to kill me; banished?

-

O cruel friar, how hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly cónfessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
To mangle me with that word

-

banishment?

FRI. Thou fond2 mad man; hear me but speak a word.
ROM. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRI. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.

To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
ROM. Yet banished? Hang up philosophy!

Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom;

It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.

FRI. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.

ROM. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes? FRI. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.3

ROM. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel: Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,

An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,

Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade_grave.

FRI. Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.

[Knocking within. ROM. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans, Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes. Knocking. FRI. Hark, how they knock! — Who's there? Romeo, arise:

of a courtier permitted to approach the highest presence.

2) Fond means, foolish, silly. 3) The same phrase, and with the 1) The first mean is, instrument, same meaning, occurs in The Win-, the medium through which something|ter's Tale: "— can he speak? hear? is done. In this sense, means, in the Know man from man? dispute his plural, is generally used, and often own estate?" i. e. is he able to talk with a definitive and verb in the sin- over his own affairs, or the present gular. The second mean is the ad-state he is in? Steevens. jective, contemptible, despicable. 4) To dote; see p. 37, 4).