Page images
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

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 wit with me in sour misfortune's book!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

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? 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;
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!

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.] 0, true apo-

thecary!

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

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

Fri.

Bal.

Who is it?

Fri. How long hath he been there?
Bal.

Fri. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.

Romeo.

Full half an hour.

I dare not, sir:

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

upon me;

go alone:

· Fear comes

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.
Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

Fri. Romeo! [Advances. 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?

[Enters 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 and stirs. Jul. O, comfortable friar! where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am:- Where my Romeo?

[Noise within.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

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 church-yard:

Go, some of you, who e'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 church-yard.

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 church-yard 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's rest?
Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and others.
Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek
abroad?

La. Cap. The people in the street cry ·
Some Juliet, and some

Romeo,
Paris; and all run,
With open outery, toward our monument.
Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our

ears?

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: Meantime forbea
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 froin 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 staid 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;

1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,

slain;

And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill'd.

Till I conveniently could send to Romeo :
But when I came, (some minute ere the time
Of her awakening,) here untimely lay

Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul The noble Paris, and true Romeo, dead.

murder comes.

1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's

man;

With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Cap. O, heavens! O, wife! look how our
daughter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista'en, - for, lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,

And it 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. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; Grief of my son's exíle 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?

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
Her nurse is privy: And, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince. We still have known thee for a ho.y

[blocks in formation]

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.

Cap. O, brother Montague, give me thy hand. This is my daughter's jointure, for no more Can I demand.

Mon.

But I can give thee more:

For I will raise her statue in pure gold; That, while Verona by that name is known,

Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's There shall no figure at such rate be set,

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

BERNARDO, an officer.

HAMLET, Son to the former, and nephew to the present FRANCISCO, a soldier.

King.

[blocks in formation]

REYNALDO, servant to Polonius. A Captain.

An Ambassador.

Ghost of Hamlet's father.

FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.

GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet. OPHELIA, daughter of Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Gravediggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law, and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror :
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart,
And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsatory, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so:
Well may it sort, that this portentous figure

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, Comes armed through our watch; so like the king

speak.

[blocks in formation]

'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know
not;

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that
knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war:
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me?

Hor.

That can I; At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king, Whose image even but now appear'd to us, Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, 'Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,

[ocr errors]

That was, and is, the question of these wars.

Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on, —
Have heaven and earth together démonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.

Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me. - Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me :

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:)

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »