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, Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd: He made you for a highway to my bed; Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding bed; And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead! Nurse. Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo To comfort you:-I wot 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. SCENE III. Friar Laurence's Cell. Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and ROMEO. Fri. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man; Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity. [doom? Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, That I yet know not? Too familiar Fri. Is 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, Rom. There is no world without Verona wails, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence-banished is banish'd from the world, And world's exile is death:-then banishment Is death misterm'd: calling death-banishment, Thou cut'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 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, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, 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; Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate. Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel: Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, thyself. groans, Mistlike, infold me from the search of eyes. [Knocking. Fri. Hark, how they knock!-Who's there? Romeo, arise; Thou wilt be taken :-Stay awhile: stand up; [Knocking. Run to my study:-By and by:-God's will! What wilfulness is this?-I come, I come. [Knocking. Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will? Nurse. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand; I come from Lady Juliet. Fri. Welcome then. Enter Nurse. Nurse. O holy friar, O tell me, holy friar, Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo? Fri. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk. Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case, Just in her case! Fri. O woful sympathy! Even so lies she, Piteous predicament! Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubber. ing: Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man: Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir;-Well, death's the end Rom. Spak'st thou of Juliet? how is it with her? Doth she not think me an old murderer, Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy With blood remov'd but little from her own? Where is she? and how doth she? and what says My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love? Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps; And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries, And then falls down again. Rom. As if that name, Shot from the deadly level of a gun, Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack Unseemly woman, in a seeming man! Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet In thee at once; which thou at once would'st lose. Fye, fye! thou sham'st thy shape, thy love, thy wit; Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all, Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, too: Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time Nurse. O Lord, I could have staid here all the night, To hear good counsel: O, what learning is !- Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir : Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Exit. VOL. VIII. M |