Capulet.
Cap.
What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?
La. Cap.
The people in the street cry, Romeo;
Some, Juliet; and some, Paris; and all run
With open out-cry tow'rd our Monument.
Prince.
What fear is this, which startles in your ears?
Watch.
Sovereign, here lyes the County Paris slain,
And Romeo dead, and Juliet (dead before)
Warm and new kill'd.
-- 109 --
Prince.
Search, seek, and know, how this foul murther comes.
Watch.
Here is a Friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man,
With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.
Cap.
Oh, heav'n! oh, wife! look how our daughter bleeds!
This dagger hath mista'en; for, loe! the sheath
Lies empty on the back of Montague,
The point mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.
La. Cap.
Oh me, this sight of death is as a bell,
That warms my old age to a sepulchre.
Enter Montague.
Prince.
Come, Montague, for thou art early up.
To see thy son and heir now early down.
Mon.
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to night;
Grief of my son's exile hath stopt her breath:
What further woe conspires against my age?
Prince.
Look, and thou shalt see.
Mon.
Oh, thou untaught! what manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a Grave?
Prince.
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
'Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent;
And then will I be General of your woes,
And lead you ev'n to Death. Mean time forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicioin.
Fri.
I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected; as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murther;
And here I stand both to impeach and purge
My self condemned, and my self excus'd.
Prince.
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
-- 110 --
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 stoln marriage-day
Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
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. Mean time I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come, as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrowed 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 awaking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's Vault:
Meaning to keep her closely at my Cell,
'Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
But when I came, (some minute ere the time
Of her awaking) here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo dead.
She wakes, and I intreated her come forth,
And bear this work of heav'n with patience:
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,
And she, too desp'rate, would not go with me:
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know, and to the marriage
-- 111 --
Her nurse is privy; but if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific'd, some hour before the time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
Prince.
We still have known thee for an holy man.
Where's Romeo's man? what can he say to this?
Balth.
I brought my master news of Juliet's death,
And then in post he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same Monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father,
And threatned me with death going to the Vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.
Prince.
Give me the letter, I will look on it.
Where is the County's page, that rais'd the Watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
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.
Prince.
This letter doth make good the Friar's words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
And here he writes, that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lye with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heav'n finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd!
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;
-- 112 --
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at that rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
Cap.
As rich shall Romeo's by his lady lye;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!
Prince.
A gloomy Peace this morning with it brings,
The Sun for Sorrow will not shew his head;
Go hence to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished.
For never was a story of more woe,
Than this of Juliet, and her Romeo.
[Exeunt omnes.
