Fri.
Romeo, come forth, come forth, thou fearful Man,
Affliction is enamour'd of thy Parts;
And thou art wedded to Calamity.

Rom.
Father, what News?
What is the Prince's Doom?
What Sorrow craves admittance at my Hand,
That I yet know not?

Fri.
Too familiar
Is my dear Son in such sower Company:
I bring thee Tydings of the Prince's Doom.

Rom.
What, less than Dooms-day, is the Prince's Doom?

Fri.
A gentle Judgment vanish'd from his Lips,
Not Body's Death, but Body's Banishment.

Rom.
Ha, Banishment! Be merciful, say Death;
For Exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than Death: Do not say Banishment.

Fri.
Here from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the World is broad and wide.

Rom.
There is no World without Verona Walls,
But Purgatory, Torture, Hell it self:
Hence banish'd, is banished from the World,
And World's Exile is Death. Then banished
Is Death miss-term'd, calling Death Banished.
Thou cut'st my Head off with a Golden Ax,
And smil'st upon the stroak that murders me.

Fri.
O deadly Sin! O rude Unthankfulness!
Thy Fault our Law calls Death, but the kind Prince
Taking thy part hath rusht aside the Law,
And turn'd that black word Death to Banishment.
That 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
Lives here in Heaven, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More Validity,
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 Blessings from her Lips,
Who even in pure and vestal Modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own Kisses sin.
This may Flies do, when I from this must fly,
And say'st thou yet, that Exile is not Death?
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
Hadst thou no Poison mixt, no sharp-ground Knife,
No sudden mean of Death, tho' ne'er so mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Friar, the Damned use that word in Hell;
Howlings attend it, how hast thou the Heart,
Being a Divine, a Ghostly Confessor,

A Sin-Absolver, and my Friend profest,
To mangle me with that word Banished?

Fri.
Fond Mad-man, hear me speak.

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, tho' 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 mad Men have no Ears.

Rom.
How shou'd they,
When wise Men have no Eyes?

Fri.
Let me despair with thee of thy Estate.

Rom.
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
Wert thou as young as Juliet my Love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished.
Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy Hair,
And fall upon the Ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade Grave. [Throwing himself on the Ground.

Fri. [Knock within.
Arise, one knocks;
Good Romeo hide thy self.

Rom.
Not I,
Unless the breath of Heart-sick Groans,
Mist-like, infold me from the search of Eyes. [Knock.

Fri.
Hark, how they knock.
Who's there?—Romeo, arise,
Thou wilt be taken—stay a while—stand up; [Knock.
Run to my Study—By and by—God's Will;
What Simpleness is this—I come, I come. [Knock.
Who knocks so hard?
Whence come you? what's your Will?

Nur. [Within.]
Let me come in,
And you shall know my Errand:
I come from Lady Juliet.

Fri.
Welcome then. Enter Nurse.

Nur.
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.

Nur.
O he is even in my Mistress's Case,
Just in her Case, O woful Sympathy!
Piteous Predicament, even so lyes she,
Blubbring and weeping, weeping and blubbring.
Stand up, stand up, stand and you be a Man,
For Juliet's sake, for her sake rise and stand:
Why should you fall into so deep an Oh!—

Rom.
Nurse.

Nur.
Ah Sir! Ah Sir!—Death's the end of all.

Rom.
Speak'st thou of Juliet? How is't with her?
Doth not she think me an old Murtherer,
Now I have stain'd the Child-hood of our Joy
With Blood, removed but little from her own?
Where is she? and how does she? and what says
My conceal'd Lady to our conceal'd Love?

Nur.
Oh 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 down falls again.

Rom.
As if that Name
Shot from the deadly level of a Gun
Did murder her, as that Names cursed Hand
Murdered her Kinsman. Oh tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this Anatomy
Doth my Name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful Mansion.

Fri.
Hold thy desperate Hand:
Art thou a Man? Thy form cries out, thou art:
Thy Tears are Womanish, thy wild Acts do note
The unreasonable fury of a Beast.
Unseemly Woman, in a seeming Man,
And ill beseeming Beast in seeming both,
Thou hast amaz'd me. By my holy Order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thy self?
And slay thy Lady, that in thy Life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thy self?

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.
Fy, fy, thou sham'st thy Shape, thy Love, thy Wit;
Which like an Usurer abound'st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed,
Which should bedeck thy Shape, thy Love, thy Wit:
Thy noble Shape is but a Form of Wax,
Digressing from the Valour of a Man;
Thy dear Love sworn, but hollow Perjury,
Killing that Love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
Thy Wit, that Ornament to Shape and Love,
Mis-shapen in the Conduct of them both,
Like Powder in a skilless Soldier's Flask,
Is set a fire by thine own Ignorance,
And thou dismembred with thine own Defence.
What, rouse thee, Man, thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there art thou happy too.
The Law that threatned Death became thy Friend,
And turn'd it to Exile; there art thou happy.
A pack of Blessings light upon thy Back,
Happiness courts thee in her best Array,
But like a mis-hav'd and a sullen Wench,
Thou puttest up thy Fortune and thy Love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go get thee to thy Love, as was decreed,
Ascend her Chamber, hence and comfort her:
But look thou stay not 'till the Watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,
Where thou shalt live, 'till we can find a time
To blaze your Marriage, reconcile your Friends,
Beg pardon of thy Prince, and call thee back,
With twenty hundred thousand times more Joy,
Than thou went'st forth in Lamentation.
Go before, Nurse, commend me to thy Lady,
And bid her hasten all the House to Bed,
Which heavy Sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.

Nur.
O Lord, I could have staid here all Night,
To hear good Counsel: Oh, what Learning is!
My Lord, I'll tell my Lady you will come.

Rom.
Do so, and bid my Sweet prepare to chide.

Nur.
Here, Sir, a Ring she bid me give you, Sir:
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

Rom.
How well my Comfort is reviv'd by this.

Fri.
Go hence.
Good Night, and here stands all your State:
Either be gone before the Watch be set,
Or by the break of Day disguis'd, from hence,
Sojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your Man,
And he shall signifie from time to time,
Every good hap to you that chances here:
Give me thy Hand, 'tis late, farewel, Good Night.

Rom.
But that a Joy, past Joy, calls out on me,
It were a Grief, so brief to part with thee:
Farewel. [Exeunt.

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