Nurse.

Ay, ay, the cords.

[Throws them down. Jul. Ah me! what news! why dost thou wring

thy hands? Nurse. Ah well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's

dead! We are undone, lady, we are undone! Alack the day!-he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!

Jul. Can heaven be so envious ?
Nurse.

Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot:-O Romeo! Romeo !-
Who ever would have thought it ?~Romeo!
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 1,5
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
I am not I, if there be such an I;
Or those eyes shut, that make thee 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,
God save the mark!0_here on his manly breast:
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedawb'd 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!

God save thaw the wound, I my weal, or w

5 say thou but I,] In Shakspeare's time the affirmative particle ay was usually written I, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling.

6 God save the mark !) This proverbial exclamation occurs again, with equal obscurity, in Othello, Act I. sc. i.

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. Jul. O God!-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! Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, A damned saint, an honourable villain ! O, nature! what hadst thou to do in hell, When thou did'st bower the spirit of a fiend In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh ?Was ever book, containing such vile matter, So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace! Nurse.

There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitæ :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. VOL. IX.

G

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 mangled 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; 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 hus.

band: 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, Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds: Tybalt is dead, and Romeo-banished; That-banished, that one word-banished, Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death Was woe enough, if it had ended there: Or,-if sour woe delights in fellowship, 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 modern 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 beguild,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd:
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
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.

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. Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's

doom? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, That I yet know not?

Fri.

Too familiar 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_death: For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death: do not say-banishment.

Fri. Hence 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 itself.
Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exíle is death:—then banishment
Is death mis-term’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 little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live 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

This is dear mercy,] The old copies read mere mercy, which in ancient language, signifies absolute mercy, 2 - More validity, More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion flics, than Romeo:] Validity seems here to mean worth or dignity. By courtship, the author seems to mean, the