Romeo and Juliet | Act V, Scene III - Page 2
- FRIAR:
-
Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?
- BAL:
-
Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
- FRIAR:
-
Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond that vainly lends his light(125)
To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,
It burneth in the Capels’ monument.
- BAL:
-
It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,
One that you love.
- FRIAR:
-
Who is it?(130)
- BAL:
-
Romeo.
- FRIAR:
-
How long hath he been there?
- BAL:
-
Full half an hour.
- FRIAR:
-
Go with me to the vault.
- BAL:
-
I dare not, sir.(135)
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.
- FRIAR:
-
Stay then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me.
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.(140)
- BAL:
-
As I did sleep under this yew tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.
- FRIAR:
-
Romeo!
Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains(145)
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?
Enters the tomb.
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?
And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour(150)
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
The lady stirs.
Juliet rises.
- JUL:
-
O comfortable friar! where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?(155)
- FRIAR:
-
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;(160)
And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.
Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.
- JUL:
-
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.(165)
Exit Friar.
What's here? A cup, clos'd in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them(170)
To make me die with a restorative.
Kisses him.
Thy lips are warm!
- CHIEF WATCH:
-
Within.
Lead, boy. Which way?
- JUL:
-
Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!
Snatches Romeo's dagger.
This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.(175)
She stabs herself and falls on Romeo's body.
Enter Paris’ Boy and Watch.
- BOY:
-
This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.
- CHIEF WATCH:
-
The ground is bloody. Search about the(180)
churchyard.
Go, some of you; whoe'er you find attach.
Exeunt some of the Watch.
Pitiful sight! here lies the County slain;
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain this two days buried.(185)
Go, tell the Prince; run to the Capulets;
Raise up the Montagues; some others search.
Exeunt others of the Watch.
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.(190)
Enter some of the Watch, with Romeo's Man Balthasar.
- 2. WATCH:
-
Here's Romeo's man. We found him in the
churchyard.
- CHIEF WATCH:
-
Hold him in safety till the Prince come
hither.
Enter Friar Laurence and another Watchman.
- 3. WATCH:
-
Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.(195)
We took this mattock and this spade from him
As he was coming from this churchyard side.
- CHIEF 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 rest?(200)
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, and others.
- CAP:
-
What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?
- LADY CAPULET:
-
The people in the street cry ‘Romeo,’
Some ‘Juliet,’ and some ‘Paris’; and all run,
With open outcry, toward our monument.
- PRINCE:
-
What fear is this which startles in our ears?(205)
- CHIEF WATCH:
-
Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;
And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill'd.
- PRINCE:
-
Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.
- CHIEF WATCH:
-
Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man,(210)
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,(215)
And it missheathed in my daughter's bosom!
- LADY CAPULET:
-
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.(220)
- MON:
-
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night!
Grief of my son's exile 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,(225)
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(230)
And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
- FRIAR:
-
I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place(235)
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.
- FRIAR:
-
I will be brief, for my short date of breath(240)
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 stol'n marriage day
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death(245)
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from 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(250)
And with wild looks bid me devise some mean
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her (so tutored by my art)
A sleeping potion; which so took effect(255)
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 borrowed grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.(260)
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stay'd 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;(265)
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.(270)
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.(275)
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.(280)
