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If I did stay to look on his intents.

Fri. Stay then, I'll go alone:-Fear comes upon

me;

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

5

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

Romeo?

Fri. [Advances. Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains The stony entrance of this sepulchre?— What mean these masterless and gory swords To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?

[Enters the Monument. Romeo! O, pale!-Who else? what, Paris too? And steep'd in blood?—Ah, what an unkind hour Is guilty of this lamentable chance!

The lady stirs.

[JULIET wakes and stirs. Jul. O, comfortable friar! where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be,

And there I am:-Where is my Romeo?

[Noise within.

Fri. 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;

• I dreamt my master and another fought,] This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakspeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream. Homer, Book 8th, represents Rhesus dying fast asleep, and as it were beholding his enemy in a dream plunging a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality, but a vision.

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,-[Noise again.] I dare stay
no longer.

[Exit.
Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.-
What's here? a cup, clos'd in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:-
O churl! drink all; and leave no friendly drop,
To help me after?—I will kiss thy lips;
Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm!

[Kisses him.

1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:-Which way? Jul. Yea, noise?-then I'll be brief.-O happy dagger! [Snatching ROMEO's Dagger. This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rust, and let me die.

[Falls on ROMEO's Body, and dies.

Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS.

Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.

1 Watch. The ground is bloody; Search about the churchyard:

Go, some of you, who e'er you find, attach.

[Exeunt some. Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain;And Juliet bleeding; warm, and newly dead, Who here hath lain these two days buried.Go, tell the prince,-run to the Capulets,Raise up the Montagues,-some others search;[Exeunt other Watchmen. We see the ground whereon these woes do lie; But the true ground of all these piteous woes, We cannot without circumstance descry.

Enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR.

2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man, we found him in the churchyard.

1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come

hither.

Enter another Watchman, with Friar LAURENCE. 3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs, and weeps:

We took this mattock and this spade from him, As he was coming from this churchyard side. 1 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's rest?

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and Others. 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 outcry, toward our monument.

Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our ears?

1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris

slain;

And Roineo dead; and Juliet, dead before,

Warm and new kill'd.

Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's

man;

With instruments upon them, fit to open

These dead men's tombs.

[blocks in formation]

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,-

And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom."
La. Cap. 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.

Mon. Álas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; Grief of my son's exíle 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, 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 even to death: Mean time forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.-
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder;
And here I stand, both to impeach and
Myself condemned and myself excus'd.

• This dagger hath mista'en,—for, lo! his house Is empty on the back of Montague,—

purge

And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.] Shakspeare quaintly represents the dagger as having mistaken its place, and "it mis-sheathed, i. e. "mis-sheathed itself" in the bosom of Juliet. It appears that the dagger was anciently worn behind the back.

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in

this.

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 stolen 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 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;
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: meantime I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrow'd 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 waking,

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 awakening,) here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo, dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,

' I will be brief,] It is much to be lamented, that the poet did not conclude the dialogue with the action, and avoid a narrative of events which the audience already knew. JOHNSON.

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