Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” she inquired most earnestly; and then, with gentle longing, urged: “Deny thy father and refuse thy name.” She, like Romeo, had discovered that her greatest love was her father’s greatest hate. She frowned and shook her head. “ ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” she argued with ingenious philosophy. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d . . .”

  So she continued, putting her case before an audience of moon and stars, until Romeo came from among the shadows and stood beneath the balcony. At once she was alarmed; then, when she saw who it was, was fearful for his safety in her father’s garden; then ashamed when she realised that he must have overheard her private confession of love.

  Eagerly Romeo dismissed the danger and rejoiced in the confession which, by its frankness, had short cut all tedious custom of roundabout approach and, in the twinkling of an eye, had plunged them both fathoms deep into each other’s hearts, as if they had lived there all their lives. Even so, she begged him to leave as she feared more and more for his safety.

  “O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” pleaded Romeo.

  “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” she answered gently.

  “Th’ exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine!” he cried.

  A voice called from within the room. It was Juliet’s Nurse. Hurriedly Juliet begged Romeo to wait and went inside. A moment later she was back on the balcony.

  “Three words, dear Romeo,” she whispered down; and then, scorning arithmetic, went on with many, many more. If Romeo was honourable, and his purpose marriage, she would send to him tomorrow so that he might tell her the time and place where the ceremony might be performed.

  Again the Nurse called and again Juliet seemed plucked inside, as by an apron string; and again came back at once. More arrangements were made for the following day, and more love exchanged until, at last, there was no avoiding the parting.

  “Good night, good night,” sighed Juliet. “Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

  She went back into her room. Romeo waited a little longer and then climbed back over the orchard wall. Rosalyne and all her charms had been swept from his mind and heart; and Juliet, too, had quite forgotten that she had been betrothed that very morning to a rich young man of her father’s choice.

  As soon as it was light, Romeo sought out his confessor, Friar Laurence, in a monastery some little way out of the town, and begged the worthy priest to marry him to Juliet that very day. At first the good Friar was too taken aback by the sudden setting of Rosalyne to comprehend the glorious sunrise of Juliet; but then, seeing the strength of Romeo’s love, and knowing the honesty of his heart, and thinking that by such a union the hatred between the Montagues and the Capulets might be buried forever, he agreed to perform the ceremony. It was to take place in the holy Friar’s cell on that afternoon. In high delight Romeo returned to the sunshine town to await Juliet’s messenger.

  While Romeo had been away from his house on his mission of love, Tybalt had called on a mission of hate. Not finding Romeo, he had left a letter, challenging the son of Montague to a duel to the death. This challenge had been found by Benvolio and Mercutio, who were still seeking their companion who had given them the slip on the previous night.

  “Romeo will answer it,” said Benvolio.

  “Any man that can write may answer a letter,” chuckled Mercutio; and the pair went their way through the bright streets, making fun of Tybalt and his fury.

  Presently they met Romeo; but before they could tell him of the challenge, Juliet’s Nurse, with skirts rolling and bosom billowing, came majestically down the street.

  At once the three friends, overcome by the female’s size and dignity, set about her like mad butterflies mocking an old cabbage. They twisted her, turned her, upended her words and her wits till she shook with indignation in all her bulging parts. At last she managed to say that it was Romeo she looked for, and Romeo alone; so Mercutio and Benvolio went away, laughing their heads off—and clean forgot about Tybalt and his murderous letter.

  As soon as they were alone, the Nurse begged Romeo to deal honestly with Juliet, who was very young. Romeo swore he would.

  “Bid her devise,” he pleaded with the Nurse, “some means to come to shrift this afternoon. And there she shall at Friar Laurence’ cell be shriv’d and married!”

  Gleefully the Nurse received the news. Although she knew that Juliet was already betrothed to another, the prospect of a marriage and a wedding night acted upon her like strong wine. After all, so long as there was a husband, it mattered little whether it was one man or another. Full of thoughts of the bounding joys of the marriage bed, she rushed away to tell her young mistress and to prepare her.

  That very afternoon, in Friar Laurence’s cell, Juliet and Romeo were married. Juliet became a Montague; and Romeo, in the same instant, became kin to all the Capulets. From the harsh soil of the two families’ enmity, had sprung a single flower of love.

  The day was hot and men’s blood boiled in their veins. Tybalt, seeking a violent answer to his violent letter, came upon Romeo’s two friends.

  “Mercutio,” he cried, with contempt in his voice and manner, “thou consortest with Romeo.”

  “Consort?” answered Mercutio angrily. “What, dost thou make us minstrels?”

  Anxiously Benvolio tried to keep the peace that was so suddenly threatened. Romeo appeared. Tybalt turned aside from Mercutio.

  “Well, peace be with you, sir,” he said, “here comes my man.” Coldly he insulted Romeo. Passers-by began to gather, but at a respectable distance; for surely there was going to be a fight. Tybalt challenged Romeo to draw his sword. Romeo refused. He had, within that hour, been married to Juliet and so was united with the house of Capulet. He would not, he could not shed any of their blood. But as the marriage was still secret, he was forced to hold his tongue.

  “O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!” cried Mercutio, unable to understand Romeo’s reluctance to fight. “Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?”

  He drew his sword and, in a moment, he and mad Tybalt were thrusting and parrying and darting at each other with their shining deadly stings.

  “Draw, Benvolio,” cried Romeo, aghast. “Beat down their weapons. Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage. Tybalt, Mercutio!”

  He seized his friend, meaning to hold him back. Murderous Tybalt lunged; and his sword, like a thin snake, struck under Romeo’s arm and pierced Mercutio’s breast. Then he fled.

  “I am hurt,” muttered Mercutio, finding himself to be a sudden victim of the hatred between Capulet and Montague. “A plague o’ both your houses.”

  “What, art thou hurt?” asked Benvolio, supporting Mercutio, who was sinking to the ground.

  “Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch . . .”

  “Courage, man,” urged Romeo, “the hurt cannot be much.”

  “No, ’tis not so deep as a well,” agreed Mercutio, “nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both your houses . . .”

  He was carried into the nearest house and soon after, the news came out that Mercutio, brave, witty, laughing Mercutio, was dead. Even as Romeo stood, amazed and overcome with grief, and blaming himself for his friend’s death, Tybalt returned.

  This time Romeo did not refuse the challenge. He drew his sword, and, mad for revenge, beat down Tybalt’s furious blade—which was still red with Mercutio’s blood—and killed him before he knew what he had done.

  “Romeo!” cried Benvolio, terrified by the sudden disaster. “Away, be gone . . .! The Prince will doom thee death if thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!”

  Only then did Romeo understand. On the very day he had married, he had killed his new wife’s kinsman and so condemned himself to de
ath.

  “O I am fortune’s fool!” he wept, and rushed away; leaving Tybalt spidered on the ground and slowly reddening Verona’s street.

  He fled for sanctuary to Friar Laurence’s cell and there, shaking and trembling, he learned that the Prince had been merciful. As the quarrel had been forced upon Romeo, the Prince had sentenced him to banishment instead of to death. He was to leave Verona and never set foot inside its walls again. Such was the Prince’s mercy, but to Romeo it was worse than death. Not to see Juliet again was to condemn him to a living grave. The good Friar tried to reason with him, to teach him to make the best of the life that had been granted.

  “Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel!” cried Romeo in despair. “Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, an hour but married, Tybalt murdered, doting like me, and like me banished, then mightst thou speak . . .”

  To this there was no answer; for who could know what Romeo felt but Romeo, and who could know that Juliet was his world? Had he been older, he might have been wiser . . . if indeed it’s wisdom to be calculating in affection and circumspect in love.

  There was a knock upon the door. It was the Nurse, come in haste from her mistress, who was in despair over the death of her dear cousin and the banishment of her husband. Romeo’s remorse knew no bounds. He threatened to kill himself; but the holy Friar stayed his hand.

  “Go,” he advised the wildly grieving youth, “get thee to thy love as was decreed. Ascend her chamber—hence, and comfort her.”

  Hope revived as Romeo listened to the Friar’s words. He would spend that night—his wedding night—in Juliet’s arms; and early on the following day, he would go to Mantua where he would wait until his marriage might be made known and the Prince’s pardon obtained. The Friar would send to him . . .

  The orchard was dark, but the stars were pale. Presently a bird began to sing. The new husband and the new wife, sleepy from love, came out on to the balcony, which held them like another bed, a bed of stone.

  “It is not yet near day,” lied Juliet. “It was the nightingale and not the lark . . .”

  Romeo shook his head. “It was the lark, the herald of the morn . . . Look, love . . . night’s candles are burnt out.”

  “Yond light is not daylight,” denied Juliet. “I know it . . .”

  But it was to no avail. The night was over and the time for parting come.

  “Farewell, farewell, one kiss and I’ll descend,” murmured Romeo. They embraced, and he slipped unwillingly from Juliet’s despairing arms, and climbed down to the dark ground. He looked up and she, overhanging the balcony, with her willow hair weeping, stared down; and each, in that last moment, was chilled with a sudden foreboding and seemed to see the other pale and dead. Then Romeo was gone.

  The Capulet’s house was in sad confusion. Tybalt had been laid to rest and Juliet, supposedly grieving for her murdered cousin, was a ghost of sobs and tears. Old Capulet, ever impatient with the sorrows of the young—which, to him, were as trifling as the peevish mewing of a baby, to be quietened by a sweet or a new toy—spoke with his wife and the County Paris, the excellent and well-connected youth to whom he had betrothed his daughter.

  “What day is this?” he demanded.

  “Monday, my lord,” said Paris.

  “Monday! Ha ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon. A Thursday let it be, a Thursday, tell her,” he instructed his wife, “she shall be married to this noble earl.” He nodded with high satisfaction. A husband was the very thing to quieten his wailing child. “We’ll have some half a dozen friends,” he decided, “and there an end. But what say you to Thursday?”

  The youth was in agreement and old Capulet was satisfied that the joyful tidings of such an occasion would put a stop to his daughter’s grief.

  The joyful tidings were received; but far from joyfully. Juliet was filled with dread and horror. Too frightened to confess that she was already married, and to a Montague, she sought frantically to avoid, to delay this impossible second marriage.

  “Here comes your father,” said Lady Capulet, shocked by her daughter’s reluctance to obey her parents’ command. “Tell him so yourself and see how he will take it at your hands.”

  The father was no better pleased. Turning in fury on his disobedient child, he shouted: “But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next to go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church, or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage! You tallow-face!”

  “Good father!” pleaded Juliet, weeping and on her knees.

  “Hang thee young baggage!” raged her father. “Get thee to church a Thursday or never after look me in the face!”

  Then, when the father and mother had gone, the Nurse took up their cause, but more gently.

  “I think it best you married with the County,” she urged; for a second marriage meant no more to her than another joyful, bounding wedding night. “O he’s a lovely gentleman,” she sighed. “Romeo’s a dishclout to him . . .”

  “Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much,” said Juliet, her last prop gone and with nothing left in all the world to cling to but Romeo’s love. “Go in and tell my lady I am gone, having displeas’d my father, to Laurence’ cell, to make confession and to be absolv’d.”

  To the monastery she went, and there, in the holy Friar’s cell, poured out all her misery and despair. The old man listened and, moved by Juliet’s all-consuming love for Romeo, and also concerned for the sin he would be bringing upon himself by performing a second marriage, devised a strange, fantastic plan. If this plan succeeded, then great happiness would be the result. If it failed, then Verona, Juliet and Romeo, Capulet and Montague, would stand for ever in the world’s memory for love’s tragedy.

  This was the Friar’s plan. He knew of a liquor that, if drunk, would produce so exact a counterfeit of death that none could tell the difference. This state would continue for two and forty hours, after which there would be a harmless awakening. On the Wednesday night, when she was alone, Juliet was to drink this liquor so that, when her people came to wake her in the morning for her wedding, they would find her seeming dead. Then, as was the custom, she would be laid in her best attire in the family monument. There, after a proper time, she would awaken and Romeo would be beside her. Letters would have been sent to Mantua telling him of the plan, so that he and Juliet might escape together to safety and happiness.

  “I’ll send a friar with speed,” promised the old priest.

  “Love give me strength,” prayed Juliet, taking the vial of liquor from Friar Laurence. “Farewell, dear father.”

  In darkly winding Mantua, news came to Romeo from Verona. But not from Friar Laurence. It was news brought by Romeo’s servant; and it was as black as hell. Juliet was dead.

  “Leave me,” muttered Romeo, sick with amazement and grief. “Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?”

  There was none; for what more could be told than that Romeo’s world was lost and his life was a vain pretence? He went to buy strong poison from an apothecary; and set off for Verona and Juliet’s tomb.

  “Well, Juliet,” he whispered, “I will lie with thee tonight.”

  The letter telling Romeo the truth of what had happened had never left Verona. The wretched brother who had been entrusted with it had been shut up in a house suspected of the plague, and it was night before he was freed.

  He went at once to Friar Laurence and told him of the misadventure. The Friar was filled with deep concern. Juliet would soon awaken and she would be alone in a dead man’s tomb. He himself must go to the monument and be on hand for the awakening.

  The churchyard was dark and the yew trees stood black among the pale monuments, as if the day’s mourners had left their shadows behind. Paris, the unlucky bridegroom who, on his wedding morning had come to claim his bride and found her dead, now came with tears and flowers to her midnight tomb. He sent his page a little way off, to warn him of any intruder, for he wanted to mourn and weep in solitude.


  Presently the page whistled. Someone was approaching. Paris hid from sight. The intruder appeared. It was that Montague who had been banished for murdering poor Juliet’s cousin. What further act of violence was he about to commit? Dear God! he was opening sweet Juliet’s tomb!

  “Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!” he cried. “Can vengeance be pursued further than death?”

  Romeo turned. His face was pale, as if death had already touched it. He begged Paris leave him and be gone. Enraged, Paris tried to seize him for a felon.

  “Wilt thou provoke me?” shouted Romeo. “Then have at thee, boy!”

  They drew their swords, and there, among the solemn dead, they fought like madmen; until one, young Paris, fell dying to the ground.

  “If thou be merciful,” he begged his unwilling murderer, “open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.”

  “In faith I will,” promised Romeo, but to a man already dead.

  He dragged him into the monument and laid him down within the low, vaulted chamber where, among stored-up Capulets, long-since ransacked by worms, lay Juliet upon a bed of stone. Death had not yet begun to spoil her; she might be living still. He knelt beside her and made his sad farewell.

  “Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace! And lips, O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing Death.” Then, with a sudden joyfulness he cried, “Here’s to my love!” and drank the apothecary’s poison; and so, in an instant, ended for ever the parting from his love.

  When Friar Laurence, old, hobbling, infirm and fearful, at last entered the tomb, Romeo was dead; and Juliet just awakening.

  “O comfortable Friar, where is my lord?” she asked gently. “Where is my Romeo?”