For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
Enter Exton with ⌈his men bearing⌉ the coffin
EXTON
Great King, within this coffin I present
Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
KING HENRY
Exton, I thank thee not, for thou hast wrought
A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
Upon my head and all this famous land.
EXTON
From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
KING HENRY
They love not poison that do poison need;
Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour.
With Cain go wander through the shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
⌈Exeunt Exton and his men⌉
Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
Come mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent.
I’ll make a voyage to the Holy Land
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
March sadly after. Grace my mournings here
In weeping after this untimely bier.
Exeunt ⌈With the coffin⌉
ADDITIONAL PASSAGES
The following passages of four lines or more appear in the 1597 Quarto but not the Folio; Shakespeare probably deleted them as part of his limited revisions to the text.
a. . AFTER 1.3.127And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts
With rival-hating envy set on you
To wake our peace, which in our country’s cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep,
b. AFTER 1.3.235O, had’t been a stranger, not my child,
To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.
A partial slander sought I to avoid,
And in the sentence my own life destroyed.
c. AFTER 1.3.256BOLINGBROKE
Nay, rather every tedious stride I make
Will but remember what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages, and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
But that I was a journeyman to grief?
JOHN OF GAUNT
All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the King did banish thee,
But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not the King exiled thee; or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com’st.
Suppose the singing birds musicians,
The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strewed,
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
Than a delightful measure or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
d. AFTER 3.2.28The means that heavens yield must be embraced
And not neglected; else heaven would,
And we will not: heaven’s offer we refuse,
The proffered means of succour and redress.
e. AFTER 4.1.50ANOTHER LORD
I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle, And spur thee on with full as many lies As may be hollowed in thy treacherous ear From sun to sun. There is my honour’s pawn. Engage it to the trial if thou darest.
He throws down his gage
AUMERLE
Who sets me else? By heaven, I’ll throw at all. I have a thousand spirits in one breast To answer twenty thousand such as you.
ROMEO AND JULIET
ON its first appearance in print, in 1597, Romeo and Juliet was described as ‘An excellent conceited tragedy’ that had ‘been often (with great applause) played publicly’; its popularity is witnessed by the fact that this is a pirated version, put together from actors’ memories as a way of cashing in on its success. A second printing, two years later, offered a greatly superior text apparently printed from Shakespeare’s working papers. Probably he wrote it in 1594 or 1595.
The story was already well known, in Italian, French, and English. Shakespeare owes most to Arthur Brooke’s long poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which had already supplied hints for The Two Gentlemen of Verona; he may also have looked at some of the other versions. In his address ‘To the Reader’, Brooke says that he has seen ‘the same argument lately set forth on stage with more commendation than I can look for’, but no earlier play survives.
Shakespeare’s Prologue neatly sketches the plot of the two star-crossed lovers born of feuding families whose deaths ‘bury their parents’ strife’; and the formal verse structure of the Prologue—a sonnet—is matched by the carefully patterned layout of the action. At the climax of the first scene, Prince Escalus stills a brawl between representatives of the houses of Montague (Romeo’s family) and Capulet (Juliet’s); at the end of Act 3, Scene 1, he passes judgement on another, more serious brawl, banishing Romeo for killing Juliet’s cousin Tybalt after Tybalt had killed Romeo’s friend and the Prince’s kinsman, Mercutio; and at the end of Act 5, the Prince presides over the reconciliation of Montagues and Capulets. Within this framework of public life Romeo and Juliet act out their brief tragedy: in the first act, they meet and declare their love—in another sonnet; in the second, they arrange to marry in secret; in the third, after Romeo’s banishment, they consummate their marriage and part; in the fourth, Juliet drinks a sleeping draught prepared by Friar Laurence so that she may escape marriage to Paris and, after waking in the family tomb, run off with Romeo; in the fifth, after Romeo, believing her to be dead, has taken poison, she stabs herself to death.
The play’s structural formality is offset by an astonishing fertility of linguistic invention, showing itself no less in the comic bawdiness of the servants, the Nurse, and (on a more sophisticated level) Mercutio than in the rapt and impassioned poetry of the lovers. Shakespeare’s mastery over a wide range of verbal styles combines with his psychological perceptiveness to create a richer gallery of memorable characters than in any play written up to this time; and his theatrical imagination compresses Brooke’s leisurely narrative into a dramatic masterpiece.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
CHORUS
ROMEO
MONTAGUE, his father
MONTAGUE’S WIFE
BENVOLIO, Montague’s nephew
ABRAHAM, Montague’s servingman
BALTHASAR, Romeo’s man
JULIET
CAPULET, her father
CAPULET’S WIFE
TYBALT, her nephew
His page
PETRUCCIO
CAPULET’S COUSIN
Juliet’s NURSE
Other SERVINGMEN
MUSICIANS
Escalus, PRINCE of Verona
FRIAR LAURENCE
FRIAR JOHN
An APOTHECARY
CHIEF WATCHMAN
Other CITIZENS OF THE WATCH
Masquers, guests, gentlewomen, followers of the Montague and Capulet factions
The Most
Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
Prologue Enter Chorus
CHORUS
Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage—
Which but their children’s end, naught could remove—
Is now the two-hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Exit
1.1 Enter Samson and Gregory, of the house of Capulet, with swords and bucklers
SAMSON Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry coals.
GREGORY No, for then we should be colliers.
SAMSON I mean an we be in choler, we’ll draw.
GREGORY Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.
SAMSON I strike quickly, being moved.
GREGORY But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
SAMSON A dog of the house of Montague moves me.
GREGORY To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand, therefore if thou art moved, thou runn’st away.
SAMSON A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.
GREGORY That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.
SAMSON ’Tis true, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall; therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.
GREGORY The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.
SAMSON ’Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men I will be civil with the maids—I will cut off their heads.
GREGORY The heads of the maids?
SAMSON Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads, take it in what sense thou wilt.
GREGORY They must take it in sense that feel it.
SAMSON Me they shall feel while I am able to stand, and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
GREGORY ’Tis well thou art not fish. If thou hadst, thou hadst been poor-john.
Enter Abraham and another servingman of the Montagues
Draw thy tool. Here comes of the house of Montagues.
SAMSON My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will back thee.
GREGORY How—turn thy back and run?
SAMSON Fear me not.
GREGORY No, marry—I fear thee!
SAMSON Let us take the law of our side. Let them begin.
GREGORY I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.
SAMSON Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bear it. He bites his thumb
ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMSON I do bite my thumb, sir.
ABRAHAM Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMSON (to Gregory) Is the law of our side if I say ’Ay’ ?
GREGORY No.
SAMSON (to Abraham) No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.
GREGORY (to Abraham) Do you quarrel, sir?
ABRAHAM Quarrel, sir? No, sir.
SAMSON But if you do, sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.
ABRAHAM No better.
SAMSON Well, sir.
Enter Benvolio
GREGORY Say ‘better’. Here comes one of my master’s kinsmen.
SAMSON (to Abraham) Yes, better, sir.
ABRAHAM You lie.
SAMSON Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy washing blow.
They draw and fight
BENVOLIO (drawing) Part, fools. Put up your swords. You know not what you do.
Enter Tybalt
TYBALT (drawing) What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee, Benvolio. Look upon thy death.
BENVOLIO
I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.
TYBALT
What, drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
Have at thee, coward.
They fight. Enter three or four Citizens ⌈of the watch⌉, with clubs or partisans
⌈CITIZENS OF THE WATCH⌉
Clubs, bills and partisans! Strike! Beat them down!
Down with the Capulets. Down with the Montagues.
Enter Capulet in his gown, and his Wife
CAPULET
What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!
CAPULET’S WIFE
A crutch, a crutch—why call you for a sword?
Enter Montague ⌈With his sword drawn⌉, and his Wife
CAPULET
My sword, I say. Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
MONTAGUE
Thou villain Capulet!
⌈His Wife holds him back⌉
Hold me not, let me go.
MONTAGUE’S WIFE
Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.
⌈The Citizens of the watch attempt to part the factions.⌉
Enter Prince Escalus with his train
PRINCE
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steet—
Will they not hear? What ho, you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins:
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved Prince.
⌈Montague, Capulet, and their followers throw down their weapons]
Three civil brawls bred of an airy word
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave-beseeming ornaments
To wield old partisans in hands as old,
Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time all the rest depart away.
You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And Montague, come you this afternoon
To know our farther pleasure in this case
To old Freetown, our common judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
Exeunt all but Montague, his Wife, and Benvolio
MONTAGUE
Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
Speak, nephew: were you by when it began?
BENVOLIO
Here were the servants of your adversary
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.
I drew to part them. In the instant came
The fiery Tybalt with his sword prepared,
Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head and cut the winds
Who, nothing hurt withal, hissed him in scorn.
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
Came more and more, and fought on part and part
Till the Prince came, who parted either part.
MONTAGUE’S WIFE
O where is Romeo—saw you him today?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.
BENVOLIO
Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun
Peered forth the golden wind
ow of the east,
A troubled mind drive me to walk abroad,
Where, underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from this city side,
So early walking did I see your son.
Towards him I made, but he was ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood.
I, measuring his affections by my own—
Which then most sought where most might not be
found,
Being one too many by my weary self—
Pursued my humour not pursuing his,
And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me.
MONTAGUE
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs.
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
BENVOLIO
My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
MONTAGUE
I neither know it nor can learn of him.
BENVOLIO
Have you importuned him by any means?
MONTAGUE
Both by myself and many other friends,
But he, his own affection’s counsellor,
Is to himself—I will not say how true,
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 126
