Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,

  Think true love acted simple modesty.

  Come, night! come, Romeo! come, thou day in night!

  For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night, 20

  Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.

  Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow’d night,

  Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,

  Take him and cut him out in little stars,

  And he will make the face of heaven so fine 25

  That all the world will be in love with night,

  And pay no worship to the garish sun.

  O! I have bought the mansion of a love,

  But not possess’d it, and, though I am sold,

  Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day 30

  As is the night before some festival

  To an impatient child that hath new robes

  And may not wear them. O! here comes my nurse,

  Enter Nurse with cords.

  And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks 35

  But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.

  Now nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords

  That Romeo bade thee fetch?

  Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords. [Throws them down.

  Jul. Ah me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands? 40

  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 killed, he’s dead!

  Jul. Can heaven be so envious?

  Nurse. Romeo can, 45

  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 ‘I,’ 50

  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:’ 55

  Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

  Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,

  God save the mark! here on his manly breast:

  A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;

  Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood, 60

  All in gore blood; I swounded 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! 65

  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? 70

  My dearest 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. 75

  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 flowering face!

  Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

  Beautiful tyrant! fiond angelical! 80

  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 85

  When thou didst 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. 90

  Nurse. There’s no trust,

  No faith, no honesty in men; all naught,

  All perjur’d, all dissemblers, all forsworn.

  Ah! where’s my man? give me some aqua vitœ:

  These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. 95

  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 100

  Sole monarch of the universal earth.

  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, 105

  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, 110

  Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.

  My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;

  And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband:

  All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?

  Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, 115

  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,’ 120

  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,’ 125

  Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,

  Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?

  But with a rearward following Tybalt’s death,

  ‘Romeo is banished!’ to speak that word

  Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, 130

  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: 135

  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 beguil’d,

  Both you and I, for Romeo is exil’d: 140

  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 145

  To comfort you: I wot well where he is.

  Hark ye, your Romeo will be here to-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. 150

  Act III. Scene III.

  The Same. FRIAR LAURENCE’S Cell.

  Enter FRIAR LAURENCE.

  Fri. L. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:

  Affliction is enamour’d of thy parts,

  And thou art wedded to calamity. 5

  Enter ROMEO.

  Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince’s doom?<
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  What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,

  That I yet know not?

  Fri. L. Too familiar 10

  Is my dear son with such sour company:

  I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom.

  Rom. What less than doomsday is the prince’s doom?

  Fri. L. A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,

  Not body’s death, but body’s banishment. 15

  Rom. Ha! banishment! be merciful, say ‘death;’

  For exile hath more terror in his look,

  Much more than death: do not say ‘banishment.’

  Fri. L. Hence from Verona art thou banished.

  Be patient, for the world is broad and wide. 20

  Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,

  But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

  Hence banished is banish’d from the world,

  And world’s exile is death; then ‘banished,’

  Is death mis-term’d. Calling death ‘banished,’ 25

  Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,

  And smil’st upon the stroke that murders me.

  Fri. L. 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, 30

  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, 35

  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

  On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand, 40

  And steal immortal blessing from her lips,

  Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,

  Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;

  Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:

  They are free men, but I am banished. 45

  And sayst thou yet that exile is not death?

  Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,

  No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,

  But ‘banished’ to kill me? ‘Banished!’

  O friar! the damned use that word in hell; 50

  Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,

  Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,

  A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,

  To mangle me with that word ‘banished?’

  Fri. L. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word. 55

  Rom. O! thou wilt speak again of banishment.

  Fri. L. I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word;

  Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,

  To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

  Rom. Yet ‘banished!’ Hang up philosophy! 60

  Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,

  Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,

  It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.

  Fri. L. O! then I see that madmen have no ears.

  Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes? 65

  Fri. L. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

  Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:

  Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,

  An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,

  Doting like me, and like me banished, 70

  Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,

  And fall upon the ground, as I do now,

  Taking the measure of an unmade grave. [Knocking within.

  Fri. L. Arise; one knocks: good Romeo, hide thyself.

  Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans, 75

  Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes. [Knocking.

  Fri. L. Hark! how they knock. Who’s there? Romeo arise;

  Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up; [Knocking.

  Run to my study. By and by! God’s will!

  What wilfulness is this! I come, I come! [Knocking. 80

  Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what’s your will?

  Nurse. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand:

  I come from Lady Juliet.

  Fri. L. Welcome, then.

  Enter Nurse. 85

  Nurse. O holy friar! O! tell me, holy friar,

  Where is my lady’s lord? where’s Romeo?

  Fri. L. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

  Nurse. O! he is even in my mistress’ case,

  Just in her case! 90

  Fri. L. O woeful sympathy!

  Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,

  Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.

  Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man:

  For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand; 95

  Why should you fall into so deep an O?

  Rom. Nurse!

  Nurse. Ah, sir! ah, sir! Well, death’s the end of all.

  Rom. Spak’st thou of Juliet? how is it with her?

  Doth she not think me an old murderer, 100

  Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy

  With blood remov’d but little from her own?

  Where is she? and how doth she? and what says

  My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?

  Nurse. O! she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps; 105

  And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,

  And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,

  And then down falls again.

  Rom. As if that name,

  Shot from the deadly level of a gun, 110

  Did murder her; as that name’s cursed hand

  Murder’d her kinsman. O! tell me, friar, tell me,

  In what vile part of this anatomy

  Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack

  The hateful mansion. [Drawing his sword. 115

  Fri. L. Hold thy desperate hand:

  Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:

  Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote

  The unreasonable fury of a beast:

  Unseemly woman in a seeming man; 120

  Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!

  Thou hast amaz’d me: by my holy order,

  I thought thy disposition better temper’d.

  Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?

  And slay thy lady that in thy life lives, 125

  By doing damned hate upon thyself?

  Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?

  Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet

  In thee at once, which thou at once wouldst lose.

  Fie, fie! thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit, 130

  Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,

  And usest none in that true use indeed

  Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.

  Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,

  Digressing from the valour of a man; 135

  Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury,

  Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;

  Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,

  Misshapen in the conduct of them both,

  Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask, 140

  To set a-fire by thine own ignorance,

  And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.

  What! rouse thee, man; thy Juliet is alive,

  For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;

  There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee, 145

  But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy too:

  The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,

  And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:

  A
pack of blessings light upon thy back;

  Happiness courts thee in her best array; 150

  But, like a misbehav’d and sullen wench,

  Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love.

  Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

  Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,

  Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her; 155

  But look thou stay not till the watch be set,

  For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;

  Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time

  To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,

  Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back 160

  With twenty hundred thousand times more joy

  Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.

  Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;

  And bid her hasten all the house to bed,

  Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto: 165

  Romeo is coming.

  Nurse. O Lord! I could have stay’d here all the night

  To hear good counsel: O! what learning is.

  My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

  Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. 170

  Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.

  Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Exit.

  Rom. How well my comfort is reviv’d by this!

  Fri. L. Go hence; good-night; and here stands all your state:

  Either be gone before the watch be set, 175

  Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence:

  Sojourn in Mantua; I’ll find out your man,

  And he shall signify from time to time

  Every good hap to you that chances here.

  Give me thy hand; ’tis late: farewell; goodnight. 180

  Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,

  It were a grief so brief to part with thee:

  Farewell. [Exeunt.

  Act III. Scene IV.

  The Same. A Room in CAPULET’S House.

  Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and PARIS.

  Cap. Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily,

  That we have had no time to move our daughter:

  Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly, 5

  And so did I: well, we were born to die.

  ’Tis very late, she’ll not come down to-night:

  I promise you, but for your company,

  I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

  Par. These times of woe afford no time to woo. 10

  Madam, good-night: commend me to your daughter.

  Lady Cap. I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;

  To-night she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.

  Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender

  Of my child’s love: I think she will be rul’d 15

  In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.