The Complete Tragedies of William Shakespeare - All 12 Books in One Edition. William Shakespeare

them down.]

       Juliet.

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

       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 kill’d, he’s dead!

       Juliet.

       Can heaven be so envious?

       Nurse.

       Romeo can,

       Though heaven cannot.—O Romeo, Romeo!—

       Who ever would have thought it?—Romeo!

       Juliet.

       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,

       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:

       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,

       All in gore-blood;—I swounded at the sight.

       Juliet.

       O, break, my heart!—poor bankrout, 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!

       Nurse.

       O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!

       O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!

       That ever I should live to see thee dead!

       Juliet.

       What storm is this that blows so contrary?

       Is Romeo slaughter’d, and is Tybalt dead?

       My dear-lov’d 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.

       Juliet.

       O God!—did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

       Nurse.

       It did, it did; alas the day, it did!

       Juliet.

       O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!

       Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

       Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

       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

       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!

       Nurse.

       There’s no trust,

       No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur’d,

       All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.—

       Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.—

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

       Shame come to Romeo!

       Juliet.

       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

       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?

       Juliet.

       Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?

       Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,

       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,

       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,

       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,’

       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,

       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,

       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:

       Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

       Juliet.

       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:

       He made you for a highway to my bed;

       But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.