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Romeo and Juliet (Folio 1, 1623)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Not Peer Reviewed
The Tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet.
67
1805What is the Princes Doome?
What sorrow craues acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?
Fri. Too familiar
Is my deare Sonne with such sowre Company:
1810I bring thee tydings of the Princes Doome.
Rom. What lesse then Doomesday,
Is the Princes Doome?
Fri. A gentler iudgement vanisht from his lips,
Not bodies death, but bodies banishment.
1815Rom. Ha, banishment? be mercifull, say death:
For exile hath more terror in his looke,
Much more then death: do not say banishment.
Fri. Here from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
1820Rom. There is no world without Verona walles,
But Purgatorie, Torture, hell it selfe:
Hence banished, is banisht from the world,
And worlds exile is death. Then banished,
Is death, mistearm'd, calling death banished,
1825Thou cut'st my head off with a golden Axe,
And smilest vpon the stroke that murders me.
Fri. O deadly sin, O rude vnthankefulnesse!
Thy falt our Law calles death, but the kind Prince
Taking thy part, hath rusht aside the Law,
1830And turn'd that blacke word death, to banishment.
This is deare mercy, and thou seest it not.
Rom. 'Tis Torture and not mercy, heauen is here
Where Iuliet liues, and euery Cat and Dog,
And little Mouse, euery vnworthy thing
1835Liue here in Heauen and may looke on her,
But Romeo may not. More Validitie,
More Honourable state, more Courtship liues
In carrion Flies, then Romeo: they may seaze
On the white wonder of deare Iuliets hand,
1840And steale immortall blessing from her lips,
Who euen in pure and vestall modestie
Still blush, as thinking their owne kisses sin.
This may Flies doe, when I from this must flie,
And saist thou yet, that exile is not death?
1845But Romeo may not, hee is banished.
Had'st thou no poyson mixt, no sharpe ground knife,
No sudden meane of death, though nere so meane,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Frier, the damned vse that word in hell:
1850Howlings attends it, how hast thou the hart
Being a Diuine, a Ghostly Confessor,
A Sin-Absoluer, and my Friend profest:
To mangle me with that word, banished?
Fri. Then fond Mad man, heare me speake.
1855Rom. O thou wilt speake againe of banishment.
Fri. Ile giue thee Armour to keepe off that word,
Aduersities sweete milke, Philosophie,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
Rom. Yet banished? hang vp Philosophie:
1860Vnlesse Philosohpie can make a Iuliet,
Displant a Towne, reuerse a Princes Doome,
It helpes not, it preuailes not, talke no more.
Fri. O then I see, that Mad men haue no eares.
Rom. How should they,
1865When wisemen haue no eyes?
Fri. Let me dispaire with thee of thy estate,
Rom. Thou can'st not speake of that yu dost not feele,
Wert thou as young as Iuliet my Loue:
An houre but married, Tybalt murdered,
1870Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightest thou speake,
Then mightest thou teare thy hayre,
And fall vpon the ground as I doe now,
Taking the measure of an vnmade graue.
1875
Enter Nurse, and knockes.
Frier. Arise one knockes,
Good Romeo hide thy selfe.
Rom. Not I,
Vnlesse the breath of Hartsicke groanes
1880Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.
Knocke
Fri. Harke how they knocke:
(Who's there) Romeo arise,
Thou wilt be taken, stay a while, stand vp:
1885
Knocke.
Run to my study: by and by, Gods will
What simplenesse is this: I come, I come.
Knocke.
Who knocks so hard?
1890Whence come you? what's your will?
Enter Nurse.
Nur. Let me come in,
And you shall know my errand:
I come from Lady Iuliet.
1895Fri. Welcome then.
Nur. O holy Frier, O tell me holy Frier,
Where's my Ladies Lord? where's Romeo?
Fri. There on the ground,
With his owne teares made drunke.
1900Nur. O he is euen in my Mistresse case,
Iust in her case. O wofull simpathy:
Pittious predicament, euen so lies she,
Blubbring and weeping, weeping and blubbring,
Stand vp, stand vp, stand and you be a man,
1905For Iuliets sake, for her sake rise and stand:
Why should you fall into so deepe an O.
Rom. Nurse.
Nur. Ah sir, ah sir, deaths the end of all.
Rom. Speak'st thou of Iuliet? how is it with her?
1910Doth not she thinke me an old Murtherer,
Now I haue stain'd the Childhood of our ioy,
With blood remoued, but little from her owne?
Where is she? and how doth she? and what sayes
My conceal'd Lady to our conceal'd Loue?
1915Nur. Oh she sayes nothing sir, but weeps and weeps,
And now fals on her bed, and then starts vp,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then downe falls againe.
Ro. As if that name shot from the dead leuell of a Gun,
1920Did murder her, as that names cursed hand
Murdred her kinsman. Oh tell me Frier, tell me,
In what vile part of this Anatomie
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sacke
The hatefull Mansion.
1925Fri. Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man? thy forme cries out thou art:
Thy teares are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The vnreasonable Furie of a beast.
Vnseemely woman, in a seeming man,
1930And ill beseeming beast in seeming both,
Thou hast amaz'd me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slaine Tybalt? wilt thou slay thy selfe?
And slay thy Lady, that in thy life lies,
1935By doing damned hate vpon thy selfe?
Why rayl'st thou on thy birth? the heauen and earth?
Since