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Shakespeare on Stage
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
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Romeo and Juliet (Folio 1, 1623)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Not Peer Reviewed
Enter Frier and Romeo.
1800Fri. Romeo come forth,
Come forth thou fearfull man,
Affliction is enamor'd of thy parts:
And thou art wedded to calamitie.
Rom. Father what newes?
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 birth, and heauen and earth, all three do meete
In thee at once, which thou at once would'st loose.
Fie, fie, thou sham'st thy shape, thy loue, thy wit,
1940Which like a Vsurer abound'st in all:
And vsest none in that true vse indeed,
Which should bedecke thy shape, thy loue, thy wit:
Thy Noble shape, is but a forme of waxe,
Digressing from the Valour of a man,
1945Thy deare Loue sworne but hollow periurie,
Killing that Loue which thou hast vow'd to cherish.
Thy wit, that Ornament, to shape and Loue,
Mishapen in the conduct of them both:
Like powder in a skillesse Souldiers flaske,
1950Is set a fire by thine owne ignorance,
And thou dismembred with thine owne defence.
What, rowse thee man, thy Iuliet is aliue,
For whose deare sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
1955But thou slew'st Tybalt, there art thou happie.
The law that threatned death became thy Friend,
And turn'd it to exile, there art thou happy.
A packe or blessing light vpon thy backe,
Happinesse Courts thee in her best array,
1960But like a mishaped and sullen wench,
Thou puttest vp thy Fortune and thy Loue:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Goe get thee to thy Loue as was decreed,
Ascend her Chamber, hence and comfort her:
1965But looke thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not passe to Mantua,
Where thou shalt liue till we can finde a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your Friends,
Beg pardon of thy Prince, and call thee backe,
1970With twenty hundred thousand times more ioy
Then thou went'st forth in lamentation.
Goe before Nurse, commend me to thy Lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heauy sorrow makes them apt vnto.
1975Romeo is comming.
Nur. O Lord, I could haue staid here all night,
To heare good counsell: oh what learning is!
My Lord Ile tell my Lady you will come.
Rom. Do so, and bid my Sweete prepare to chide.
1980Nur. Heere sir, a Ring she bid me giue you sir:
Hie you, make hast, for it growes very late.
Rom. How well my comfort is reuiu'd by this.
Fri. Go hence,
Goodnight, and here stands all your state:
1985Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the breake of day disguis'd from hence,
Soiourne in Mantua, Ile find out your man,
And he shall signifie from time to time,
Euery good hap to you, that chaunces heere:
1990Giue me thy hand, 'tis late, farewell, goodnight.
Rom. But that a ioy past ioy, calls out on me,
It were a griefe, so briefe to part with thee:
Farewell.
Exeunt.