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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
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Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 2, 1599)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Peer Reviewed
Enter Frier and Romeo.
1800Fri. Romeo come forth, come forth thou fearefull man,
Affliction is enamourd of thy parts:
And thou art wedded to calamitie.
Ro. Father what newes? what 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 companie?
1810I bring thee tidings of the Princes doome.
Ro. 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.
1820Ro. There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatorie, torture, hell it selfe:
Hence banished, is banisht from the world.
And worlds exile is death. Then banished,
Is death, mistermd, calling death banished,
1825Thou cutst my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest vpon the stroke that murders me.
Fri. O deadly sin, ô rude vnthankfulnes,
Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince
Taking thy part, hath rusht aside the law,
1830And turnd that blacke word death to banishment.
This is deare mercie, and thou seest it not.
Ro. Tis torture and not mercie, heauen is here
Where Iuliet liues, and euery cat and dog,
And litle 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 flyes do, when I from this must flie,
And sayest thou yet, that exile is not death?
1845But Romeo may not, he is banished.
1845.1Flies may do this, but I from this must flie:
They are freemen, but I am banished.
Hadst 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:
1850Howling attends it, how hast thou the heart
Being a Diuine, a ghostly Confessor,
A sin obsoluer, and my friend profest,
To mangle me with that word banished?
Fri. Then fond mad man, heare me a little speake.
1855Ro. 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.
Ro. Yet banished? hang vp philosophie,
1860Vnlesse Philosophie 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 man haue no eares.
Ro. How should they when that wise men haue no eyes.
Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Ro. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feele,
Wert thou as young as I, Iuliet thy loue,
An houre but married, Tybalt murdered,
1870Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightest thou speake,
Then mightst thou teare thy hayre,
And fall vpon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an vnmade graue.
1875
Enter Nurse, and knocke.
Fri. Arise one knocks, good Romeo hide thy selfe.
Ro. Not I, vnlesse the breath of hartsicke grones,
1880Myst-like infold me from the search of eyes.
They knocke.
Fri. Hark how they knock (whose there) Romeo arise,
Thou wilt be taken, stay a while, stand vp.
1885
Slud knock.
Run to my studie by and by, Gods will
What simplenes is this? I come, I come.
Knocke.
Who knocks so hard? whēce come you? whats your will?
Enter Nurse.
Nur. Let me come in, and you shal know my errant:
I come from Lady Iuliet.
1895Fri. Welcome then.
Nur. O holy Frier, O tell me holy Frier,
Wheres my Ladyes Lord? wheres 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:
Pitious prediccament, 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.
Ro. Spakest thou of Iuliet? how is it with her?
1910Doth not she thinke me an old murtherer,
Now I haue staind the childhood of our ioy,
With bloud remoued, but little from her owne?
Where is she? and how doth she? and what sayes
My conceald Lady to our canceld loue?
1915 Nur. Oh she sayes nothing sir, but weeps and weeps,
And now falls 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 deadly leuell of a gun,
1920Did murther her, as that names cursed hand
Murderd 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 deuote
The vnreasonable furie of a beast.
Vnseemely woman in a seeming man,
1930And ilbeseeming beast in seeming both,
Thou hast amaz'd me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temperd.
Hast thou slaine Tybalt? wilt thou sley thy selfe?
And sley thy Lady, that in thy life lies,
1935By doing damned hate vpon thy selfe?
Why raylest thou on thy birth? the heauen and earth?
Since birth, and heauen, and earth all three do meet,
In thee at once, which thou at once wouldst loose.
Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy loue, thy wit,
1940Which like a Vsurer aboundst 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 vowd 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 fier 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 happie, Tybalt would kill thee,
1955But thou slewest Tibalt, there art thou happie.
The law that threatned death becomes thy friend,
And turnes it to exile, there art thou happie.
A packe of blessings light vpon thy backe,
Happines courts thee in her best array,
1960But like a mishaued and sullen wench,
Thou puts vp thy fortune and thy loue:
Take heede, take heede, for such die miserable.
Go 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 find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince and call thee backe,
1970With twentie hundred thousand times more ioy
Then thou wentst forth in lamentation.
Go before Nurse, commend me to thy Lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heauie sorrow makes them apt vnto,
1975Romeo is comming.
Nur. O Lord, I could haue staid here all the night,
To heare good counsell, oh what learning is:
My Lord, ile tell my Lady you will come.
Ro. Do so, and bid my sweete prepare to chide.
1980Nur. Here sir, a Ring she bid me giue you sir:
Hie you, make hast, for it growes very late.
Ro. How well my comfort is reuiu'd by this.
Fri. Go hēce, goodnight, & here stands al your state:
1985Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the breake of day disguise 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 here:
1990Giue me thy hand, tis late, farewell, goodnight.
Ro. But that a ioy past ioy calls out on me,
It were a griefe, so briefe to part with thee:
Farewell.
1993.1
Exeunt.