Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Not Peer Reviewed

Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)

The excellent Tragedie

Rom:Spakest thou of Iuliet, how is it with her?
1910Doth she not thinke me an olde murderer,
Now I haue stainde the childhood of her ioy,
With bloud remou'd but little from her owne?
Where is she? and how doth she? And what sayes
My conceal'd Lady to our canceld loue?
1915Nur:Oh she saith nothing, but weepes and pules,
And now fals on her bed, now on the ground,
And Tybalt cryes, and then on Romeo calles.
Rom.As if that name shot from the deadly leuel of a gun
1920Did murder her, as that names cursed hand
Murderd her kinsman. Ah tell me holy Fryer
In what vile part of this Anatomy
Doth my name lye? Tell me that I may sacke
The hatefull mansion?
1924.1He offers to stab himselfe, and Nurse snatches
the dagger away.

Nur:Ah?
1925Fr:Hold, stay thy hand: art thou a man? thy forme
Cryes out thou art, but thy wilde actes denote
The vnresonable furyes of a beast.
Vnseemely woman in a seeming man,
1930Or ill beseeming 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 slay thy selfe?
And slay thy Lady too, that liues in thee?
Rouse vp thy spirits, thy Lady Iuliet liues,
For whose sweet sake thou wert but lately dead:
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
1955But thou sluest Tybalt, there art thou happy too.
A packe of blessings lights vpon thy backe,
Happines Courts thee in his best array:
1960But like a misbehaude and sullen wench
Thou frownst vpon thy Fate that smilles on thee.
Take