Internet Shakespeare Editions

Toolbox




Jump to line
Help on texts

About this text

  • Title: Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)
  • Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
  • ISBN: 1-55058-299-2

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)

    of Romeo and Iuliet.

    Par:The boy giues warning, something doth approach.
    What cursed foote wanders this was to night,
    To stay my obsequies and true loues rites?
    2874.5What with a torch, muffle me night a while.
    2875Rom:Giue mee this mattocke, and this wrentching I-
    ron.
    And take these letters early in the morning,
    See thou deliuer them to my Lord and Father.
    So get thee gone and trouble me no more.
    Why I descend into this bed of death,
    Is partly to behold my Ladies face,
    But chiefly to take from her dead finger,
    A precious ring which I must vse
    2885In deare imployment but if thou wilt stay,
    Further to prie in what I vndertake,
    By heauen Ile teare thee ioynt by ioynt,
    And strewe thys hungry churchyard with thy lims.
    2890The time and my intents are sauage, wilde.
    Balt:Well, Ile be gone and not trouble you.
    Rom:So shalt thou win my fauour, take thou this,
    2895Commend me to my Father, farwell good fellow.
    Balt:Yet for all this will I not part from hence.

    2897.1Romeo opens the tombe.

    Rom:Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
    Gorde with the dearest morsell of the earth.
    2900Thus I enforce thy rotten iawes to ope.
    Par:This is that banisht haughtie Mountague,
    That murderd my loues cosen, I will apprehend him.
    Stop thy vnhallowed toyle vile Mountague.
    Can vengeance be pursued further then death?
    I doe attach thee as a fellon heere.
    2910The Law condemnes thee, therefore thou must dye.
    Rom:I must indeed, and therefore came I hither,
    Good youth begone, tempt not a desperate man.
    K Heape