Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Not Peer Reviewed

Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 1, 1597)

The excellent Tragedie

2915Heape not another sinne vpon my head
By sheding of thy bloud, I doe protest
I loue thee better then I loue my selfe:
For I come hyther armde against my selfe.
Par:I doe defie thy coniurations:
And doe attach thee as a fellon heere.
Rom:What dost thou tempt me, then haue at thee boy.

2923.1They fight.

Boy:O Lord they fight, I will goe call the watch.
2925Par:Ah I am slaine, if thou be mercifull
Open the tombe, lay me with Iuliet.
Rom:Yfaith I will, let me peruse this face,
Mercutios kinsman, noble County Paris?
What said my man, when my betossed soule
2930Did not regard him as we past a long.
Did he not say Paris should haue maried
Iuliet? eyther he said so, or I dreamd it so.
2932.1But I will satisfie thy last request,
For thou hast prizd thy loue aboue thy life.
2940Death lye thou there, by a dead man interd,
How oft haue many at the houre of death
Beene blith and pleasant? which their keepers call
A lightning before death But how may I
Call this a lightning. Ah deare Iuliet,
2944.1How well thy beauty doth become this graue?
O I beleeue that vnsubstanciall death,
2956.1Is amorous, and doth court my loue.
Therefore will I, O heere, O euer heere,
Set vp my euerlasting rest
With wormes, that are thy chamber mayds.
Come desperate Pilot now at once runne on
2975The dashing rockes thy sea-sicke weary barge.
Heers to my loue. O true Apothecary:
Thy drugs are swift: thus with a kisse I dye. Falls.
Enter