Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Peer Reviewed

Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 2, 1599)

of Romeo and Iuliet.
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,
H Digressing