Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Peer Reviewed

Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 2, 1599)

of Romeo and Iuliet.
Nightly shall be, to strew thy graue and weepe.
Whistle Boy.
2870The Boy giues warning, something doth approach,
What cursed foote wanders this way to night,
To crosse my obsequies and true loues right?
What with a Torch? muffle me night a while.

Enter Romeo and Peter.
2875Ro. Giue me that mattocke and the wrenching Iron,
Hold take this Letter, early in the morning
See thou deliuer it to my Lord and Father,
Giue me the light vpon thy life I charge thee,
What ere thou hearest or seest, stand all aloofe,
2880And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is partly to behold my Ladies face:
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger,
A precious Ring: a Ring that I must vse,
2885In deare imployment, therefore hence be gone:
But if thou iealous dost returne to prie
In what I farther shall intend to doo,
By heauen I will teare thee Ioynt by Ioynt,
And strew this hungry Church-yard with thy lims:
2890The time and my intents are sauage wilde,
More fierce and more inexorable farre,
Then emptie Tygers, or the roaring sea.
Pet. I will be gone sir, and not trouble ye.
Ro. So shalt thou shew me friendshid, take thou that,
2895Liue and be prosperous, and farewell good fellow.
Pet. For all this same, ile hide me here about,
His lookes I feare, and his intents I doubt.
Ro. Thou detestable mawe, thou wombe of death,
Gorg'd with the dearest morsell of the earth:
2900Thus I enforce thy rotten Iawes to open,
And in despight ile cram thee with more foode.
Pa. This is that banisht haughtie Mountague,
That murdred my loues Cozin, with which greefe
L 2 It