A damned Saint, an honourable Villain :
O Nature! what hadst thou to do in Hell,
When thou didst bower the Spirit of a Fiend
In mortal Paradise of such sweet Flesh ?
Was ever Book containing fuch vile matter
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous Palace.
Nur. There's no Trust, no Faith, no honesty in Men, All Perjur'd; all Forsworn; all Naught; all Dissemblers; Ah, where's my Man? Give me fome Aqua-vitaThese Griefs, these Woes, these Sorrows make me old! Shame come to Romeo.
Jul. Blifter'd be thy Tongue
For fuch a Wish, he was not born to shame,
Upon his Brow Shame is asham'd to fit:
For 'tis a Throne where Honour may be Crown'd,
Sole Monarch of the univerfal Earth.
O what a Beast was I to chide him fo?
Nur. Will you speak well of him
That kill'd your Coufin?
Jul. Shall I fpeak ill of him that is my Husband?
Ah poor my Lord, what Tongue shall smooth thy Name,
When I thy three Hours Wife have mangled it!
But wherefore Villain did'st thou kill my Cousin ?
That Villain Cousin would have kill'd my Husband:
Back foolish Tears, back to your native Spring,
Your tributary drops belong to Woe,
Which you mistaking offer up to Joy:
My Husband lives that Tybalt would have flain,
And Tybalt dead that would have kill'd my Husband;
All this is Comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was worser than Tybalt's Death
That murdered me; I would forget it fain,
But oh it presses to my Memory,
Like damned guilty deeds to Sinners minds;
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo Banished:
That Banished, that one word Banished,
Hath flain ten thousand Tybalts: Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there:
Or if fower woe delights in Fellowship,
And needly will be rank'd with other Griefs,
Why followed not, when the faid Tybalt's dead,
Thy Father or thy Mother, nay, or both,
Which modern Lamentation might have mov'd.
But with a Rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
Romeo is banisned to speak that word,
Is Father, Mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All flain, all dead: Romeo is banished:
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death, no words can that woe found.
Where is my Father, and my Mother, Nurse?
Nur. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's Coarse.
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
Jul. Wash they his wounds with Tears; mine shall be spent
When theirs are dry, for Romeo's Banishment.
Take up those Cords, poor Ropes you are beguil'd,
Both you and I, for Romeo is Exil'd:
He made you for an Highway to my Bed,
But I a Maid, die Maiden-widowed.
Come Cord, come Nurse, I'll to my Wedding-bed,
And Death, not Romeo, take my Maiden-head.
Nur. Hie to your Chamber, I'll find Romeo
To comfort you, I wot well where he is :
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at Night;
I'll to him, he is hid at Lawrence Cell.
Jul. O find him, give this Ring to my true Knight, And bid him come, to take his last Farewel,
SCENE III. The Monastery.
Enter Frier Lawrence and Romeo.
Fri. Romeo, come forth, come forth, thou fearful Man,
Afliction is enamour'd of thy Parts ;
And thou art wedded to Calamity.
Rom. Father, what News?
What is the Prince's Doom?
What Sorrow craves admittance at my Hand,
That I yet know not ?
Fri. Too familiar
Is my dear Son in such sower Company:
I bring thee Tydings of the Prince's Doom.
Rom. What, less than Dooms-day, is the Prince's Doom? Fri. A gentle Judgment vanish'd from his Lips,
Not Body's Death, but Body's Banishment.
Rom. Ha, Banishment! Be merciful, say Death;
For Exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than Death: Do not say Banishment.
Fri. Here from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the World is broad and wide.
Rom. There is no World without Verona Walls,
But Purgatory, Torture, Hell it self:
Hence banish'd, is banished from the World,
And World's Exile is Death. Then banished
Is Death miss-term'd, calling Death Banished.
Thou cut'st my Head off with a Golden Ax,
And smil'st upon the stroak that murders me.
Fri. O deadly Sin! O rude Unthankfulness!
Thy Fault our Law calls Death, but the kind Prince
Taking thy part hath rusht afide the Law,
And turn'd that black word Death to Banishment.
That is dear Mercy, and thou seest it not.
Rom. 'Tis Torture, and not Mercy: Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every Cat and Dog,
And little Mouse, every unworthy thing
Lives here in Heaven, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More Validity,
More honourable State, more Courtship lives
In Carrion Flies, than Romeo: They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's Hand,
And steal immortal Blessings from her Lips,
Who even in pure and vestal Modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own Kisses sin.
This may Flies do, when I from this must fly,
And say'st thou yet, that Exile is not Death?
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
Hadst thou no Poison mixt, no sharp-ground Knife,
No fudden mean of Death, tho' ne'er so mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Friar, the Damned use that word in Hell;
Howlings attend it, how haft thou the Heart,
Being a Divine, a Ghostly Confeffor,
VOL. V.
A Sin-Absolver, and my Friend profeft,
To mangle me with that word Banished?
Fri. Fond Mad-man, hear me speak.
Rom. O thou wilt speak again of Banishment.
Fri. I'll give thee Armour to keep off that Word,
Adversity's sweet Milk, Philofophy,
To comfort thee, tho' thou art banished.
Rom. Yet, banished? Hang up Philofophy,
Unless Philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a Town, reverse a Prince's Doom,
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more
Fri. O then I fee that mad Men have no Ears.
Rom. How shou'd they,
When wife Men have no Eyes?
Fri. Let me despair with thee of thy Estate.
Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
Wert thou as young as Juliet my Love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished.
Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear'thy Hair,
And fall upon the Ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade Grave.
[Throwing himself on the Ground.
Good Romeo hide thy felf.
Unless the breath of Heart-fick Groans,
Mist-like, infold me from the fearch of Eyes.
Fri. Hark, how they knock.
Thou wilt be taken stay a while-stand up; [Knock.
Run to my Study - By and by
What Simpleness is this I come, I come.
Who knocks so hard?
Whence come you? what's your Will?
Nur. [Within.] Let me come in,
And you shall know my Errand:
I come from. Lady Juliet.
Fri. Welcome then.
▲ Nur. O holy Friar, O tell me holy Friar,
Where is my Lady's Lord? where's Romeo ?
Fri. There, on the Ground,
With his own Tears made drunk.
Nur. Ohe is even in my Mistress's Cafe,
Just in her Cafe, O woful Sympathe
Piteous Predicament, even so lyes she,
Blubbring and weeping, weeping and blubbring.
Stand up, stand up, stand and you be a Man,
For Juliet's fake, for her fake rise and stand:
Why should you fall into so deep an Oh!
Nur. Ah Sir! Ah Sir! Death's the end of all.
Rom. Speak'ft thou of Juliet? How is't with her ?
Doth not the think me an old Murtherer,
Now I have stain'd the Child-hood of our Joy
With Blood, removed but little from her own?
Where is she? and how does the ? and what says
My conceal'd Lady to our conceal'd Love ?
Nur. Oh she says nothing, Sir, but weeps and weeps,
And now falls on her Bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
Rom. As if that Name
Shot from the deadly level of a Gun
Did murder her, as that Names cursed Hand
Murdered her Kinsman. Oh tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this Anatomy
Doth my Name lodge ? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful Manfion.
Fri. Hold thy desperate Hand:
Art thou a Man? Thy form cries out, thou art:
Thy Tears are Womanish, thy wild Acts do note
The unreasonable fury of a Beast.
Unfeemly Woman, in a seeming Man,
And ill beseeming Beast in seeming both,
Thou hast ama'd me. By my holy Order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou flain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thy self?
And flay thy Lady, that in thy Life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thy self?
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