A precious ring; a ring, that I must use

In dear employment*: therefore hence, be gone:
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,

And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce, and more inexorable far,
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.

Bal. I will begone, sir, and not trouble you.
Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship.- Take thou

that:

Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow. Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout; His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

[Retires. Rom. Thou détestable maw, thou womb of death, Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth, Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the Door of the Monument. And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food! Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague, That murder'd my love's cousin ;-with which grief, It is supposed, the fair creature died,

And here is come to do some villainous shame

To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.- [Advances.
Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague;

Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?
Condemn'd villain, I do apprehend thee:

Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Rom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man,

Fly hence and leave me ;

think upon these gone;

Let them affright thee. - I beseech thee, youth,
Heap not another sin upon my head,

· dear employment:] That is, action of importance. Gems

were supposed to have great powers and virtues.

-

By urging me to fury: - O, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself:
For I come hither arm'd against myself;

Stay not, be gone; — live, and hereafter say,
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations, 5
And do attach thee as a felon here.

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy.

[They fight. Page. O Lord! they fight: I will go call the watch. [Exit Page. Par. O, I am slain! [falls.]— If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

[Dies. Rom. In faith, I will:- Let me peruse this face; Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris: What said my man, when my betossed soul Did not attend him as we rode? I think, He told me, Paris should have married Juliet: Said he not so? or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, To think it was so? O, give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune's book! I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave, — A grave? O, no; a lantern, slaughter'd youth, For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence 7 full of light.

5 I do defy thy conjurations,] Paris conceived Romeo to have burst open the monument for no other purpose than to do some villainous shame on the dead bodies, such as witches are reported to have practised; and therefore tells him he defies him, and the magick arts which he suspects he is preparing to use. But perhaps the true meaning here is, “I refuse to do as thou conjurest me to do, i. e. to depart."

• A grave? O, no; a lantern,] A lantern may not, in this instance, signify an enclosure for a lighted candle, but a louvre, or what in ancient records is styled lanternium, i. e. a spacious round or octagonal turret full of windows, by means of which cathedrals, and sometimes halls, are illuminated.

presence-] A presence is a publick room.

8

Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr❜d.
[Laying PARIS in the Monument.

How oft when men are at the point of death,
Have they been merry? which their keepers call
A lightning before death: O, how may I

Call this a lightning 9? O, my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there. —
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee,

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain,
To sunder his that was thine enemy?

Forgive me, cousin!

Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I will still stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again; here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh. - Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss,

8- by a dead man interr'd.] Romeo being now determined to put an end to his life, considers himself as already dead.

9

O, how may I

Call this a lightning?] Romeo had, just before, been in high spirits, a symptom, which he observes, was sometimes called a lightning before death: but how, says he, (for no situation can exempt Shakspeare's characters from the vice of punning) can I term this sad and gloomy prospect a lightning?

1

A dateless bargain to engrossing death! 1 —
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!

Here's to my love! -[Drinks.] O, true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies.

Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar LAURENCE, with a Lantern, Crow, and Spade.

Fri. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves? 3-Who's there? Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead? *

Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond', that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless sculls? as I discern,

It burneth in the Capels' monument.

Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, One that you love.

Fri.

Bal.

Who is it?

Fri. How long hath he been there?
Bal.

Fri. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.

Romeo.

Full half an hour.

I dare not, sir:

My master knows not, but I am gone hence;
And fearfully did menace me with death,

If I did stay to look on his intents.

Fri. Stay then, I'll go alone:

Fear comes upon me;

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

A dateless bargain to engrossing death!] Engrossing seems

to be used here in its clerical sense.

2 Come, bitter conduct,] Conduct for conductor.

3 Have my old feet stumbled at graves?] This accident was

reckoned ominous.

+ Who is it, &c.] To consort, is to keep company with.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought, "
And that my master slew him.

Romeo? [Advances.

Fri.
Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre ? —
What mean these masterless and
gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?

[Enters the Monument.
Romeo! O, pale! - Who else? what, Paris too?
And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance! -

The lady stirs.

[JULIET wakes and stirs.

Jul. O, comfortable friar! where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be,

Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep;

A greater Power than we can contradict

Hath thwarted our intents; come, come away:
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too; come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns ;

Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
Come, go, good Juliet, [Noise again.] I dare stay no

longer.

[Exit.

5 I dreamt my master and another fought,] This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakspeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream. Homer, book 8th, represents Rhesus dying fast asleep, and as it were beholding his enemy in a dream plunging a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality, but a vision.