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PROLOGUE
A Market Square

(Enter CITIZENS and SHOPKEEPERS for Market Day)

CITIZEN 1: Two households both alike in dignity (in fair Verona, where we lay our scene) from ancient
grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

CITIZEN 2: From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life, whose
misadventur’d piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

CITIZEN 3: The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love and the continuance of their parents’ rage,
which, but their children’s end, nought could remove, is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage.

CITIZEN 4: The which if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
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ACT I, SCENE 1
The Same Square

(Enter SAMPSON and PETRA)

SAMPSON: Petra, on my word, I’ll carry no coals.

PETRA: No, for if you do then you should be a collier.

SAMPSON: If I be in choler, I’ll draw. I strike quickly being mov’d.

PETRA: But thou art not quickly mov’d to strike.

SAMPSON: A dog of the house of Montague moves me.

PETRA: To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand: therefor if thou art mov’d thou run away.

SAMPSON: A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I’ll take the wall of any man or maid of
Montague’s.

PETRA: That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.

SAMPSON: Tis true. And therefore I will thrust Montague’s men from the wall and thrust his maids to
the wall.

PETRA: The quarrel is between our masters.

SAMPSON: And us their men. I’ll play the tyrant. First give me the maids and off with their heads!

PETRA: The heads of the maids?

SAMPSON: Ay, their maidenheads; tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.

(Enter ADRIAN and BALTHASAR)

PETRA: Draw thy tool – here comes of the house of Montagues.

SAMPSON: My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will back thee.

PETRA: How? Turn thy back and run? I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.

SAMPSON: I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bear it.

PETRA: Go thee by and bite thy thumb. And I’ll come after and frown.

ADRIAN: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON: I do bite my thumb, sir.

ADRIAN: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON: Is the law of our side if I say ay?

PETRA: No.
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SAMPSON: No, madam. I do not bite my thumb at you, madam. But I bite my thumb, madam.

PETRA: Do you quarrel, madam?

ADRIAN: Quarrel, madam? No, madam.

SAMPSON: But if you do, madam, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.

BALTHASAR: No better.

SAMPSON: Well, sir.

(Enter BENVOLIO)

ADRIAN: Say ‘better’. Here comes one of my master’s kinsmen.

BALTHASAR: Yes, better, sir.

SAMPSON: You lie.

(PETRA and ADRIAN fight)

SAMPSON: Draw if you be a man.

(SAMPSON and BALTHASAR fight)

BENVOLIO: Part, fools, put up your swords, you know not what you do.

(Enter TYBALT)

TYBALT: What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.

BENVOLIO: I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword. Or manage it to part these men with me.

TYBALT: What, drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues and thee. Have
at thee, coward.

(TYBALT and BENVOLIO fight. SAMPSON, PETRA, ADRIAN and BALTHASAR resume fighting.)

CITIZEN 1: Clubs, bills and partisans!

CITIZEN 2: Strike!

CITIZEN 3: Beat them down! OVERLAPPING

CITIZEN 4: Down with the Capulets! EACH OTHER

CITIZEN 5: Down with the Montagues!

(ALL fight. Enter LORD CAPULET and LADY CAPULET)

LORD CAPULET: What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!

LADY CAPULET: A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?

(Enter LORD MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE)

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LORD CAPULET: My sword I say! Old Montague is come and flourishes his blade in spite of me!

LORD MONTAGUE: Thou villain, Capulet! Hold me not! Let me go!

LADY MONTAGUE: Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.

(Enter PRINCESS ESCALUS and ATTENDANTS)

PRINCESS ESCALUS: Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace. On pain of torture, throw your mistemper’d
weapons to the ground and hear the sentence of your moved Princess.

(Fighting stops)

PRINCESS ESCALUS: Three civil brawls bred of an airy word by thee, Capulet and Montague, have thrice
disturb’d the quiet of our streets. If ever you disturb our streets again your lives shall be the forfeit of
the peace. You, Capulet, shall go along with me and Montague, come you this afternoon to know our
further pleasure in this case. Once more, on pain of death all men depart.

(All exit except SHOPKEEPERS, LORD MONTAGUE, LADY MONTAGUE and BENVOLIO)

LADY MONTAGUE: Oh, where is Romeo? Saw you him today? Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

BENVOLIO: Madam, under the golden sycamore early walking did I see your son.

LORD MONTAGUE: Many a morning hath he been seen with tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew.
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs.

LADY CAPULET: Away from light steals home my heavy son, and private in his chamber pens himself.
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out and makes himself and artificial night.

BENVOLIO: My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

LORD MONTAGUE: I neither know it nor can learn it of him.

LADY MONTAGUE: Both by myself and many other friends have importun’d him. Could we but learn
from whence his sorrows grow, we would willingly give cure.

(Enter ROMEO)

BENVOLIO: See where he comes. So please you, step aside. I’ll know his grievance or be much denied.

LORD MONTAGUE: Come, madam, let’s away.

(Exit LORD MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE)

BENVOLIO: Good morrow, cousin.

ROMEO: Is the day so young?

BENVOLIO: But new struck nine.

ROMEO: Ay me. Sad hours seem long.

BENVOLIO: What sorrow lengthens Romeo’s hours?

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ROMEO: Not having that which, having, makes them short.

BENVOLIO: In love?

ROMEO: Out.

BENVOLIO: Of love?

ROMEO: Out of her favor where I am in love.

Why, then O brawling love, O loving hate

O anything of nothing first create.
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms.
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep that is not what it is.
This love feel I that feel no love in this.

Dost thou not laugh?

BENVOLIO: O, cuz, I rather weep at thy good heart’s oppression. Alas that love, so gentle in his view,
should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.

ROMEO: Why, such is love’s transgression.

BENVOLIO: Tell me in sadness who is it that you love.

ROMEO: In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

BENVOLIO: I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you lov’d.

ROMEO: A right good markman. And she’s fair I love.

BENVOLIO: A right fair mark, fair cuz, is soonest hit.

ROMEO: Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit with Cupid’s arrow. In strong proof of chastity well-
arm’d from Cupid’s childish bow she lives uncharm’d. She will not stay the siege of loving terms nor
bide the encounter of assailing eyes nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.

BENVOLIO: Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

ROMEO: She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste. She hath forsworn to love and in that vow do
I live dead, that live to tell it now.

BENVOLIO: Re rul’d by me. Forget to think of her

ROMEO: Oh, teach me how I should forget to think.

BENVOLIO: By giving liberty unto thine eyes. Examine other beauties.

ROMEO: Show me a mistress that is passing fair. What doth her beauty serve but as a note where I may
read who pass’d that passing fair? Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.

BENVOLIO: I’ll pay that doctrine or else die in debt.

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(Exit BENVOLIO and ROMEO)

(Enter LORD CAPULET, PARIS, and PETRA)

LORD CAPULET: But Montague is bound as well as I, in penalty alike. And tis not hard for men so old as
we to keep the peace.

PARIS: Of honorable reckoning are you both and pity tis you liv’d at odds so long. But now my lord,
what say you to my suit?

LORD CAPULET: My child is yet a stranger to the world, she hath not seen the change of fourteen years.
Let two more summers wither in their pride ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS: Younger than she are happy mothers made.

LORD CAPULET: And too soon marr’d are those so early made. Earth hath swallow’d all my hopes but
she. This night I hold an old accustom’d feast. At my house look to behold this night earth-treading
stars that make dark heaven light. Woo her, gentle Paris. Get her heart. My will to her consent is but a
part, and she agreed within her scope of choice lies my consent and fair according voice.

(Exit PARIS)

LORD CAPULET (CONT’D.): Where are you, sirrah? Go trudge about through fair Verona, find those
persons out whose names are written here and to them say welcome to my house tonight.

(Exit LORD CAPULET)

PETRA: “Find them out whose names are written here.” And yet I know not who are written here. I
must to learned to learn of them. Ah, in good time.

(Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO)

BENVOLIO: Take thou some new infection to thy eye and the rank poison of the old will die. Why,
Romeo, art thou mad with this love?

ROMEO: Not mad, but bound more than a madman is. Shut up in prison. Kept without my food.
Whipp’d and tormented and – good e’en, good fellow.

PETRA: God gi’ good e’en. I pray, sir, can you read?

ROMEO: Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

PETRA: Perhaps you have learn’d it without book. But I pray can you read anything you see?

ROMEO: Ay, if I know the letters and the language.

PETRA: Ye say honestly. Rest you merry.

ROMEO: Stay, fellow. I can read.

Signore Martino and his wife and daughters

Count Anselm and his beauteous sisters
The lady widow of Vetruvio
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Signore Placentio and his lovely nieces

Mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters
My fair niece Rosaline …

BENVOLIO:
My fair niece Rosaline and her sister Livia
Signore Valentino and his cousin Tybalt
Lucio and the lively Helena

A fair assembly. Whither should they come?

PETRA: To sup.

BENVOLIO: Whither to sup?

PETRA: To our house.

BENVOLIO: Whose house?

PETRA: My master’s.

BENVOLIO: Indeed I should have asked you that before.

PETRA: Now I’ll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet, and if you be not of the
house of Montagues, I pray you come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry.

(Exit PETRA)

BENVOLIO: At this same feast of Capulet’s sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so love, with all the
admired beauties of Verona. Go thither and with untainted eye compare her face with some I shall
show, and I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROMEO: I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown, but to rejoice in the splendor of mine own.

(Exit ROMEO and BENVOLIO)

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ACT I, SCENE 2
Juliet’s Bedroom

(Enter LADY CAPULET and NURSE)

LADY CAPULET: Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.

NURSE: Now by my maidenhead at twelve year old, I bade her come. What, lamb! What, Ladybird!
God forbid. Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!

(Enter JULIET)

JULIET: How now? Who calls?

NURSE: Your lady mother.

JULIET: Madam, I am here. What is your will?

LADY CAPULET: This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile, we must talk in secret. Nurse, come back
again, I have remember’d me. Thou’s hear our counsel. Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.

NURSE: Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

LADY CAPULET: She’s not fourteen.

NURSE: Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen. Susan and she – God rest all Christian souls –
were of an age. Well, Susan is with God. She was too good for me. But as I said, on Lammas Eve at
night shall she be fourteen. That shall she. Marry, I remember it well. Tis since the earthquake now
eleven years, and she was wean’d – I never shall forget it. Of all the days of the year upon that day. For
I had then laid wormwood to my dug, sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall. My Lord and you
were then at Mantua – nay, I do bear a brain. But as I said, when it did taste the wormwood on the
nipple of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool, to see it tetchy and fall out with the dug. Shake! Quoth
the dovehouse. Twere no need I trow to bid me trudge. And since that time it is eleven years. For then
she could stand high-lone, nay, by the rood, she could have run and waddl’d all about. For even the day
before she broke her brow and then my husband – God be with his soul, a was a merry man – took up
the child. ‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more
wit, wilt thou not, Jule?’ And by my holidame, the pretty wretch left crying and said, ‘Ay.’ To see now
how a jest shall come about. I warrant an I should live a thousand years I never should forget it. ‘Wilt
thou not, Jule?’ quoth he and pretty fool, it stinted and said ‘Ay.’

LADY CAPULET: Enough of this, I pray thee. Hold thy peace.

NURSE: Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh to think it should leave crying and say ‘Ay.’ And yet
I warrant it had upon its brow a bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone. A perilous knock, and it cried
bitterly. ‘Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age, wilt thou not, Jule?’ It stinted and said, ‘Ay.’

JULIET: And stint thou, too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I.

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NURSE: Peace. I have done. ‘Ay’. God mark thee to his grace, thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I
nurs’d. And I might live to see thee married, I have my wish.

LADY CAPULET: Marry, that marry is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet, how
stands your disposition to be married?

JULIET: It is an honor I dream not of.

NURSE: An honor. Were not I thine only nurse I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from the teat.

LADY CAPULET: Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you here in Verona, ladies of esteem, are
made already mothers. By my count I was your mother much upon these years that you are now a
maid. Thus then in brief: the valiant Paris seeks you for his wife.

NURSE: A man, young lady. Lady, such a man as all the world – why he’s a man of wax.

LADY CAPULET: Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.

NURSE: Nay, he’s a flower. In faith a very flower.

LADY CAPULET: What say you? Think thee you can love the gentleman? This night you shall behold him
at our feast. Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face and find delight writ there with beauty’s pen.
Examine every several lineament and see how one another lends content. And what obscur’d in this fair
volume lies, find written in the margent of his eyes. So shall you share all that he doth possess, by
having him, making yourself no less.

NURSE: No less, nay bigger. Women grow by men.

LADY CAPULET: Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?

JULIET: I’ll look to like, if looking liking move; but no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent
gives strength to make it fly.

(Enter PETRA)

PETRA: Madam, the guests are come, supper serv’d up, you call’d for, my young lady ask’d for. Make
hence, for I must be gone. I beseech you follow straight.

LADY CAPULET: We follow thee. Juliet, the Count stays.

NURSE: Go, girl. Seek happy nights to happy days.

(Exit JULIET, LADY CAPULET and NURSE)

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ACT I, SCENE 3
The Market Square

(Enter ROMEO, BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO with FRIENDS)

ROMEO: What, shall we enter without apology?

BENVOLIO: Let them measure us by what they will. We’ll measure them a measure and be gone.

ROMEO: I am not for this ambling.

MERCUTIO: Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

ROMEO: Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead so stakes
me to the ground I cannot move.

MERCUTIO: You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings and soar with them above a common bound.

ROMEO: I am too sore enpierced with his shaft to soar with his light feathers, and so bound I cannot
bound a pitch above dull woe. Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

MERCUTIO: Too great oppression for such a tender thing.

ROMEO: Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn.

MERCUTIO: If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking, and you beat love
down.

BENVOLIO: Come, and no sooner in but every man betake him to his legs.

ROMEO: Let wantons light of heart tickle the senseless rushes with their heels, I’ll look on. The game
was ne’er so fair, and I am done.

MERCUTIO: Why, may one ask?

ROMEO: I dreamt a dream tonight.

MERCUTIO: And so did I.

ROMEO: Well, what was yours.

MERCUTIO: That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO: O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

BENVOLIO: Queen Mab? What’s she?

MERCUTIO: She is the fairies’ midwife and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the
forefinger of an alderman. Drawn with a team of little atomi over men’s noses as they lie asleep. Her
chariot is an empty hazelnut. Her whip of a cricket’s bone. Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat. And
in this state she gallops night by night through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; o’er
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courtiers’ knees that dream of curtsies straight; o’er lawyers’ fingers who straight dream on fees; o’er
ladies’ lips who straight on kisses dream. Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck and then dreams
he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes, of Spanish blades. This is the very Mab that,
when maids lie on their backs, presses them and learns them first to bear, making them women of good
carriage. This is she –

ROMEO: Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace. Thou talkst of nothing.

MERCUTIO: True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain
fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind.

BENVOLIO: This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves. Supper is done and we shall come too late.

Romeo: I fear to early. For my mind misgives some consequence hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin
his fearful date with this night’s revels.

BENVOLIO: On lusty, gentlemen!

(Exit ROMEO, BENVOLIO, MERCUTIO and FRIENDS)

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ACT I, SCENE 4
The Capulet’s Great Hall

(Enter LORD CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, JULIET, TYBALT, PARIS, NURSE, and GUESTS)

LORD CAPULET: You are welcome, gentlemen! Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes
unplagu’d with corns will dance with you. Ah, my mistresses, which of you all will now deny to dance?
She that makes dainty, she I’ll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now? Welcome! Come, musicians,
play. A hall, a hall, give room.

(Dance. Enter ROMEO, BENVOLIO, MERCUTIO and FRIENDS)

ROMEO: What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?

SERVANT: I know not, sir.

ROMEO: O’ she doth teach the torches to burn bright. It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night as a
rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear – beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. So shines a snow-white dove
trooping with crows as yonder lady o’er her fellows shows. The measure done, I’ll watch her place of
stand and touching her make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight. For
I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

TYBALT: This is a Montague. What dares the slave come hither, to fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now by the stock and honor of my kin, to strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

LORD CAPULET: Why how now, kinsman? Wherefore storm you so?

TYBALT: Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe that is hither come in spite to scorn at our solemnity this
night.

LORD CAPULTET: Young Romeo is it?

TYBALT: Tis he, that villain Romeo.

LORD CAPULET: Content thee, gentle cuz. Let him alone. He bears him like a gentleman. And to say
truth, Verona brags of him to be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth. I would not for the wealth of all
this town here in my house do him disparagement. Therefore, be patient. Take no note of him. It is my
will. Put off these frowns, they are an ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

TYBALT: It fits when such a villain is a guest. I’ll not endure him.

LORD CAPULET: He shall be endur’d, boy. I say he shall. Am I the master here or you? Go to. You’ll not
endure him.

TYBALT: Why, uncle, tis a shame.

LORD CAPULET: Go to, go to. Be quiet, or for shame, I’ll make you quiet – What, cheerily my hearts.

TYBALT: I will withdraw. But this intrusion shall now seeming sweet convert to bitterest gall.
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ROMEO: If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two
blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this; for
saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.

ROMEO: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?

JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO: Oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray. Grant thou, lest faith turn to
despair.

JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayer’s sake.

ROMEO: Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take. (They kiss) Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin
is purg’d.

JULIET: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO: Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d. Give me my sin again. (They kiss)

JULIET: You kiss by the book.

NURSE: Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

ROMEO: What is her mother?

NURSE: Marry, bachelor, her mother is the lady of the house, and a good lady and a wise and virtuous. I
nurs’d her daughter that you talk’d withal. I tell you, he that can lay hold of her shall have the chinks.

ROMEO: Is she a Capulet? O dear account. My life is in my foe’s debt.

BENVOLIO: Away, be gone. The sport is at the end.

ROMEO: Ay, I fear so.

JULIET: Come hither, Nurse. What is yond gentleman that would not dance?

NURSE: His name is Romeo, and a Montague. The only son of your great enemy.

JULIET: My only love sprung from my only hate. Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy.

NURSE: What’s this? What’s that?

JULIET: Nothing but a rhyme I learn’d even now of one I danc’d withal.

LADY CAPULET: Juliet!

NURSE: Anon, anon. your mother stays for you. Come, let’s away. The guests all are gone.

(Exit JULIET and NURSE)

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ACT 2, SCENE 1
A Garden

(Enter ROMEO)

ROMEO: Can I go forward when my heart is here?

(Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO)

BENVOLIO: Romeo! My cousin, Romeo! Romeo!

MERCUTION: He is wise and on my life he hath stolen him home to bed.

BENVOLIO: He ran this way and leapt this orchard wall. Call, good Mercutio.

MERCUTIO: Call? Nay, I’ll conjure, too. Romeo! Madman! Passion! Lover! Appear thou in the likeness
of a sigh. Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied. Cry but “Ay me”, pronounce but “love” and “dove”.
He hereth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not. I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes, by her high
forehead and her scarlet lip, by her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, and the domains that
there adjacent lie, that in thy likeness thou appear to us.

BENVOLIO: And if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

MERCUTIO: This cannot anger him. My invocation is fair and honest, in his mistress’ name I conjure
only but to raise him up.

BENVOLIO: He hath hid himself among these trees to be consorted with the humorous night. Blind is
his love, and best befits the dark.

MERCUTIO: If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle-bed. This
field-bed is too cold for me. Come, shall we go?

BENVOLIO: Go then, for tis in vain to seek him here that means not to be found.

(Exit BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO)

ROMEO: He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

(Enter JULIET)

ROMEO (CONT’D): But soft, what light from yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun.
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far
more fair than she. Be not her maid since she is envious, her vestal livery is but sick and green and none
but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my lady. O, it is my love. O that she knew she were. See how she
leans her cheek upon her hand. O that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek.

JULIET: Ah, me.

ROMEO: She speaks. O speak again bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night as is a winged
messenger of heaven.
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JULIET: O Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo. Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou
wilt not, be but sworn my love and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

ROMEO: Shall I hear more or shall I speak at this?

JULIET: Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s
Montague? It is not hand nor foot nor arm nor face nor any other part belonging to a man. O be some
other name. What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So
Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title.
Romeo, doff thy name and for that name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.

ROMEO: I take thee at thy word. Call me but love and I’ll be new baptiz’d. Henceforth I never will be
Romeo. My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I
would tear the word.

JULIET: My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of thy tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound. Art
thou not Romeo and a Montague?

ROMEO: Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

JULIET: How cam’st thou hither? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb. And the place death,
considering who thou art, if any of my kinsmen find thee here.

ROMEO: With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls. For stony limits cannot hold love out. And
what love can do, that love dares attempt. Therefore, thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

JULIET: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

ROMEO: I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes, and if thou not love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate than death delayed by wanting of thy love.

JULIET: Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek for
that which thou hast heard me speak tonight. Fain would I deny what I have spoke. But farewell, form,
dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say “ay” and I will take thy word. But if thou swear’st thou mayst
prove false. O gentle Romeo, if thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.

ROMEO: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops –

JULIET: O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circl’d orb, lest
that thy love prove likewise variable.

ROMEO: What shall I swear by?

JULIET: Do not swear at all. Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry,
and I’ll believe thee.

ROMEO: If my heart’s dear love –

JULIET: Well, do not swear. Although I do joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight. It is too
rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden, too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say “it
lightens”. Sweet, good night. This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, may prove a beauteous
 PAGE 16

flower when next we meet. Good night, good night. As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that
within my breast.

ROMEO: Oh, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

JULIET: What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?

ROMEO: The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.

JULIET: I gave thee mine before thou didst request it, and I would it were mine again.

ROMEO: Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?

JULIET: But to give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have. My bounty is as boundless as
the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have. For both are infinite.

NURSE (OFFSTAGE): Juliet.

JULIET: Dear love, adieu.

NURSE (OFFSTAGE): Sweet Juliet!

JULIET: Anon, good Nurse! Sweet Montague be true. If that thy bent of love be honorable, thy purpose
marriage, send me word tomorrow by one that I’ll procure to come to thee, where and what time thou
wilt perform the rite and all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay and follow thee, my lord, throughout the
world.

NURSE (OFFSTAGE): Madam.

JULIET: I come anon – but if thou meanest not well, I do beseech thee –

NURSE (OFFSTAGE): Madam.

JULIET: By and by I come – to cease thy strife and leave me to my grief. Tomorrow will I send.

ROMEO: So thrive my soul –

JULIET: A thousand times good night.

ROMEO: A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.

(Exit JULIET)

ROMEO (CONT’D.): Love goes towards love as schoolboys from their books. But love from love, toward
school with heavy looks.

(Enter JULIET)

JULIET: Romeo, hist!

ROMEO: It is my soul that calls upon my name.

JULIET: What o’clock tomorrow shall I send to thee?

ROMEO: By the hour of nine.

 PAGE 17

JULIET: I will not fail. Tis twenty year till then. I have forgot why I did call thee back.

ROMEO: Let me stand here till thou remember it.

JULIET: I shall forget, to have thee still stand there, remembering how I love thy company.

ROMEO: And I’ll still stay to have thee still forget, forgetting any other home but this.

JULIET: Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone, and yet no further than a wanton’s bird, that lets it
hop a little from his hand, and with a silken thread plucks it back again, so loving jealous of its liberty.

ROMEO: I would I were thy bird.

JULIET: Sweet, so would I. Yet I would kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night. Parting
is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

(Exit JULIET)

ROMEO: Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast. O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard, being
in night, all this is but a dream, too flattering sweet to be substantial.

(Exit ROMEO)
 PAGE 18

ACT II, SCENE 2

Friar Lawrence’s Garden

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Now, as ere the sun advance his burning eye the day to cheer and night’s dank dew
to dry, I must upfill this osier cage of ours with baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. Within the
infant rind of this weak flower poison hath residence and medicine power, for this being smelt with that
part cheers each part, being tasted, stays all senses of the heart.

(Enter ROMEO)

ROMEO: Good morrow, father.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Benedicite. What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a
distemper’d head so soon to bid good morrow to thy bed. Or if not so, then here I hit it right; our
Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.

ROMEO: That last is true. The sweeter rest was mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: God pardon sin. Wast thou with Rosaline?

ROMEO: With Rosaline? My ghostly father, no. I have forgot that name and that name’s woe.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: That’s my good son. But where then hast thou been?

ROMEO: I have been feasting with mine enemy, where on a sudden one hath wounded me that’s by me
wounded. Both our remedies within thy help and holy physic lies.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift. Riddling confession finds but riddling
shrift.

ROMEO: Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set on the fair daughter of rich Capulet. As mine on
hers, so hers is set on mine. This I pray, that thou consent to marry us today.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Holy Saint Francis. What a change is here. Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear
so soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts but in their eyes.

ROMEO: Thou chid’st me often for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROMEO: I pray thee chide me not, her I love now doth grace for grace and love for love allow. The
other did not so.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: O, she well knew thy love did read by rote. But come young waverer, come go with
me. In this respect I’ll thy assistant be. For this alliance may so happy prove to turn your households’
rancor to pure love.

ROMEO: O let us hence. I stand on sudden haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.
 PAGE 19

ACT II, SCENE 3

The Market Square

(Enter MERCUTIO AND BENVOLIO)

MERCUTIO: Where the devil could this Romeo be? Came he not home last night?

BENVOLIO: Not to his father’s.

MERCUTIO: Why, that pale hard-hearted wench Rosaline, torments him so that he will sure run mad.

BENVOLIO: Tybalt hath sent a letter to his father’s house.

MERCUTIO: A challenge, on my life.

BENVOLIO: Romeo will answer it.

MERCUTIO: Any man that can write may answer a letter.

BENVOLIO: Nay, he will answer the letter’s master how he dares, being dar’d.

MERCUTIO: Alas, poor Romeo. He is already dead. Stabbed with a wench’s black eye, run through the
ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart cleft with Cupid’s buttshaft. Is he a man to encounter
Tybalt?

BENVOLIO: Why what is Tybalt?

MERCUTIO: More than Princess of Cats, I can tell you. O, he’s the courageous captain of compliments.
He fights as you sing pricksong – keeps time, distance and proportion. He rests his minim, one, two and
the third in your bosom. The very butcher of a silk button – a duelist, a duelist, a gentleman of the very
first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay.

BENVOLIO: The what?

MERCUTIO: By Jesu, a very good blade.

(Enter ROMEO)

BENVOLIO: Here comes Romeo.

MERCUTIO: Bonjour, Signor Romeo, bonjour. There’s a French salutation to your French slop. You gave
us the counterfeit fairly last night.

ROMEO: Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

MERCUTIO: The slip, sir, the slip.

ROMEO: Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great. And in such a case as mine a man may strain
courtesy.

MERCUTIO: That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.

ROMEO: Meaning to curtsy.

 PAGE 20

MERCUTIO: Thou hast most kindly hit it.

ROMEO: A most courteous exposition.

MERCUTIO: Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

ROMEO: Pink for flower?

MERCUTIO: Right.

ROMEO: Why, then is my pump well flowered.

MERCUTIO: Now is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou
Romeo, now art thou what thou art. For this driveling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and
down to hide his bauble in a hole.

ROMEO: Hide my bauble in your hole?

BENVOLIO: Stop there, stop there! Else thy make thy tale large.

MERCUTIO: Anon I would have made it short. For I was come to the whole depth of my tale.

(Enter NURSE and PETRA)

ROMEO: Here’s goodly gear.

MERCUTIO: A sail, a sail!

BENVOLIO: Two, two. A shirt and a smock.

NURSE: Petra.

PETRA: Anon.

NURSE: My fan, Petra.

MERCUTIO: Goodly, too, good Petra, to hide her face. For her fan’s the fairer face.

NURSE: God ye morrow, gentlemen.

MERCUTIO: God ye good e’en, fair gentlewoman.

NURSE: Is it good e’en then?

MERCUTIO: Tis no less, I tell you. For the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of the moon.

NURSE: Out upon you. Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?

ROMEO: I can tell you, but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you
sought him. I am the youngest of that name.

NURSE: You say well.

MERCUTIO: Yea, is the worst well? Wisely, wisely.

NURSE: If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.

 PAGE 21

MERCUTIO: A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!

MERCUTIO:

An old hare hoar

And an old hare hoar,
is very good meat in Lent.
But a hare that is hoar,
is too much for a score
when it hoars ere it be spent.

Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to dinner thither.

ROMEO: I will follow you.

MERCUTIO: Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell, lady, lady, lady.

(Exit BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO)

NURSE: Farewell. I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his ropery?

ROMEO: A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and will speak more in a minute than he
will stand to in a month.

NURSE: An a speak anything against me I’ll take him down. I am lustier than he. Scurvy knave. I am
none of his flirt-gills. And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure.

PETRA: I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my weapon should quickly have been out. I
warrant you, I dare draw as soon as another man. You know my tool is a well formed as others.

NURSE: Now afore God I am so vex’d that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave. My young lady
bid me enquire you out. But first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool’s paradise, as they say, it
were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say. For the lady is young. And therefore, if you should deal
double with her, truly it were an ill thing and very weak dealing.

ROMEO: Nurse, commend me to thy lady. Tell her I protest unto thee –

NURSE: Good heart and i’faith I will tell her as much. Lord, lord she will be a joyful woman.

ROMEO: What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me.

NURSE: I will tell her, sir, that you do protest – which, as I take it, is a gentleman’s offer.

ROMEO: Bid her devise some means to come to shrift this afternoon. And there she shall at Friar
Lawrence’ cell be shriv’d and married.

NURSE: This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there. God in heaven bless thee.

ROMEO: Good Nurse, farewell, be trusty. Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress.

NURSE: A thousand times. My mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, lord! Petra!

PETRA: Anon.
 PAGE 22

NURSE: Take my fan. Before and apace.

(Exit ROMEO, NURSE and PETRA)

 PAGE 23

ACT II, SCENE 4

Juliet’s Bedroom

(Enter JULIET)

JULIET: The cock struck nine when I did send the Nurse. In half an hour she promis’d to return. Now is
the sun upon the highmost hill, and from nine till twelve is three long hours. Yet she is not come. O, she
is lame. Love’s heralds should be thoughts which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams driving
back shadows o’er lowering hills. Had she affections and warm youthful blood she would be as swift in
motion as a ball. My words would bandy her to my sweet love and his to me.

(Enter NURSE)

JULIET (CONT’D): O god she comes. O honey, Nurse. What news? Hast thou met with him? Now good
sweet Nurse –

NURSE: I am aweary. Give me leave a while. Fie, how my bones ache.

JULIET: I would thou hadst my bones and I thy news. Nay come, I pray thee.

NURSE: O what a jaunce have I. How aches my back. To the side.

JULIET: Come, speak, good good Nurse, speak. What says Romeo?

NURSE: Jesu, what haste. Can you not stay a while? Do you not see that I am out of breath?

JULIET: How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath to say to me that thou art out of breath? Is
thy news good or bad? Answer to that.

NURSE: Well, you know not how to choose a man. Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than
any man’s, yet his leg excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot and a body. He is not the flower of
courtesy, but I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb. But go thy ways. Lord, how my head aches.

JULIET: What says he of our marriage? What of that?

NURSE: What a head have I. It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces. My o’ t’other side – ah, my back.
Beshrew your heart for sending me about to catch my death with jauncing up and down.

JULIET: I’faith I am sorry that thou art not well. Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me what says my love?

NURSE: Your love says like an honest gentleman, and a courteous and a kind and a handsome and I
warrant a virtuous – Where is your mother?

JULIET: Where is my mother? How oddly thou repliest. ‘Your love says like an honest gentleman,
“Where is your mother?”’

NURSE: Oh God’s lady dear, are you so hot? Is this the poultice for my aching bones? Henceforward do
your messages yourself.

JULIET: No, no, no. Sweet, sweet Nurse. Come, what says Romeo?
 PAGE 24

NURSE: Have you got leave to go to shrift today?

JULIET: I have.

NURSE: Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’ cell. There stays a husband to make you a wife. Now
comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks. Hie you to church. I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
but you shall bear the burden soon at night. Go. Hie you to the cell.

JULIET: Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell.

(Exit JULIET)
 PAGE 25

ACT II, SCENE 5

Friar Lawrence’s Cell

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Here comes the lady.

JULIET: Good even to my ghostly confessor.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both. We will make short work. These
violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss
consume. The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness and in the taste confounds the
appetite. Therefore, love moderately. Long love doth so.

ROMEO: Come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy that one short minute gives
me in your sight. Love-devouring death do what he dare. It is enough that I may but call you mine.

JULIET: They are but beggars that can count their worth, but my true love is grown to such excess I
cannot sum up sum of half my wealth. I pray the measure of thy joy be heap’d like mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: So smile the heavens upon this holy act that after-hours with sorrow chide us not.
 PAGE 26

ACT III, SCENE 1

The Market Square

(Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO)

BENVOLIO: I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire. The day is hot and the Capulets are abroad. If we
meet, we shall not escape a brawl, for on these hot days is the mad blood stirring.

MERCUTIO: Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the confines of a tavern, claps his
sword upon the table and says, “God send me no need of thee” and by the finish of the second cup
draws on another when indeed there is no need.

BENVOLIO: Am I like such a fellow?

MERCUTIO: Come, come. Thou art as hot a jack in thy mood as any in Verona. As soon moved to be
moody and as soon moody to be moved.

BENVOLIO: And what to?

MERCUTIO: Thou? Did’st thou not call out a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because
thou hast hazel eyes. Thou hast quarrel’d with a man for coughing in the street because he hath
waken’d thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. An there were two such, we should have none shortly,
for one would kill the other. Yet thou wilt tutor me from quarreling!

(Enter TYBALT and OTHERS)

BENVOLIO: By my head, here come the Capulets.

MERCUTIO: By my heel, I care not.

TYBALT: Follow me close, for I will speak to them. Gentlemen, good even. A word with one of you.

MERCUTIO: And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something. Make it a word and a blow.

TYBALT: You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, if you will give me occasion.

MERCUTIO: Could you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALT: Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo?

MERCUTIO: Consort? Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? If thou make minstrels of us, look
to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that shall make you dance. Consort.

BENVOLIO: We talk here in the public haunt of men. Either withdraw unto some private place or reason
coldly of your grievances. Or else depart. Here all eyes gaze upon us.

MERCUTIO: Men’s eyes were made to look. Let them gaze. I will not budge for no man’s pleasure.

(Enter ROMEO)

TYBALT: Peace be with you, sir. Here comes my man.

MERCUTIO: I’ll be hang’d, sir, if he wear your livery.

 PAGE 27

TYBALT: Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford no better term than this: thou art a villain.

ROMEO: Tybalt, the reason I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage to such a
greeting. Villain am I none. Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.

TYBALT: Boy, this shall excuse the injuries that thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.

ROMEO: I do protest, I never injur’d thee, but love thee better than thou canst devise. And so, good
Capulet, which name I tender as dearly as mine own, be satisfied.

MERCUTIO: O calm, dishonorable, vile submission. Tybalt, you rat catcher, will you walk?

TYBALT: What wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIO: Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.

TYBALT: I am for you.

(TYBALT and MERCUTIO fight)

ROMEO: Good Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIO: Come, sir, your passado.

ROMEO: Draw, Benvolio, beat down their weapons. Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage.
Tybalt! Mercutio! The Princess expressly hath forbid this bandying in Verona’s streets. Hold, Tybalt!
Good Mercutio!

(TYBALT stabs MERCUTIO)

BENVOLIO: What, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO: Ay, ay. A scratch, a scratch.

ROMEO: Courage, man, the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO: No, tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door. Ask for me tomorrow and you
shall find me a grave man. Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.

ROMEO: I thought all for the best.

MERCUTIO: A plague in both your houses. They have made worm’s meat of me. A plague on both your
houses. Your houses.

BENVOLIO: Brave Mercutio is dead. That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds which too untimely here
did scorn the earth.

ROMEO: Fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now. Tybalt, Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads,
and stays for thine to keep him company. Either thou or I or both must go with him.

TYBALT: Thou wretched boy, that did consort him here shalt with him hence.

(TYBALT and ROMEO fight. ROMEO stabs TYBALT)

 PAGE 28

BENVOLIO: Romeo, away. Be gone. Stand not amaz’d. The Princess will doom thee to death if thou art
taken. Hence, be gone. Away.

ROMEO: Oh, I am fortune’s fool.

BENVOLIO: Why dost thou stay?

(Exit ROMEO. Enter PRINCESS, LORD CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, LORD MONTAGUE, LADT MONTAGUE
and OTHERS)

LADY CAPULET: Tybalt! My cousin, oh my brother’s child! Oh the blood is spill’d of my dear kinsman.
Princess, as thou art true, for blood of ours shed blood of Montague. O cousin, cousin.

PRINCESS: Where are the vile beginners of this fray? Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?

BENVOLIO: Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay. Oh noble Princess, there lies the man slain
by young Romeo, that slew thy kinsman brave Mercutio. Romeo that spoke him fair, with gentle breath,
calm look, knees humbly bow’d, could not take truce with the unruly spleen of Tybalt whose envious
thrust hit the life of stout Mercutio.

LADY CAPULET: He is kinsman to the Montague. He speaks not true. I beg for justice, which thou,
Princess, must give. Romeo slew Tybalt. Romeo must not live.

PRINCESS: Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio. Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

LADY MONTAGUE: Not Romeo, Princess, he was Mercutio’s friend.

LORD MONTAGUE: His fault concludes but what the law should end, the life of Tybalt.

PRINCESS: And for that offence immediately do we exile him hence. My blood for your rude brawls
doth lie a-bleeding.

LORD MONTAGUE: My lord …

PRINCESS: I will be deaf to pleading and excuses, nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses. Let
Romeo hence in haste. Else when he is found, that hour is his last.
 PAGE 29

ACT III, SCENE 2

Juliet’s Bedroom

JULIET: Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds. Spread thy close curtain of night, that Romeo may leap
to these arms untalk’d of and unseen. Come night, come Romeo, come thou day in night, for thou wilt
lie upon the wings of night whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back. Come gentle night, come loving
black-brow’d night, give me my Romeo. And when I shall die take him and cut him out in little stars, and
he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship
to the garish sun. O, I have bought the mansion of love but not yet possess’d it. So tedious is this day as
is the night before some festival to an impatient child that hath new robes and may not wear them.

(Enter NURSE)

JULIET (CONT’D.): O, here comes my Nurse. Now, nurse, what news?

NURSE: Alack, we are undone, lady. Undone.

JULIET: Why dost thou wring thy hands?

NURSE: Ah, weraday, he’s dead. He’s dead, he’s dead. Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead.

JULIET: Can heaven be so envious?

NURSE: Romeo, Romeo. Whoever would have thought it? Romeo.

JULIET: What devil art thou that dost torment me thus? If Romeo be slain, say “Ay” or if not, “No”.
Brief sounds determine of my joy or woe.

NURSE: I saw the wound. I saw it with mine eyes – God save the mark – here on his manly breast. A
bloody piteous corpse. Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood. All in gore blood. I swounded at the
sight.

JULIET: O break, my heart. Poor bankrupt, break at once.

NURSE: O Tybalt, Tybalt. The best friend I had. O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman. That ever I
should live to see thee dead.

JULIET: What storm is this that blows so contrary? Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead? My
dearest cousin and my dearer lord? Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom, for who is living if
those two are gone?

NURSE: Tybalt is gone and Romeo banished. Romeo, that kill’d him, he is banished.

JULIET: O God. Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

NURSE: It did, it did. Alas the day, it did.

JULIET: O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face. O that deceit should dwell in such a gorgeous palace.

NURSE: There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d, all forsworn, all dissemblers. These
griefs, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo.
 PAGE 30

JULIET: Blister’d be thy tongue for such a wish. He was not born to shame. O what a beast was I to
chide at him.

NURSE: Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?

JULIET: Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy
name when I thy three-hours wife have mangl’d it? But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband. My husband lives that Tybalt would have slain, and
Tybalt’s dead that would have slain my husband. Wherefore weep I then? Some word there was,
worser than Tybalt’s death, that murder’d me. I would forget it fain, but O 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 slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death was woe enough, if it had ended there.
Or if sour woe delights in fellowship and needly will be rank’d with other griefs, why follow’d not when
she said “Tybalt’s dead” thy father or thy mother, nay both, which modern lamentation might have
mov’d. But following Tybalt’s death, “Romeo is banished”. There is no end, no limit in that word’s
death. Banished. To speak that word is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, all slain, all dead. No
words can that woe sound. Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?

NURSE: Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corpse. Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

JULIET: Wash they his wounds with tears? Mine shall be spent for Romeo’s banishment. Come, Nurse,
I’ll to my wedding bed, and death not Romeo take my maidenhead.

NURSE: Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo to comfort you. He is hid at Lawrence’s cell.

JULIET: O find him and bid him come to take his last farewell.
 PAGE 31

ACT III, SCENE 3

Friar Lawrence’s Cell

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Romeo, come forth. Come forth, thou fearful man.

(Enter ROMEO)

ROMEO: Father, what news?

FRIAR LAWRENCE: I bring thee tidings of the Princess’s doom. A gentler judgement vanish’d from his
lips. Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

ROMEO: Ha! Banishment. Be merciful, say ‘death’. For exile hath more terror in his look, much more
than death. Do not say ‘banishment’.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Affliction is enamor’d of thy parts and thou art wedded to calamity. Here from
Verona thou art banished. Be patient. For the world is broad and wide

ROMEO: There is no world without Verona’S walls. Hence ‘banished’ is banish’d from the world and
world’s exile is death. Then ‘banished’ is death misterm’d.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: O rude unthankfulness. This is a dear mercy and thou seest it not.

ROMEO: Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here where Juliet lives, and every dog and cat and little
mouse, every unworthy thing, live here in heaven and may look upon her. But Romeo may not. He is
banished. O Friar, the damned use that word in hell. How hast thou the heart, being my friend
profess’d, to mangle me with that word ‘banished’?

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Thou fond mad man, hear me speak.

ROMEO: O, wilt thou speak again of banishment?

FRIAR LAWRENCE: I’ll give thee armor to keep off that word, adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy, to
comfort thee though thou art banished.

ROMEO: Hang up philosophy. Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, displant a town, reverse a Princess’s
doom, it helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.

(Knock)

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Arise. One knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.

(Knock)

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Who’s there? Romeo, arise. Thou wilt be taken.

(Knock)

FRIAR LAWRENCE (CONT’D.): Stay a while. Stand up.

(Knocking continues)
 PAGE 32

FRIAR LAWRENCE (CONT’D.): I come, I come. Who knocks so hard? Whence come you, what’s your
will?

NURSE (OFFSTAGE): I come from the Lady Juliet.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Welcome then.

(Enter NURSE)

NURSE: O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar, where is my lady’s lord. Where’s Romeo?

FRIAR LAWRENCE: There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

NURSE: O, he is even in my mistress’ case, just in her case. Even so lies she, blubbering and weeping,
weeping and blubbering.

ROMEO: Spak’st thou of Juliet? How is it with her? Doth not she think me a murderer now I have
stain’d the childhood of our joy with blood remov’d but little from her own? What says my conceal’d
lady to our cancel’d love?

NURSE: O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps. And now falls on her bed and Tybalt calls, and
then on Romeo cries. And then down falls again.

ROMEO: As if that name, shot from the deadly level of a gun did murder her as that name’s cursed hand
murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me in what vile part of this anatomy doth my name lodge?
Tell me that I may sack the hateful mansion.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: By my holy order, I thought thy disposition better temper’d. Thy Juliet is alive. There
art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee, but thou slew’st Tybalt. There art thou happy. The law that
threaten’d death becomes thy friend and turns it to exile. There art thou happy. A pack of blessings
light upon thy back. But like a mishav’d and sullen wench thou pouts upon thy fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed. For such die miserable. Go, get thee to thy love as was agreed. Ascend to her
chamber hence and comfort her. But look thou stay not past the dawn, for then thou canst not pass to
Mantua, where thou shalt live till we can find a time to blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends, beg
pardon of the Princess, and call thee back with twenty hundred thousand times more joy than thou
went’st forth with lamentation. Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady and bid her hasten all the
house to bed, which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto. Romeo is coming.

NURSE: O lord, I could have stay’d here all the night to hear good counsel. O, what learning is. My lord,
I’ll tell my lady you will come.

(Exit NURSE)

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Hie you make haste, for it grows very late.

ROMEO: How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Go hence, good night. Be gone by the break of day from hence. Sojourn in Mantua.
Give me thy hand. Tis late. Farewell.

ROMEO: Farewell.
 PAGE 33

ACT III, SCENE 5

The Capulet’s Great Hall

(Enter LORD CAPULET and PARIS to outside the bedroom)

LORD CAPULET: Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily that we have had no time to move our daughter.

PARIS: These times of woe afford no time to woo.

(Enter LADY CAPULET)

LADY CAPULET: She’ll not come down tonight.

LORD CAPULET: Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly.

LADY CAPULET: As did I.

LORD CAPULET: Well, we were born to die.

PARIS: Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.

LADY CAPULET: I will, and know her mind early tomorrow. Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.

LORD CAPULET: Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender of my child’s love. She will be rul’d in all
respects by me. I doubt it not. Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed. Acquaint her here of my son
Paris’s love and bid her – mark you me? – Thursday, tell her, she shall be married to this noble earl.
What say you to Thursday?

PARIS: My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.

LORD CAPULET: Well, get you gone. Thursday it be then. Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed. Prepare
her, wife, against this wedding day. Farewell, my lord. It is so very late that we may call it early by and
by. Good night.
 PAGE 34

ACT III, SCENE 5

Juliet’s Bedroom

JULIET: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale and not the lark that pierc’d the
fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the
nightingale.

ROMEO: It was the lark, the herald of the morn, no nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks do
lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on
the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET: Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhales to be to thee this
night a torchbearer and light thee on thy way to Mantua. Therefore stay yet. Thou need’st not be gone.

ROMEO: Let me be taken. Let me be put to death. I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I’ll say yon
grey is not the morning’s eye. Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high
above our heads. I have more care to stay than will to go. Come death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.

JULIET: It is, it is. Hie hence, begone, away. It is the lark that sings so out of tune, straining harsh
discords and unpleasing sharps. O now be gone, more light and light it grows.

ROMEO: More light and light; more dark and dark our woes.

(Enter NURSE)

NURSE: Madam. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber. The day is broke, be wary, look about.

(Exit NURSE)

JULIET: Then, window, let day in and let life out.

ROMEO: Farewell, farewell. One kiss and I’ll descend.

JULIET: Art thou gone so, love? Lord, ay husband. I must hear from thee every day in the hour. For in a
minute there are many days. O, by this count I shall be much in years ere I again behold my Romeo.

ROMEO: I will omit no opportunity that may convey my love to thee.

JULIET: O think’st thou we shall ever meet again?

ROMEO: I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our times to come.

JULIET: O god, I have an ill-divining soul. Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, as one dead in the
bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails or thou look’st pale.

ROMEO: And trust me, love, in my eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.

(Exit ROMEO)

LADY CAPULET (OFFSTAGE): Ho, daughter, are you up?

 PAGE 35

(Enter LADY CAPULET and NURSE)

LADY CAPULET 9CONT’D.): Why, how now Juliet?

JULIET: Madam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULET: Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death? What, wilt thou wash him from his grave
with tears? Have done. Some grief shows much of love, but much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JULIET: Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

LADY CAPULET: Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death as that the villain lives which
slaughter’d him.

JULIET: What villain, madam?

LADY CAPULET: That same villain Romeo.

JULIET: No man like he doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULET: O weep no more. I’ll tell thee now of joyful tidings.

JULIET: Joy comes well in such a needy time.

LADY CAPULET: Well, well. Thou hast a careful father, child. One who to put thee from thy heaviness
hath sorted out a sudden day of joy that thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.

JULIET: What day is that?

LADY CAPULET: Marry, child, early next Thursday morn the gallant and noble gentleman, the County
Paris, at Saint Petra’s Church shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JULIET: Now by Saint Petra’s Church, and Petra, too, he shall not make me there a joyful bride. I
wonder at this haste, that I must wed ere he that should be husband comes to woo. I pray you tell my
lord and father, madam, that I will not marry yet. And when I do, I swear it shall be Romeo, whom you
know I hate, rather than Paris.

LADY CAPULET: Here comes your father. Tell him so yourself, and see how he will take it at your hands.

(Enter LORD CAPULET)

LORD CAPULET: How now, Wife? Have you deliver’d to her our decree?

LADY CAPULET: Ay sir, but she will none. She gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her
grave.

LORD CAPULET: How? She will none? Doth she not give us thanks? Is she not proud? Doth she not
count her blest, unworthy as she is, that we have wrought so worthy a gentleman to be her
bridegroom?

JULIET: Not proud you have, but thankful you have. Proud can I never be of what I hate.
 PAGE 36

LORD CAPULET: What is this? “Proud” and “I thank you” and “I thank you not” and yet “not proud”?
Thank me no thankings nor proud me no prouds. But fettle your fine joints gainst Thursday next to go
with Paris to Saint Petra’s Church or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.

LADY CAPULET: Fie, fie. What, are you mad?

JULIET: Good father, I beseech you on my knees. Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

LORD CAPULET: Hang thee, young baggage. Disobedient wretch. I tell thee what. Get thee to church
on Thursday or never look me after in the face.

JULIET: Father –

LORD CAPULET: Speak not, reply not, do not answer. My fingers itch. Wife, we thought us blest that
God lent us but this only child. But now I see this one is one too much and that we have a curse in
having her.

NURSE: God in heaven bless her. You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

LORD CAPULET: Peace, you mumbling fool. Go utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl, for here we need
it not.

LADY CAPULET: You are too hot.

LORD CAPULET: God’s bread, it makes me mad. Day, night, work, play, alone, in company, awake and
sleeping, my only care hath been to have her well match’d. And having now provided a gentleman of
noble parentage, youthful and nobly lign’d – and then to have the wretched puling fool answer “I’ll not
wed, I cannot love, I am too young, I pray you pardon me”. I tell you, f you will not wed, you shall not
house with me. Look to it, think on it. I do not use to jest. Thursday is near. As you be mine I’ll give you
to my friend. And you be not, hang. Beg. Starve. Die in the streets. For by my life I’ll ne’er
acknowledge thee, nor what is mine shall never do thee good. Trust to it, think on it. I’ll not be
forsworn.

(Exit LORD CAPULET)

JULIET: Is there no pity sitting in the clouds that sees into the bottom of my grief? O sweet mother, cast
me not away, delay this marriage for a month, a week. Or if you do not, make the bridal bed in that dim
monument where Tybalt lies.

LADY CAPULET: Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

(Exit LADY CAPULET)

JULIET: O God, O Nurse, how shall this be prevented? Counsel me. What say’st thou? Hast thou not a
word of joy? Some comfort, Nurse.

NURSE: Faith, here it is. I think it best you married with the County. O, he’s a lovely gentleman. I think
you are happy in this second match for it excels your first. Or, if it did not, your first is dead or t’were as
good he were as living there and you no use of him.

JULIET: Speakest thou from thy heart?

 PAGE 37

NURSE: And from my soul too, or else beshrew them both.

JULIET: Amen.

Nurse: What?

JULIET: Well, thou hast comforted me marvelous much. Go in, and tell my lady mother I am gone,
having displeas’d my father, to Friar Lawrence to make confession and to be absolv’d.

NURSE: Marry, I will. This is wisely done.

(Exit NURSE)

JULIET: O most wicked fiend. Go, counsellor. Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I’ll to the
Friar to know his remedy. If all else fail, myself have power to die.
 PAGE 38

ACT IV, SCENE 1

Friar Lawrence’s Cell

FRIAR LAWRENCE: On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

PARIS: My father Capulet will have it so.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: You say you do not know the lady’s mind. Uneven is the course. I like it not.

PARIS: Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death and therefore have I little talk’d of love. For Venus
smiles not in a house of tears. Now sir, her father counts it dangerous that she doth give her sorrow so
much sway, and in his wisdom hastes our marriage to stop the inundation of her tears. Now do you
know the reason of this haste.

(Enter JULIET)

PARIS: Happily met, my lady and my wife.

JULIET: That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

PARIS: That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.

JULIET: What must be, shall be.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: That’s a certain text.

PARIS: Come you to make confession to this father?

JULIET: Are you at leisure, holy father, now? Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

FRIAR LAWRENCE: My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now. My lord, we must entreat the time
alone.

PARIS: God shield I should disturb devotion. Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye. Till then, adieu,
and keep this holy kiss.

(Exit PARIS)

JULIET: O shut the door and when thou hast done so, come weep with me. Past hope, past cure, past
help.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: O Juliet, I already know thy grief. It strains me past the compass of my wits.

JULIET: Tell me not, Friar, that thou kowest my grief unless thou tell me how I may prevent it. Out of
thy long experience’d time give me some present counsel, or twixt my extremes and me this bloody
knife shall play the umpire.

FRISAR LAWRENCE: Hold, daughter.

JULIET: Be not so long to speak. I long to die if what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.
 PAGE 39

FRIAR LAWRENCE: I do spy a kind of hope which craves as desperate an execution as that is desperate
which we would prevent. If, rather than to marry County Paris, thou hast the strength of will to slay
thyself, then it is likely thou wilt surely undertake a thing like death to chide away this shame. And if
thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

JULIET: O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, from off the battlements of any tower. Hide me in a
charnel house o’ercovere’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones. Or lay me in a tomb with one new
dead. And I will do it without fear or doubt, to keep myself a faithful unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent to marry Paris. Tomorrow night take
thou this vial, and this distilling liquor drink thou off. Presently through all thy veins shall run a cold and
drowsy humor. For no pulse shall keep his native progress. No warmth, no breath shall testify thou
livest. When the bridegroom in the morning comes to rouse thee from thy bed, there thou art. Dead.
Then thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault where all the kindred of the Capulets lie. And in
this borrow’d likeness of shrunken death thou shalt continue two and forty hours and then awake as
from a pleasant sleep. In the meantime shall Romeo by my letters know our drift, and hither shall he
come that very night and bear thee hence to Mantua. This shall free thee from this present shame, if no
fear abate thy valor in the acting of it.

JULLIET: Give me, give me! Tell me not of fear.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Be strong and prosperous in this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed to Mantua with
my letters to thy lord.

JULIET: Love gives me strength, and strength shall help afford. Farewell, dear father.

(Exit JULIET)
 PAGE 40

ACT IV, SCENE 2

Juliet’s Bedroom

(Enter LORD CAPULET)

LORD CAPULET: What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?

NURSE: Ay, forsooth.

LORD CAPULET: Well, he may chance to do some good on her. A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.

NURSE: See where she comes from shrift with a merry look.

(Enter JULIET)

LORD CAPULET: How now, my headstrong? Where have you been gadding?

JULIET: Where I learnt me to repent the sin of disobedient opposition to you and your behests, and am
enjoin’d by holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here, to beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you.
Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you.

LADY CAPULET: Why, that’s well said.

LORD CAPULET: I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up. This is as’t should be. Send for the County. Tell
him of this. I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.

LADY CAPULET: No, not till Thursday I pray. There is time enough.

LORD CAPULET: We’ll to church tomorrow.

JULIET: Nurse, will you go with me into my closet to help me sort such needful ornaments as you think
fit to furnish me tomorrow?

LORD CAPULET: Go, Nurse. Go with her.

(Exit JULIET and NURSE)

LADY CAPULET: Methinks on Thursday would be time enough.

LORD CAPULET: And I say we’ll have this dispatched tomorrow.

LADY CAPULET: I pray, my lord, let it be Thursday.

LORD CAPULET: And I say tomorrow while she’s in the mood.

LADY CAPULET: We shall be short in our provision. Tis now near night.

LORD CAPULET: I will stir about and all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife. Go thou to Juliet. Help
to deck her up. I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone. I’ll play the housewife for this once. What ho! My
heart is wondrous light since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.

(Exit LORD CAPULET)

 PAGE 41

(Enter JULIET and NURSE)

NURSE: Come, come. Need you anything else.

JULIET: No, gentle Nurse, I pray thee leave me to myself tonight.

NURSE: Well, then, good night.

(Exit NURSE)

LADY CAPULET: Need you my help?

JULIET: No, madam. So please you, let me now be left alone and let the Nurse this night sit up with you,
for I am sure you have your hands full all in this so sudden business.

LADY CAPULET: Good night. Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.

(Exit LADY CAPULET)

JULIET: Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
that almost freezes up the heat of life. I’ll call them back again to comfort me. Nurse! Lady mother!
What should they do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Come vial. What if this mixture do
not work at all? Or what if it be a poison which the Friar subtly hath minister’d to have me dead lest in
this marriage he should be dishonor’d because he married me before to Romeo? Or how if, when I am
laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo come to redeem me? Shall I not then be stifled in
the vault, to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breaths in, and there die strangled ere my Romeo
comes? Or is it not very like the terror of the place shall strain my mind till I am distraught and madly
play with my forbears’ joints, and pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud, and in this rage, with some
great kinsman’s bone as with a club dash out my desperate brains? O Romeo, Romeo, Romeo. Here’s
drink. I drink to thee.
 PAGE 42

ACT IV, SCENE 3

Juliet’s Bedroom

(Enter NURSE)

NURSE: Mistress. What, mistress. Juliet. Fast, I warrant her, she. Why, lamb. Why, lady. Fie. You
slug-abed. What? Not a word? Ay, take your pennyworths now. Sleep for a week. For the next night, I
warrant, the County Paris hath set up his rest that you shall rest but little! God forgive me. Marry and
amen. How sound she is asleep. I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam! Ay, let the County
take you in your bed, he’ll fright you up i’faith. Will it not be? What, dress’d and in your clothes and
down again? I must needs wake you. Lady, lady, lady! Alas! Alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead! O
weraday that ever I was born! Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!

(Enter LADY CAPULET)

LADY CAPULET: What noise is here?

NURSE: O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET: What is the matter?

NURSE: Look, look! O heavy day!

LADY CAPULET: O me, O me! My child, my only life! Revive, look up or I will die with thee. Help, help!
Call help!

(Enter LORD CAPULET)

LORD CAPULET: For shame. Bring Juliet forth. Her lord is come.

NURSE: She’s dead, deceas’d! She’s dead! Alack the day!

LADY CAPULET: Dead, dead, dead!

LORD CAPULET: Let me see her. She’s cold. Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest
flower of all the field.

NURSE: O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET: O woeful time!

LORD CAPULET: Death, that hath taken her hence ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.

(Enter FRIAR LAWRENCE and PARIS)

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Come. Is the bride ready to go to church?

LORD CAPULET: Ready to go, but never to return. O son, the night before thy wedding day hath Death
lain with thy wife. Death is my son-in-law.

PARIS: I have thought long to see this morning’s face, and doth it give me such a sight as this?
 PAGE 43

LADY CAPULET: Accurs’d, hateful day. But one poor and loving child, but one thing to rejoice and solace
in. And cruel Death hath catch’d it from my sight.

NURSE: O woe! O woeful, woeful day. Most woeful day that ever, ever I did yet behold. O hateful day.
Never was seen so black a day as this. O woeful, woeful day.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Peace, peace. Heaven and yourself had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all
and all the better is it for the maid. Your part in her you could not keep from death, but heaven keeps
his part in eternal life. Dry up your tears and, as the custom is, all in her best array bear her to church.

LORD CAPULET: All things that we ordained festival turn from their office to sad funeral. Our
instruments to melancholy bells, our wedding cheer to sad burial feast. Our solemn hymns to sullen
dirges change. Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse. And all things change them to the contrary.
 PAGE 44

ACT V, SCENE 1
Romeo’s Rooms

ROMEO: If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, my dreams presage some joyful news at hand. My
bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne and all this day an unaccustom’d spirit lifts me above the ground
with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead and breath’d such life with kisses in
my lips that I reviv’d and was an emperor. Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d when love’s
shadows are so rich in joy.

(Enter BALTHASAR)

ROMEO (CONT’D.): News from Verona! How now, Balthasar. How doth my Juliet? Nothing can be ill if
she be well.

BALTHASAR: O pardon me for bringing thee ill news. Her body sleeps in Capulet’s monument and her
immortal soul with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindreds’ vault.

ROMEO: Is it e’en so? Then I defy you stars. Juliet! I will hence tonight.

BALTHASAR: I do beseech you, sir, have patience. Your looks are pale and wild and do import some
misadventure.

ROMEO: You are deceiv’d. Leave me and and hire horses. I’ll be with thee straight.

(Exit BALTHASAR)

ROMEO (CONT’D.): Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight. I do remember an apothecary which late I noted in
tattered weeds. Meagre were his looks, sharp misery had worn him to the bones. If a man did need a
poison now, whose sale is present death in Mantua, here lives the caitiff wretch would sell it him. What
ho! Apothecary!

(Enter APOTHECARY)

APOTHECARY: Who calls so loud?

ROMEO: Come hither, man. Thou art poor. There is forty ducats. Let me have a dram of poison, such
soon-speeding gear as will disperse the weary taker’s life.

APOTHECARY: Such drugs I have, but Mantua’s law is death to any he that sells them.

ROMEO: Thou art bare and full of wretchedness. Famine is in thy cheeks, need and oppression starveth
in thy eyes, contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back. The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s
law. Then be not poor, but break that law and take this.

APOTHECARY: My poverty, but not my will, consents.

ROMEO: I pay thy poverty and not thy will.

APOTHECARY: Drink this off, and if you had the strength of twenty men it would dispatch you straight.
 PAGE 45

ROMEO: There is thy gold. Buy food and get thyself in flesh. Come, cordial and not poison. Go with me
to Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.
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ACT V, SCENE 2
Friar Lawrence’s Cell

FRIAR JOHN (OFFSTAGE): Holy Franciscan Friar, Brother, Ho!

(Enter FRIAR JOHN)

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Welcome, Friar John, from Mantua. What says Romeo? Or, if his mind be writ, give
me his letter.

FRIAR JOHN: Here in this city visiting the sick the searchers of the town, suspecting that I was in a house
where the infectious pestilence did reign, seal’d up the doors and would not let me forth. So that my
speed to Mantua there was stay’d.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Who bare my letter then to Romeo?

FRIAR JOHN: I could not send it, nor get a messenger to bring it thee, so fearful were they of infection.
Here it is again.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood, the letter was full of charge of dear import,
and the neglecting it may do much danger. Friar John, go hence, get me an iron crow and bring it
straight unto my cell.

FRIAR JOHN: Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.

(Exit FRIAR JOHN)

FRIAR LAWRENCE: Now must I to the monument alone. Within three hours will fair Juliet wake. Poor
living corpse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb.
 PAGE 47

ACT V, SCENE 3
The Capulet Tomb

(Enter PARIS)

PARIS: Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy bridal bed. O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones which
with sweet water nightly I will dew. I hear noise. Something doth approach. What cursed foot wanders
this way tonight to cross my obsequies and true love’s rite? Muffle me, night, awhile.

(Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR)

ROMEO: Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning see thou deliver it to my lord and father. Give me
the light. Upon my life I charge thee, whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof and do not interrupt
me in my course. Therefore, hence. Be gone. But if thou jealous dost return to pry in what I 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
roaring sea.

BALTHASAR: I will be gone, sir, and not trouble ye.

ROMEO: So shalt thou show me true friendship. Take thou that. Commend me to my father. And
farewell, good fellow.

BALTHASAR: For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout. His looks I fear and his intents I doubt.

(BALTHASAR hides)

ROMEO: Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth. In
despite I’ll cram thee with more food.

PARIS: 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. Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague. Can vengeance be pursu’d further than
death? Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee. Obey and go with me, for thou must die.

ROMEO: 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. O be gone. By heaven, I love
thee better than myself. For I come here armed against myself. Stay not, be gone, live. And hereafter
say a mad man’s mercy bid thee run away.

PARIS: I do defy thy conjuration and apprehend thee for a felon here.

ROMEO: Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy.

(PARIS and ROMEO fight)

BALTHASAR: O lord, they fight! I will go call the Watch.

(Exit BALTHASAR)
 PAGE 48

PARIS: O, I am slain. If thou be merciful, lay me with Juliet.

ROMEO: In faith, I will. 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, full of light. 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. Dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe that unsubstantial Death is
amorous and keeps thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that I still will stay with thee and
never from this palace of dim night depart again. 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 a dateless bargain to engrossing
Death. Come, bitter conduct, come unsavory guide. Here’s to my love. O true apothecary, thy drugs
are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

JULIET: Romeo? My lord? I do remember well where I should be and there I am. What of my love?
What’s here? A vial clos’d in my true love’s hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. O churl.
Drunk all and left no friendly drop to help me after. I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang
on them to make me die with a restorative. Thy lips are warm. O happy dagger. This is thy sheath.
There rust and let me die. Thus I come to thee.

(Enter BALTHASAR, WATCHMAN and GUARDS)

BALTHASAR: This is the place.

WATCH: The ground is bloody. Pitiful sight. Here lies the County slain and Juliet who here hath lain two
days dead and buried, new bleeding. Go tell the Princess. Run to the Capulets. Raise up the
Montagues.

(Exit GUARDS)

WATCH (CONT’D.): Hold here till the Princess comes hither.

(Enter GUARD 1 with FRIAR LAWRENCE)

GUARD 1: Here is a friar that trembles, sighs and weeps.

WATCH: A great suspicion. Stay the friar.

(Enter PRINCESS and GUARD 2)

PRINCESS: What misadventure is so early up that calls our person from our morning rest?

(Enter LORD CAPULET and LADY CAPULET)

LORD CAPULET: What is it that is so shriek’d abroad?

WATCH: Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain, and Romeo dead, and Juliet dead before, warm and
new kill’d.

LORD CAPULET: O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!

LADY CAPULET: O me! This sight of death is as a bell that warns my old age to a sepulcher.
 PAGE 49

(Enter LORD MONTAGUE)

PRINCESS: Come Montague.

LORD MONTAGUE: Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight. Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her
breath. What further woe conspires against me?

PRINCESS: Look and thou shalt see. Thou art early up to see thy son and heir now early down.

LORD MONTAGUE: O thou untaught! What manners is in this, to press before thy father to a grave?

PRINCESS: Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while till we can clear these ambiguities and know their
true descent. Bring forth the parties of suspicion. Say at once what knowledge thou dost have in this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE: I have the greatest, able to do least. Romeo there dead was husband to that Juliet,
and she there dead that Romeo’s faithful wife. Their stolen marriage day was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose
untimely death banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city. You to remove that siege of grief
from her, would have married her to County Paris. Yet she came to me with wild looks and bid me
devise some mean to rid her from this second marriage. I gave her a potion, which wrought on her the
form of death, and writ to Romeo that he should come this dire night to take her when she woke from
her borrow’d grave. But he which bore my letter was stay’d by accident. When she woke with noble
Paris and Romeo untimely dead, it seems she desperate did a violence on herself. If aught in this
miscarried by my fault, let my old life be sacrificed.

PRINCESS: We still have known thee for a holy man. Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?

BALTHASAR: I brought my master news of Juliet’s death and then in haste came he from Mantua to this
same place. This letter he early bid me give his father.

PRINCESS: Give me the letter, I will look on it. Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague. See what
a scourge is laid upon your hate, that heaven finds mean to kill your joys with love. And I for winking at
your discords too have lost a brace of kinsmen. All, all are punish’d.

LORD CAPULET: O brother Montague, give me thy hand. This is my daughter’s dowry, for now no more
can I bestow on her. It’s all I have.

LORD MONTAGUE: Take it. I cannot give thee more.

PRINCESS: A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go
hence to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardon’d and some punished. For never was
a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.