1    Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:
2    Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
3    Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
4    Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
5    So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
6    Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
7    But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
8    As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
9    Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

Aside
10    I am almost afraid to stand alone
11   Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

12   Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--
13   O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--
14   Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
15   Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:
16   The obsequies that I for thee will keep
17   Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
The Page whistles
18   The boy gives warning something doth approach.
19   What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
20   To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?
21   What with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.

22   Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
23   Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
24   See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
25   Give me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,
26   Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
27   And do not interrupt me in my course.
28   Why I descend into this bed of death,
29   Is partly to behold my lady's face;
30   But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
31   A precious ring, a ring that I must use
32   In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:
33   But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
34   In what I further shall intend to do,
35   By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint
36   And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
37   The time and my intents are savage-wild,
38   More fierce and more inexorable far
39   Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

40   I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

41   So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that:
42   Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.

Aside
43    For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout:
44   His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

45   Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
46   Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
47   Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
48   And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!

49   This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
50   That murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief,
51   It is supposed, the fair creature died;
52   And here is come to do some villanous shame
53   To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.
Comes forward
54   Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!
55   Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
56   Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
57   Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

58   I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
59   Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
60   Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;
61   Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
62   Put not another sin upon my head,
63   By urging me to fury: O, be gone!
64   By heaven, I love thee better than myself;
65   For I come hither arm'd against myself:
66   Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,
67   A madman's mercy bade thee run away.

68   I do defy thy conjurations,
69   And apprehend thee for a felon here.

70   Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!

71   O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

72   O, I am slain!
Falls
73   If thou be merciful,
74   Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

75   In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
76   Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!
77   What said my man, when my betossed soul
78   Did not attend him as we rode? I think
79   He told me Paris should have married Juliet:
80   Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
81   Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
82   To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
83   One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
84   I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;
85   A grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,
86   For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
87   This vault a feasting presence full of light.
88   Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.
Laying PARIS in the tomb
89   How oft when men are at the point of death
90   Have they been merry! which their keepers call
91   A lightning before death: O, how may I
92   Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!
93   Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
94   Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
95   Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
96   Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
97   And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
98   Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
99   O, what more favour can I do to thee,
100  Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
101  To sunder his that was thine enemy?
102  Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,
103  Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
104  That unsubstantial death is amorous,
105  And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
106  Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
107  For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
108  And never from this palace of dim night
109  Depart again: here, here will I remain
110  With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
111  Will I set up my everlasting rest,
112  And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
113  From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
114  Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
115  The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
116  A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
117  Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
118  Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
119  The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
120  Here's to my love!
Drinks
121  O true apothecary!
122  Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

123  Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
124  Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?

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

126  Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
127  What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light
128  To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,
129  It burneth in the Capel's monument.

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

132  Who is it?

133  Romeo.

134  How long hath he been there?

135  Full half an hour.

136  Go with me to the vault.

137  I dare not, sir
138  My master knows not but I am gone hence;
139  And fearfully did menace me with death,
140  If I did stay to look on his intents.

141  Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:
142  O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

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

146  Romeo!
Advances
147  Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
148  The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
149  What mean these masterless and gory swords
150  To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?
Enters the tomb
151  Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?
152  And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
153  Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
154  The lady stirs.

155  O comfortable friar! where is my lord?
156  I do remember well where I should be,
157  And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

158  I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
159  Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
160  A greater power than we can contradict
161  Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
162  Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
163  And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee
164  Among a sisterhood of holy nuns:
165  Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
166  Come, go, good Juliet,
Noise again
167  I dare no longer stay.

168  Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
Exit FRIAR LAURENCE
169  What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
170  Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
171  O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
172  To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
173  Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
174  To make die with a restorative.
Kisses him
175  Thy lips are warm.

Within
176   Lead, boy: which way?

177  Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!
Snatching ROMEO's dagger
178  This is thy sheath;
Stabs herself
179  there rust, and let me die.

180  This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.

181  The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:
182  Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.
183  Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain,
184  And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
185  Who here hath lain these two days buried.
186  Go, tell the prince: run to the Capulets:
187  Raise up the Montagues: some others search:
188  We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
189  But the true ground of all these piteous woes
190  We cannot without circumstance descry.

191  Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.

192  Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither.

193  Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs and weeps:
194  We took this mattock and this spade from him,
195  As he was coming from this churchyard side.

196  A great suspicion: stay the friar too.

197  What misadventure is so early up,
198  That calls our person from our morning's rest?

199  What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

200  The people in the street cry Romeo,
201  Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run,
202  With open outcry toward our monument.

203  What fear is this which startles in our ears?

204  Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;
205  And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
206  Warm and new kill'd.

207  Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

208  Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;
209  With instruments upon them, fit to open
210  These dead men's tombs.

211  O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
212  This dagger hath mista'en--for, lo, his house
213  Is empty on the back of Montague,--
214  And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom!

215  O me! this sight of death is as a bell,
216  That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

217  Come, Montague; for thou art early up,
218  To see thy son and heir more early down.

219  Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;
220  Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath:
221  What further woe conspires against mine age?

222  Look, and thou shalt see.

223  O thou untaught! what manners is in this?
224  To press before thy father to a grave?

225  Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
226  Till we can clear these ambiguities,
227  And know their spring, their head, their
228  true descent;
229  And then will I be general of your woes,
230  And lead you even to death: meantime forbear,
231  And let mischance be slave to patience.
232  Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

233  I am the greatest, able to do least,
234  Yet most suspected, as the time and place
235  Doth make against me of this direful murder;
236  And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
237  Myself condemned and myself excused.

238  Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

239  I will be brief, for my short date of breath
240  Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
241  Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
242  And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:
243  I married them; and their stol'n marriage-day
244  Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death
245  Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,
246  For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
247  You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
248  Betroth'd and would have married her perforce
249  To County Paris: then comes she to me,
250  And, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean
251  To rid her from this second marriage,
252  Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
253  Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
254  A sleeping potion; which so took effect
255  As I intended, for it wrought on her
256  The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,
257  That he should hither come as this dire night,
258  To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
259  Being the time the potion's force should cease.
260  But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
261  Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight
262  Return'd my letter back. Then all alone
263  At the prefixed hour of her waking,
264  Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;
265  Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
266  Till I conveniently could send to Romeo:
267  But when I came, some minute ere the time
268  Of her awaking, here untimely lay
269  The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
270  She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
271  And bear this work of heaven with patience:
272  But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
273  And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
274  But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
275  All this I know; and to the marriage
276  Her nurse is privy: and, if aught in this
277  Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
278  Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
279  Unto the rigour of severest law.

280  We still have known thee for a holy man.
281  Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?

282  I brought my master news of Juliet's death;
283  And then in post he came from Mantua
284  To this same place, to this same monument.
285  This letter he early bid me give his father,
286  And threatened me with death, going in the vault,
287  I departed not and left him there.

288  Give me the letter; I will look on it.
289  Where is the county's page, that raised the watch?
290  Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

291  He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;
292  And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:
293  Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;
294  And by and by my master drew on him;
295  And then I ran away to call the watch.

296  This letter doth make good the friar's words,
297  Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
298  And here he writes that he did buy a poison
299  Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
300  Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
301  Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
302  See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
303  That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
304  And I for winking at your discords too
305  Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.

306  O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
307  This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
308  Can I demand.

309  But I can give thee more:
310  For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
311  That while Verona by that name is known,
312  There shall no figure at such rate be set
313  As that of true and faithful Juliet.

314  As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;
315  Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

316  A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
317  The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
318  Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
319  Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
320  For never was a story of more woe
321  Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.