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The Same. FRIAR LAURENCE’S Cell. | |
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Enter FRIAR LAURENCE. | |
| Fri. L. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man: | |
| Affliction is enamour’d of thy parts, | |
| And thou art wedded to calamity. | 5 |
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Enter ROMEO. | |
| Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince’s doom? | |
| What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, | |
| That I yet know not? | |
| Fri. L. Too familiar | 10 |
| Is my dear son with such sour company: | |
| I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom. | |
| Rom. What less than doomsday is the prince’s doom? | |
| Fri. L. A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips, | |
| Not body’s death, but body’s banishment. | 15 |
| Rom. Ha! banishment! be merciful, say ‘death;’ | |
| For exile hath more terror in his look, | |
| Much more than death: do not say ‘banishment.’ | |
| Fri. L. Hence from Verona art thou banished. | |
| Be patient, for the world is broad and wide. | 20 |
| Rom. There is no world without Verona walls, | |
| But purgatory, torture, hell itself. | |
| Hence banished is banish’d from the world, | |
| And world’s exile is death; then ‘banished,’ | |
| Is death mis-term’d. Calling death ‘banished,’ | 25 |
| Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe, | |
| And smil’st upon the stroke that murders me. | |
| Fri. L. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness! | |
| Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince, | |
| Taking thy part, hath rush’d aside the law, | 30 |
| And turn’d that black word death to banishment: | |
| This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not. | |
| Rom. ’Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, | |
| Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog | |
| And little mouse, every unworthy thing, | 35 |
| Live here in heaven and may look on her; | |
| But Romeo may not: more validity, | |
| More honourable state, more courtship lives | |
| In carrion flies than Romeo: they may seize | |
| On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand, | 40 |
| And steal immortal blessing from her lips, | |
| Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, | |
| Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin; | |
| Flies may do this, but I from this must fly: | |
| They are free men, but I am banished. | 45 |
| And sayst thou yet that exile is not death? | |
| Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife, | |
| No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean, | |
| But ‘banished’ to kill me? ‘Banished!’ | |
| O friar! the damned use that word in hell; | 50 |
| Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart, | |
| Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, | |
| A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d, | |
| To mangle me with that word ‘banished?’ | |
| Fri. L. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word. | 55 |
| Rom. O! thou wilt speak again of banishment. | |
| Fri. L. I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word; | |
| Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy, | |
| To comfort thee, though thou art banished. | |
| Rom. Yet ‘banished!’ Hang up philosophy! | 60 |
| Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, | |
| Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom, | |
| It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more. | |
| Fri. L. O! then I see that madmen have no ears. | |
| Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes? | 65 |
| Fri. L. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate. | |
| Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel: | |
| Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, | |
| An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, | |
| Doting like me, and like me banished, | 70 |
| Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair, | |
| And fall upon the ground, as I do now, | |
| Taking the measure of an unmade grave. [Knocking within. | |
| Fri. L. Arise; one knocks: good Romeo, hide thyself. | |
| Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans, | 75 |
| Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes. [Knocking. | |
| Fri. L. Hark! how they knock. Who’s there? Romeo arise; | |
| Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up; [Knocking. | |
| Run to my study. By and by! God’s will! | |
| What wilfulness is this! I come, I come! [Knocking. | 80 |
| Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what’s your will? | |
| Nurse. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand: | |
| I come from Lady Juliet. | |
| Fri. L. Welcome, then. | |
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Enter Nurse. | 85 |
| Nurse. O holy friar! O! tell me, holy friar, | |
| Where is my lady’s lord? where’s Romeo? | |
| Fri. L. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk. | |
| Nurse. O! he is even in my mistress’ case, | |
| Just in her case! | 90 |
| Fri. L. O woeful sympathy! | |
| Piteous predicament! Even so lies she, | |
| Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering. | |
| Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man: | |
| For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand; | 95 |
| Why should you fall into so deep an O? | |
| Rom. Nurse! | |
| Nurse. Ah, sir! ah, sir! Well, death’s the end of all. | |
| Rom. Spak’st thou of Juliet? how is it with her? | |
| Doth she not think me an old murderer, | 100 |
| Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy | |
| With blood remov’d but little from her own? | |
| Where is she? and how doth she? and what says | |
| My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love? | |
| Nurse. O! she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps; | 105 |
| And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, | |
| And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries, | |
| And then down falls again. | |
| Rom. As if that name, | |
| Shot from the deadly level of a gun, | 110 |
| 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. [Drawing his sword. | 115 |
| Fri. L. Hold thy desperate hand: | |
| Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art: | |
| Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote | |
| The unreasonable fury of a beast: | |
| Unseemly woman in a seeming man; | 120 |
| Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both! | |
| Thou hast amaz’d me: by my holy order, | |
| I thought thy disposition better temper’d. | |
| Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself? | |
| And slay thy lady that in thy life lives, | 125 |
| By doing damned hate upon thyself? | |
| Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? | |
| Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet | |
| In thee at once, which thou at once wouldst lose. | |
| Fie, fie! thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit, | 130 |
| Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all, | |
| And usest none in that true use indeed | |
| Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. | |
| Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, | |
| Digressing from the valour of a man; | 135 |
| Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury, | |
| Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish; | |
| Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, | |
| Misshapen in the conduct of them both, | |
| Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask, | 140 |
| To set a-fire by thine own ignorance, | |
| And thou dismember’d with thine own defence. | |
| What! rouse thee, man; thy Juliet is alive, | |
| For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead; | |
| There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee, | 145 |
| But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy too: | |
| 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; | |
| Happiness courts thee in her best array; | 150 |
| But, like a misbehav’d and sullen wench, | |
| Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love. | |
| Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. | |
| Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed, | |
| Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her; | 155 |
| But look thou stay not till the watch be set, | |
| 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 prince, and call thee back | 160 |
| With twenty hundred thousand times more joy | |
| Than thou went’st forth in 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: | 165 |
| 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. | |
| Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. | 170 |
| Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir. | |
| Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Exit. | |
| Rom. How well my comfort is reviv’d by this! | |
| Fri. L. Go hence; good-night; and here stands all your state: | |
| Either be gone before the watch be set, | 175 |
| Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence: | |
| Sojourn in Mantua; I’ll find out your man, | |
| And he shall signify from time to time | |
| Every good hap to you that chances here. | |
| Give me thy hand; ’tis late: farewell; goodnight. | 180 |
| Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me, | |
| It were a grief so brief to part with thee: | |
| Farewell. [Exeunt. | |
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