As is the night before some festival,

To an impatient child that hath new robes,

And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse!

Enter Nurse with cords.

And she brings news; and every tongue, that speaks But Romeo's name, speaks heavenly eloquence; Now, nurse, what news? what haft thou there? The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch ?

Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.

Jul. Ah me, what news?

Why dost thou wring thy hands ?

Nurse. Ah welladay, he's dead, he's dead, he's

dead!

We are undone, lady, we are undone.

Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead,

Jul. Can heaven be so envious?

Nurse. Romeo can,

Though heav'n cannot.

O Romeo! Romeo!

Who ever would have thought it, Romeo?

Jul. What devil art thou, that doft torment me

thus?

This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo lain himself? say thou but, I;
* And that bare vowel, I, shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.

1

Nurse. I faw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,

(God fave the mark,) here on his manly breast.
A piteous coarse, a bloody piteous coarse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedawb'd in blood,
All in gore blood. I swooned at the fight.

Jul. O break, my heart!-poor bankrupt, break

at once!

To prifon, eyes! ne'er look on liberty;
Vile earth to earth resign, end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!
Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had:
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman,
That ever I should live to fee thee dead!

Jul. What storm is this, that blows so contrary! -
Is Romeo flaughter'd? and is Tybalt dead?
My dear-lov'd coufin, and my dearer Lord?
Then let the trumpet found the general Doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse. Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished, Romeo, that kill'd him, he is banished.

Jul. O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's

blood?

Nurse. It did, it did. Alas, the day! it did.
Jul. O ferpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical!

3 Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish rav'ning Lamb!
Despised substance, of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damned Saint, an honourable villain !
O nature! what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the Spirit of a fiend
In mortal Paradise of fuch sweet flesh ?
Was ever book, containing such vile matter,
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In fuch a gorgeous palace!

Nurse. There's no trust,

No faith, no honesty, in men; all perjur'd;
All, all forfworn; all naught; and all dissemblers.
Ah, where's my man? Give me some Aqua vita-
These griefs, these woes, these forrows make me old!
Shame come to Romeo!

١٠٠

Jul. Blifter'd be thy tongue,
For fuch a wish! he was not born to shame;
Upon his brow shame is asham'd to fit :
For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O, what a beast was I to chide him fo ?

Nurse. Will you speak well of him, that kill'd your coufin?

Jul. Shall I fpeak ill of him, that is my husband?

3 In oid editions.

Ravenous, Dove, feather'd Ra

as a crutch for a labouring, halting verse? I'll venture to restore to the Poet a line that is in his own mode of thinking, and truly worthy of him. Ravenous was blunderingly coin'd out of raven and ravening'; and, if we only throw it out, we gain at once an harmonious verse, and a proper contrast of epithets and images. Dove feather'd Raven! wolvish-ravning Lamb!

Ah, poor my Lord, what tongue shall smooth thy

name,

When I, thy three-hours-wife, have mangled it !
But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my coufin?
That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have flain ;
And Tybalt's dead, that would have kill'd my huf-

band;

All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then ?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murder'd me, I would forget it, fain;
But, oh! it presses to my memory,
Like damned guilty deeds to finners' minds.
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished !
That banished, that one word banished,
+ Hath flain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there;
Or if sou'r 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, or both ?
5 Which modern lamentation might have mov'd;
But with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death,
Romeo is banished to speak that word,
Is, father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All flain, all dead! Romeo is banished!
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death; no words can that woe found.

4 Hath fiain ten thousand Tybalts.] Hath put Tybalt out of my mind as if out of being. 5 Which modern lamentation, &c.] This line is left out of the later editions, I suppose because

the editors did not remember that Shakespeare uses modern for common, or flight: I believe it was in his time confounded in colloquial language with moderate.

Where

Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?

Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's coarse, Will you go to them? I will bring you thither. Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? mine shall

be spent,

When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.

Take up those Cords;

guil'd;

poor Ropes, you are be

Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd.

He made you for a high-way to my bed:

But I, a maid, die Maiden widowed.

Come, Cord; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-Bed: And Death, not Romeo, take my Maidenhead!

Nurse. Hie to your chamber, I'll find Romeo To comfort you. I wot well, where he is. Hark ye. Your Romeo will be here at night, I'll to him, he is hid at Lawrence' cell. Jul. Oh find him, give this ring to my truc

knight.

And bid him come, to take his last farewel.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

Changes to the Monastery.

Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.

Fri. ROMEO, come forth; come forth, thou

fearful man.

Afliction is enamour'd of thy parts,

And thou art wedded to calamity.

Rom. Father, what news? what is the Prince's

doom?

What forrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?