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Fri. Too familiar

Is my

dear fon with fuch fou'r company.

I bring the tidings of the Prince's doom?

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Rom. What lefs than dooms-day is the Prince's doom?

Fri. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips, Not body's death, but body's banishment.

Rom. Ha, banishment! be merciful, fay, death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,

Much more than death. Do not say, banishment.
Fri. Here from Verona art thou banished.
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

Rom. There is no world without Verona's walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

Hence banished, is banith'd from the world;
And world-exil'd, is death. That banishment
Is death mif-term'd; calling death banishment,
Thou cut'ft my head off with a golden ax,
And smil'ft upon the ftroke that murders me.

Fri. O deadly fin! O rude unthankfulness!

Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath rusht afide the law,

And turn'd that black word death to banishment.
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.

Rom. Tis torture, and not mercy. Heav'n is
here,

Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
And little moufe, every unworthy thing,
Lives 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 feize

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On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,
And steal immortal bleffings from her lips;
Which ev❜n in pure and vestal modesty
Still blufh, as thinking her own kiffes fin.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly;
And fay't thou yet, that exile is not death?
But Romeo may not;he is banished.

Hadit thou no Poifon mixt, no fharp-ground knife,
No fudden mean of death, tho' ne'er fo mean,
But banished to kill me? banished?

O Friar, the Damned use that word in hell;
Howlings attend it: how haft thou the heart,
Being a Divine, a ghoftly Confeffor,
A fin-abfolver, and my friend profest,
To mangle me with that word, banishment?
Fri. Fond mad-man, hear me speak.

Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
Fri. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adverfity's fweet milk, philofophy,

To comfort thee, tho' thou art banished.

Rom. Yet, banished? hang up philofophy:
Unless philofophy can make a Juliet,
Difplant a town, reverse a Prince's doom,

It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more

Fri. O, then I fee that mad men have no ears.
Rom. How fhould they, when that wife men have
no eyes?

Fri. Let me difpute with thee of thy estate.

Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou doft not
feel:

Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doating like me, and like me banished;

Then might'ft thou fpeak, then might'ft thou tear thy

hair,

And fall upon the ground as I do now,

Taking the meafure of an unmade grave.
Throwing himself on the ground.

Fri. Arife, one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyfelf. [Knock within. Rom. Not I, unless the breath of heart-fick Groans, Mist-like, infold me from the Search of Eyes.

[Knock. Fri. Hark, how they knock !-(who's there?)–

Romeo, arife.

Thou wilt be taken-(ftay a while)-stand up:

[Knocks. Run to my Study-(By and by)-God's will! What wilfulnefs is this?-I come, I come. [Knock. Who knocks fo hard; whence come you? what's your will?

Nurfe. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand :

I come from Lady Juliet.

Fri. Welcome then.

Enter Nurfe.

Nurfe. O holy Friar, oh, tell me, holy Friar, Where is my lady's Lord? where's Romeo? Fri. There, on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

Nurfe. O he is even in my miftrefs' cafe, Juft in her cafe, O woful fympathy ! Piteous predicament! ev'n fo lies the,

Blubb'ring and weeping, weeping and blubbering. Stand up, ftand up; Stand, an' you be a Man: For Juliet's Sake, for her Sake, rise and stand.

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Nurfe. Ah Sir! ah Sir!-Death is the end of all.

7

So Hanmer.

The other editions read,

Why should you fall into so deep an ab ?

Rom.

Rom. Speak'st thou of Juliet? how is it with her? Doth not the think me an old murderer, Now I have ftain'd the childhood of our joy With blood, remov'd but little from her own? Where is the? and how does fhe? and what fays My conceal'd lady to our cancell❜d love?

Nurse. O, the fays nothing, Sir; but weeps and

weeps ;

And now falls on her bed, and then starts up;
And Tybalt cries, and then on Romeo calls,
And then down falls again.

Rom. As if that name,

Shot from the deadly level of a gun,

Did murder her, as that name's curfed hand Murder'd her kinfman.-Tell me, Friar, tell me, In what vile part of this anatomy

Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may fack

The hateful manfion.

Fri. Hold thy defperate hand.

[Drawing his fword.

Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
Th' unreasonable fury of a beast.

9 Unfeemly Woman in a feeming Man!
And ill-befeeming Beaft in feeming both!
Thou haft amaz'd me. By my holy Order,'
I thought thy difpofition better temper'd.

8-cancell'd love?] The folio reads conceal'd love.

9 Unfeemly Woman, &c.] This ftrange nonfenfe Mr. Pope threw out of his edition for defperate. But it is easily restored as Shakefpear wrote it into good pertinent fense.

Unfeemly Woman in a feeming
Man!

AN ill-befeeming Beaft in fen-
ing GROTH!

i. e. you have the ill-befeeming paffions of a brute beast in the

well-feeming fhape of a rational creature. For having in the first line faid, he was a woman in the fhape of a man, he aggravates the thought in the fecond, and fays, he was even a brute in the fhape of a rational creature. Seeming is ufed in both places, for feemly. WARBURTON.

The old reading is probable. Thou art a beast of ill qualities, under the appearance both of a woman and a man.

Haft

Haft thou flain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyfelf?
And flay thy lady, that in thy life lives,

By doing damned Hate upon thyfelf?

I

Why rail'ft thou on thy Birth, the Heav'n, and Earth, Since Birth, and Heav'n, and Earth, all three do

meet

In thee at once, which thou at once wouldft lofe?
Fy, fy! thou fham'ft thy Shape, thy Love, thy Wit,
Which, like an Ufurer, abound'ft in all,

And useft none in that true ufe indeed,
Which should bedeck thy Shape, thy Love, thy Wit.
Thy noble Shape is but a Form of Wax,
Digreffing from the Valour of a Man;

Thy dear Love fworn, but hollow Perjury,
Killing that Love, which thou haft vow'd to cherish.
Thy Wit, that Ornament to Shape and Love,
Mif-shapen in the Conduct of them both,
Like Powder in a skill-lefs Soldier's Flask,
Is fet on Fire by thine own Ignorance,

2 And thou difmember'd with thine own Defense.
What, roufe thee, man, thy Juliet is alive,

1

Why rail'ft thou, &c.] Thefe were again thrown out by Mr. Pope, and for the fame reafon: But they are easily fet right. We fhould read,

Since Birth, and Heav'n, and

Earth, all three so meet, In thee ATONE; which then at once would lose.

i.e. Why rail you at your Birth and at Heaven, and Earth, which are all fo meet, or aufpicious to you: And all three your friends, Eall three in thee atone] and yet you would lose them all by one rafh jftroke. Why he faid,

Birth, Heaven, and Earth, all three atone--was becaufe Romeo was of noble birth, of vir tuous difpofitions, and heir to a

large patrimony. But by fuicide
he would difgrace the firft, offend
the fecond, and forego the en-
joyment of the third. Atone is
frequently ufed by Shakespear in
the fenfe of, to agree, be friendly
together, &c. So in, As you like
it,

Then is there mirth in Heav'n
When earthly things made even

ATONE together. WARB. The alteration makes no improvement. The meaning is the fame in the common reading better expreffed.

And thou difmember'd with thine own defence. ] And thou torn to pieces with thy own weapons.

For

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