The Quintessential Shakespeare: 11 Most Famous Plays in One Edition. William Shakespeare
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 dear-lov’d 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!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening 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 such sweet flesh?—
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? 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 naught, all dissemblers.—
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.—
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo!
Juliet.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
For ‘tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
Nurse.
Will you speak well of him that kill’d 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 mangled it?—
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
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 slain;
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband:
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 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, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?
But with a rearward following Tybalt’s death,
‘Romeo is banished’—to speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead: ‘Romeo is banished,’—
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word’s death; no words can that woe sound.—
Where is my father and my mother, nurse?
Nurse.
Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse:
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
Juliet.
Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exil’d:
He made you for a highway to my bed;
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come, cords; 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.
Juliet.
O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.
[Enter Friar Lawrence.]
Friar.
Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.
Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.
[Enter Romeo.]
Romeo.
Father, what news? what is the prince’s doom
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?
Friar.
Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company:
I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom.
Romeo.
What less than doomsday is the prince’s doom?
Friar.
A gentler judgment 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.