The Quintessential Shakespeare: 11 Most Famous Plays in One Edition. William Shakespeare
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Romeo.
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 misterm’d: calling death banishment,
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,
And smil’st upon the stroke that murders me.
Friar.
O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath brush’d aside the law,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.
Romeo.
‘Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat, and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
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,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips;
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not; he is banished,—
This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
And sayest 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;
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 banishment?
Friar.
Thou fond mad man, hear me speak a little,—
Romeo.
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
Friar.
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word;
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
Romeo.
Yet banished? Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not,—talk no more.
Friar.
O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
Romeo.
How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
Friar.
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Romeo.
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,
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.]
Friar.
Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.
Romeo.
Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,
Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.
[Knocking.]
Friar.
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 simpleness is this.—I come, I come!
[Knocking.]
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.
Friar.
Welcome then.
[Enter Nurse.]
Nurse.
O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?
Friar.
There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
Nurse.
O, he is even in my mistress’ case,—
Just in her case!
Friar.
O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament!
Nurse.
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;
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
Romeo.
Nurse!
Nurse.
Ah sir! ah sir!—Well, death’s the end of all.
Romeo.
Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
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;
And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
Romeo.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
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.]
Friar.
Hold thy desperate hand: