Enter, at the other end of the church-yard, FRIAR LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade.

Fri. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves! -Who's there? Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?

Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond' that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,

It burneth in the Capels' monument.

Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, One that you love.

Fri.

Bal.

Who is it?

Romeo.

Full half an hour.

Fri. How long hath he been there?
Bal.

Fri. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.

I dare not, sir.

My master knows not but I am gone hence;
And fearfully did menace me with death,

If I did stay to look on his intents.

Fri. Stay, then, I'll go alone.-Fear comes upon me; O, much I fear some ill, unlucky thing.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,

I dreamed my master and another fought,2

And that my master slew him.

Fri.

Romeo? [Advances.

Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre ?—
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolored by this place of peace?

[Enters the monument. Romeo! O, pale!-Who else? what, Paris too?

1 This accident was reckoned ominous.

2 This was one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakspeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream.

And steeped in blood! Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!-

The lady stirs.

[JULIET wakes, and stirs. where is my lord?

Jul. O comfortable friar!
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am.-Where is my Romeo?

[Noise within.

Fri. I hear some noise.-Lady, come from that nes. Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep;

A greater power than we can contradict

Hath thwarted our intents; come, come away.

Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too; come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.

Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
Come, go, good Juliet!-[Noise again.] I dare stay

no longer.

[Exit.

Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.—

O churl! drink all; and leave no friendly drop,
To help me after?-I will kiss thy lips;
Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm!

[Kisses him.

I Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy.-Which way? Jul. Yea, noise?-then I'll be brief.-O happy dagger! [Snatching ROMEO's dagger. This is thy sheath. [Stabs herself.] There rust, and let me die. [Falls on ROMEO's body, and dies.

Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS.

Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.

1 Watch. The ground is bloody; search about the church-yard:

1 Thus the quarto of 1599. That of 1597 reads:-
"Ay, noise? then must I be resolute,

Oh, happy dagger! thou shalt end my fear;
Rest in my bosom: thus I come to thee."

Go, some of you, whoe'er you find, attach.

[Exeunt some.

Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain;
And Juliet bleeding; warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain these two days buried.-
Go, tell the prince,-run to the Capulets,-
Raise up the Montagues,-some others search ;-
[Exeunt other Watchmen.

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes,
We cannot without circumstance descry.

Enter some of the Watch, with Balthazar.

2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the church-yard.

1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither.

Enter another watchman, with FRIAR LAUREnce.

3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs, and weeps.

We took this mattock and this spade from him,
As he was coming from this church-yard side.
1 Watch. A great spicion; stay the friar too.

Enter the Prince and Attendants.

Prince. What misadventure is so early up, That calls our person from our morning's rest?

Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and others.

Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad? La. Cap. The people in the street cry-Romeo, Some-Juliet, and some-Paris; and all run, With open outcry, toward our monument.

Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our ears? 1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris slain;

And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm, and new killed.

Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughtered Romeo's

man;

With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Cap O Heavens !-O wife! look how our daughter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista'en,-for lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,—
And is missheathed in my daughter's bosom.1
La. Cap. O me! this sight of death is as a bell,
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

Enter MONTAGUE and others.

Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up, To see thy son and heir more early down.

Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; Grief of my son's exile hath stopped her breath. What further woe conspires against mine age? Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.

Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave?

Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, Till we can clear these ambiguities,

And know their spring, their head, their true descent;
And then will I be general of your woes,

And lead you even to death. Mean time forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.—
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place

1 The words, " for lo! his house is empty on the back of Montague," are to be considered parenthetical. It appears that the dagger was anciently worn behind the back.

2 After this line, the quarto of 1597 adds:

"And young Benvolio is deceased too."

Doth make against me, of this direful murder;
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excused.

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

Fri. I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.

Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife.
I married them; and their stolen marriage-day
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death
Banished the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
You-to remove that siege of grief from her—
Betrothed, and would have married her perforce,
To county Paris.-Then comes she to me;
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutored by my art,
A sleeping potion; which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her

The form of death; meantime I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrowed grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, friar John,
Was stayed by accident; and yesternight
Returned my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
But, when I came, (some minute ere the time.
Of her awakening,) here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo, dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
And bear this work of Heaven with patience.
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,