The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare

Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe-
I will believe (come lie thou in my arıns)
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour.
For fear of that, I will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest';

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;
10 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 aguin;] I dare stay
[Exй.

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars [last!
From this world-wearied flesh.---Eyes, look your
Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!-
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to thy health, where'er thou tumblest in:
Icre'stomylove!--[Drinks;] O, true e apothecary! 20
Thydrugs are quick.--Thus with a kiss I die. [Dics.
Enter Friar Lawrence, with a lanthorn, crow and
[night

spade.

no longer.

15 Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.-
What's here? a cup, clos'd 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. [Kisses him.
Thy lips are warm!

Law. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft toHave my old feet stumbled at graves !-Who's 25

there?

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.

Enter Watch, with the Page of Paris. Page. This is the place; there, where the torch

doth burn.

35 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:-
40 We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.

If I did stay to look on his intents.

[me;

Law. Stay then, I'll go alone.--Fear comes upon 45

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

Balth. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him.

Law. Romeo?

Enter some of the Watch, with Balthasar. 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 Lawrence. 3 Watch. Here is a frear, that trembles, sighs, and weeps:

We took this matiock and this spade from him,
As he was coming from this church-yard side.
1 Watch. A great suspicion; 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, and Lady Capulet, &c.
Cap. What should it be, that the yso shrick abroad!
La. Cap. The people in the street cry-Romeo,

[60 Some-Juliet, and some---Paris; and all run,

• Conduct

1 See a note on scene 5th of the preceding act. To set up one's rest, is to be determined to any certain purpose, to rest in perfect confidence and resolution, to make up one's mind. 3 This accident was reckoned ominous.

for conductor.

Juliet, which was unnatural, being brought on by drugs.

Shakspeare alludes to the sleep of

With open out-cry, toward our monument.

Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our

ears?

Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris slain; And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, Warm, and new kill'd.

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

Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's

man;

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

Cap. O, heaven!-O, wife! look how our
daughter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista'en, for, lo! his house
Lies empty on the back of Montague,
And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.

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 stopp'd her breath: What further woe conspires against my 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 de

scent;

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.

Law. I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place Doth make against me, of this direful murder; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned and myself excus'd.

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

To help to take her from her borrow'd grave, Being the time the potion's force should cease. But he, which bore my letter, friar John, Was stay'd by accident; and yesternight 5 Return'd 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: 10 But, when I came, (some minute ere the time Of her awaking) 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: 15 But then a noise did scare me from the tomb; And she, too desperate, would not go with me, But (as it seems) did violence on herself. All this I know: and to the marriage Her nurse is privy: And, if aught in this 20 Miscarry'd by my fault, let my old life Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time, Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy

man.

25 Where's Romeo's man? what can he say to this?
Balth. I brought my master news of Juliet's
death;

And then in post he came from Mantua,
To this same place, to this same monument.
30 This letter he early bid me give his father;
And threaten'd me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it. Where is the county's page that rais' d the watch?-35 Sirrah, what made your master in this place? Page, He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;

And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:
Anon, comes one with light to ope the tomb;
40 And, by-and-by, my master drew on him;
And then I ran away to call the watch.

Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's
words,

Law. 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 dooms-day, whose untimely death

Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
45 And here he writes, that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.-
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!---
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city; 50 That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.

And I, for winking at your discords too,

You---to remove that siege of grief from her

Betroth'd, and would have married her perforce,

Have lost a brace of kinsmen:---all are punish'd. Cap. O, brother Montague, give me thy hand:

To county Paris :---Then comes she to me;

This is my daughter's jointure, for no more

To rid her from this second marriage,

Or, in my cell, there would she kill herself.

And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means 55 Can I demand.

Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
A sleeping potion; which so took effect

As I intended, for it wrought on her

The form of death: mean time I writ to Rome,

That he should hither come as this dire night,

Mon. But I can give thee more

For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set,

60 As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie; Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

It appears that the dagger was anciently worn behind the back.

3S 3

Prince.

Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not shew his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;

Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished':
For never was a story of more woe,
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

[Exeunt omnes.

Mr. Steevens savs, that this line has reference to the novel from which the fable is taken. Here we read that Juliet's female attendant was banished for concealing her marriage; Romeo's servant set at liberty, because he had only acted in obedience to his master's orders; the apothecary taken, tortured, condemned, and hanged'; while friar Lawrence was permitted to retire to a hermitage in the neighbourhood of Verona, where he ended his life in penitence and peace.

HAMLET.

Lords, Ladies, Players, Grave-diggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, Elsinour.

Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.

Enter Horatio, and Marcellus,

Fran. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who

is there?

Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.

Fran. Give you good night.

Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier;

Who hath reliev'd you ?

Fran. Bernardo hath my place.

10 Give you good night.

Mar. Holla! Bernardo?

[Exit Francisco.

Ber. Say,

What, is Horatio there?
Hor. A piece of him.

[night?

Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, 15 Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Mar

Francisco.

Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter

cold,

And I am sick at heart.

Ber. Have you had quiet guard?

Fran. Not a mouse stirring.

Ber. Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch3, bid them make haste.

cellus.

Mar. What, has this thing appear'd again to-
Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 'tis but our phantasy;

20 And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us :
Therefore I have entreated him, along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,

The original story on which this play is built, may be found in Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish historian. 2 i. e. me who am already on the watch, and have a right to demand the watch-word. Rivals for partners, according to Warburton.-Hanmer says, that by rivals of the watch are meant those who were to watch on the next adjoining ground.-Rivals, in the original sense of the word, were proprietors of neighbouring lands, parted only by a brook, which belonged equally to both. He

3S4

[pole,

Ber. Last night of all,

So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war ?
Why such impress of ship-wrights, whose sore task

5 Does not divide the Sunday from the week?
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't that can inform me?

Hor. That can I;

When yon same star, that's westward from the 10 At least the whisper goes so. Our last king,

Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,

The bell then beating one,

Mar, Peace, break thee off; look where it

comes again!

Enter Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.
Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Ho-

ratio.

Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which, our valiant Hamlet
15 (For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratify'd by law, and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seis'd of, to the conqueror :

[wonder. 20 Against the which, a moiety competent

Hor. Most like: it harrows2 me with fear and
Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar. Speak to it, Horatio.

[night,

Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of bury'd Denmark [speak.
Did sometime march? By heaven I charge thee,
Mar. It is offended.

Ber. Sce! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay; speak; 1 charge thee, speak.

[Exit Ghost.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and

look pale:

Is not this something more than phantasy?
What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the king?
Hor. As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polack on the ice.

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he
that knows,

Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by that covenant,
And carriage of the articles design'd',

25 His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved' mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise

30 That hath a stomach in't; which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,
35 Is the main motive of our preparations;
The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage 1o in the land.

Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so:
Well may it sort, that this portentous figure
40 Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
That was, and is the question of these wars.

Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy " state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

45 The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
Stars shone with trains of fire; dews of blood fell;
Disasters 12 veil'd the sun; and the moist star,
Upan whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
50 Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce 13 events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen' coming on,-
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-

Why this same strict and most observant watch 155

i. e. add a new testimony to that of our eyes. 2 To harrow is to conquer, to subdue. The word is of Saxon origin. He speaks of a prince in Poland whom he slew in battle. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French. A sled, or sledge, is a carriage made use of in the cold countries. *i.e. what particular train of thinking to follow. i. e. general thoughts, and tendency at large. Carriage is import: design'd, is formed, drawn up between them. "Unimpro ed, for unrefined, fish collects his prey.

• To shark up may mean to pick up without distinction, as the sharkStomach, in the time of our author, was used for constancy, resolution. i.e. tumultuous hurry. "Palmy for victorious, flourishing. 12 Disasters is here finely used in its original signification of evil conjunction of stars. 13 Fierce, for conspicuous, glaring. 14 Omen, Re-enter

for fate.

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The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: With Explanatory Notes ..., Volume 2