for Scholars:
for Everyone Else:
belonging to the Capulets.
Enter PARIS, and his Page
bearing flowers and a torch
PARIS
Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
ACT V, Scene Three
It is night, and this scene takes place in the local cemetery. If that is not spooky enough, the first person we see is—Paris. Surprised? I’ll bet you forgot about him. I’ll bet the audience forgot about him. I’ll bet everyone forgot about him, except of course, Shakespeare, who can always find a way to prolong his plays. Paris is with his servant, who is called "the Page." Paris tells this flunky to go and hide in the woods, and play “lookout.”
[Aside]
I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--
O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
The Page whistles
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?
What with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.
Retires
with a torch, mattock, &c.
ROMEO
Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,
Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is partly to behold my lady's face;
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild,
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
BALTHASAR
I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
ROMEO
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that:
Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.
[Aside]
For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout:
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
Retires
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!
Opens the tomb
PARIS
This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
It is supposed, the fair creature died;
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.
Comes forward
Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury: O, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
PARIS
Romeo pleads with this stranger to run away, and tries to warn the guy that he is willing to kill, if he must.
And apprehend thee for a felon here.
ROMEO
Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!
O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.
(Page exits.)
O, I am slain!
(Paris falls.)
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
(Paris dies.)
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet:
Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
A grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.
(Laying PARIS in the tomb.)
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death: O, how may I
Call this a lightning?
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin!
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
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 still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again;
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love!
(He drinks.)
O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
(He dies.)
He kisses Juliet’s lips, and drinks. He falls. He dies.
FRIAR LAWRENCE, with a lantern,
crow, and spade
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?
Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
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 Capel's monument.
BALTHASAR
It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,
One that you love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Who is it?
BALTHASAR
Romeo.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
How long hath he been there?
BALTHASAR
Full half an hour.
Go with me to the vault.
BALTHASAR
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.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.
As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.
Romeo!
(Friar advances.)
Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?
Vocabulary help: the word "sepulchre" means "tomb."
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?
And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
The lady stirs.
JULIET
O comfortable friar! where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
FRIAR LAWRENCE
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
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 no longer stay.
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after?
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative.
(She kisses him.)
Thy lips are warm.
[Within]
Lead, boy: which way?
Yea, noise? then I'll be brief.
Juliet sees this knife.
(Snatching ROMEO's dagger.)
This is thy sheath;
(She stabs herself.)
Vocabulary lesson: a "sheath" is a sort of a holster for a knife.
(She falls on ROMEO's body, and dies.)
Page of PARIS
PAGE
This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.
The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:
Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.
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:
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.
Watch, with BALTHASAR
Second Watchman
Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.
FIRST WATCHMAN
Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither.
with FRIAR LAWRENCE
Third Watchman
Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs and weeps:
We took this mattock and this spade from him,
As he was coming from this churchyard side.
FIRST WATCHMAN
A great suspicion: stay the friar too.
PRINCE
What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning's rest?
Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and others
CAPULET
What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?
LADY CAPULET
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?
FIRST WATCHMAN
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.
FIRST WATCHMAN
Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;
With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.
CAPULET
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 it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom!
LADY CAPULET
O me! this sight of death is as a bell,
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
PRINCE
Come, Montague; for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.
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 mine age?
PRINCE
Look, and thou shalt see.
MONTAGUE
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: meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
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 excused.
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
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 stol'n marriage-day
Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth'd and would have married her perforce
To County Paris: then comes she to me,
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
The Prince listens with patience (more than we have),
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 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
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:
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:
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
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
PRINCE
We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?
BALTHASAR
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.
This letter he early bid me give his father,
And threatened me with death, going in the vault,
I departed not and left him there.
Give me the letter; I will look on it.
Where is the county's page, that raised the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
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;
And by and by my master drew on him;
And then I ran away to call the watch.
This letter doth make good the friar's words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
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.
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.
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
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show 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
The audience applauds and expresses their sincere appreciation. They are happy, as are we, that the play has finally come to an end.