Juliet

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a waggoner

As Phaethon would whip you to the west,

And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaways' eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen.

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites

By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,

It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,

And learn me how to lose a winning match,

Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:

Hood my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks,

With thy black mantle; till strange love, grow bold,

Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-browed night,

Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

O, I have bought the mansion of a love,

But not possessed it, and, though I am sold,

Not yet enjoyed: so tedious is this day

As is the night before some festival

To an impatient child that hath new robes

And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,

And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks

But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence. Enter Nurse, with cords.

Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords

That Romeo bid thee fetch?

Nurse to Juliet

Ay, ay, the cords. Throws them down.

Juliet

Ay me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?

Nurse to Juliet

Ah, weraday! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!

We are undone, lady, we are undone!

Alack the day! he's gone, he's killed, he's dead!

Juliet

Can heaven be so envious?

Nurse to Juliet

Romeo can,

Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!

Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

Juliet

What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?

This torture should be roared in dismal hell.

Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but “ay,”

And that bare vowel “I” shall poison more

Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:

I am not I, if there be such an ay;

Or those eyes shut, that makes thee answer “ay.”

If he be slain, say “Ay”; or if not, no:

Brief sounds determine my weal or woe,

Nurse to Juliet

I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes, —

God save the mark! — here on his manly breast:

A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;

Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,

All in gore blood; I swounded at the sight.

Juliet

O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!

To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!

Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;

And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!

Nurse to Juliet

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 slaughtered, and is Tybalt dead?

My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?

Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!

For who is living if those two are gone?

Nurse to Juliet

Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;

Romeo that killed him, he is banished.

Juliet

O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

Nurse to Juliet

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-feathered 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 to Juliet

There's no trust,

No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,

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

Blistered be thy tongue

For such a wish! he was not born to shame:

Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;

For 'tis a throne where honour may be crowned

Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Nurse to Juliet

Will you speak well of him that killed 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 killed 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 murdered 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 ranked with other griefs,

Why followed not, when she said “Tybalt's dead,”

Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,

Which modern lamentation might have moved?

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 to Juliet

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 beguiled,

Both you and I; for Romeo is exiled:

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 to Juliet

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 Laurence' cell.

Juliet

O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,

And bid him come to take his last farewell. Exeunt.