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Enter the PRINCE and Attendants |
| Prince |
What misadventure is so early up, |
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That calls our person from our morning's rest? |
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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, |
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Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run, |
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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; |
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And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, |
| Prince |
Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes. |
| FIRST WATCHMAN |
Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man; |
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With instruments upon them, fit to open |
| Capulet |
O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds! |
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This dagger hath mista'en--for, lo, his house |
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Is empty on the back of Montague,-- |
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And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom! |
| Lady Capulet |
O me! this sight of death is as a bell, |
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That warns my old age to a sepulchre. |
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Enter MONTAGUE and others |
| Prince |
Come, Montague; for thou art early up, |
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To see thy son and heir more early down. |
| Montague |
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; |
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Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath: |
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What further woe conspires against mine age? |
| Prince |
Look, and thou shalt see. |
| Montague |
O thou untaught! what manners is in this? |
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To press before thy father to a grave? |
| Prince |
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, |
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Till we can clear these ambiguities, |
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And know their spring, their head, their |
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And then will I be general of your woes, |
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And lead you even to death: meantime forbear, |
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And let mischance be slave to patience. |
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Bring forth the parties of suspicion. |
| Friar Lawrence |
I am the greatest, able to do least, |
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Yet most suspected, as the time and place |
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Doth make against me of this direful murder; |
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And here I stand, both to impeach and purge |
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Myself condemned and myself excused. |
| Prince |
Then say at once what thou dost know in this. |
| Friar Lawrence |
I will be brief, for my short date of breath |
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Is not so long as is a tedious tale. |
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Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet; |
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And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife: |
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I married them; and their stol'n marriage-day |
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Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death |
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Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city, |
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For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined. |
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You, to remove that siege of grief from her, |
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Betroth'd and would have married her perforce |
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To County Paris: then comes she to me, |
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And, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean |
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To rid her from this second marriage, |
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Or in my cell there would she kill herself. |
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Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art, |
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A sleeping potion; which so took effect |
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As I intended, for it wrought on her |
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The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo, |
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That he should hither come as this dire night, |
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To help to take her from her borrow'd grave, |
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Being the time the potion's force should cease. |
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But he which bore my letter, Friar John, |
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Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight |
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Return'd my letter back. Then all alone |
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At the prefixed hour of her waking, |
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Came I to take her from her kindred's vault; |
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Meaning to keep her closely at my cell, |
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Till I conveniently could send to Romeo: |
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But when I came, some minute ere the time |
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Of her awaking, here untimely lay |
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The noble Paris and true Romeo dead. |
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She wakes; and I entreated her come forth, |
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And bear this work of heaven with patience: |
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But then a noise did scare me from the tomb; |
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And she, too desperate, would not go with me, |
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But, as it seems, did violence on herself. |
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All this I know; and to the marriage |
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Her nurse is privy: and, if aught in this |
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Miscarried by my fault, let my old life |
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Be sacrificed, some hour before his time, |
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Unto the rigour of severest law. |
| Prince |
We still have known thee for a holy man. |
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Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this? |
| Balthasar |
I brought my master news of Juliet's death; |
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And then in post he came from Mantua |
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To this same place, to this same monument. |
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This letter he early bid me give his father, |
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And threatened me with death, going in the vault, |
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I departed not and left him there. |
| Prince |
Give me the letter; I will look on it. |
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Where is the county's page, that raised the watch? |
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Sirrah, what made your master in this place? |
| Page |
He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave; |
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And bid me stand aloof, and so I did: |
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Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb; |
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And by and by my master drew on him; |
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And then I ran away to call the watch. |
| Prince |
This letter doth make good the friar's words, |
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Their course of love, the tidings of her death: |
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And here he writes that he did buy a poison |
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Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal |
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Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. |
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Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague! |
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See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, |
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That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love. |
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And I for winking at your discords too |
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Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd. |
| Capulet |
O brother Montague, give me thy hand: |
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This is my daughter's jointure, for no more |
| Montague |
But I can give thee more: |
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For I will raise her statue in pure gold; |
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That while Verona by that name is known, |
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There shall no figure at such rate be set |
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As that of true and faithful Juliet. |
| Capulet |
As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie; |
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Poor sacrifices of our enmity! |
| Prince |
A glooming peace this morning with it brings; |
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The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: |
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Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; |
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Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: |
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For never was a story of more woe |
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Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. |
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