Act V, Scene III

      ROMEO
    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!
    I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;
    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? O my love! my wife!
    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.
    Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
    O, what more favor 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! Ah, dear Juliet,
    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. Here, here will I remain
    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!

           [Kisses Juliet. Takes out the cup of poison.]

    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 my love!

           [Drinks.] 

    O true apothecary!
    Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

           [Dies.]

           Enter FRIAR [LAURENCE] with a lanthorn,
           crow, and spade.

      FRIAR LAURENCE
    Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
    Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?

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

      FRIAR LAURENCE
    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 LAURENCE
     Who is it?

      BALTHASAR
   Romeo.

      FRIAR LAURENCE
   How long hath he been there?

      BALTHASAR 

   Full half an hour.

      FRIAR LAURENCE
   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 LAURENCE
   Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:
    O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.

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

      FRIAR LAURENCE
  Romeo!

           [Advances to the tomb.]

   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?

           [Enters the 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 wakes.]

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

           [Noise within.]

      FRIAR LAURENCE
   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.

           Exit [FRIAR LAURENCE].

      JULIET
   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! drunk all, and left 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.

      First Watch  [Within]
   Lead, boy: which way?

      JULIET
   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 [Paris'] BOY and WATCH.

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

      First Watch
   The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:
   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 others.]

   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] Romeo's man
           [BALTHASAR].

      Second Watch
   Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.

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

           Enter FRIAR [LAURENCE] and another
           WATCHMAN.

      Third 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 churchyard side.

      First 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 Capels [CAPULET, LADY CAPULET].

      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 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.

      First Watch
   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 sepulcher.

           Enter MONTAGUE.

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

      MONTAGUE
   Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight;
   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.
   Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

      FRIAR LAURENCE
   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.

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

      FRIAR LAURENCE
   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 doomsday, 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,
   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 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,
   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 raised the watch?
   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;
   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,
   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.
   Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
   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.

      CAPULET
   O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
   This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
   Can I demand.

      MONTAGUE
   But I can give thee more,
   For I will ray 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.

      CAPULET
   As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;
   Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

      PRINCE
    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.]