Complete Plays, The (25 page)
Read Complete Plays, The Online
Authors: William Shakespeare
Re-enter some of the 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.
Re-enter others of the Watch, with Friar Laurence
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.
Enter the Prince and Attendants
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.
Enter Montague and others
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 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.
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 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,
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,
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 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.
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
The Life and Death of Julius Caesar
T
ABLE
OF
C
ONTENTS
S
CENE
I. R
OME
. B
RUTUS
’
S
ORCHARD
.
S
CENE
III. A
STREET
NEAR
THE
C
APITOL
.
S
CENE
IV. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
SAME
STREET
,
BEFORE
THE
HOUSE
OF
B
RUTUS
.
S
CENE
I. R
OME
. B
EFORE
THE
C
APITOL
;
THE
S
ENATE
SITTING
ABOVE
.
S
CENE
II. C
AMP
NEAR
S
ARDIS
. B
EFORE
B
RUTUS
’
S
TENT
.
S
CENE
II. T
HE
SAME
. T
HE
FIELD
OF
BATTLE
.
S
CENE
III. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
FIELD
.
S
CENE
IV. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
FIELD
.
S
CENE
V. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
FIELD
.
C
HARACTERS
OF
THE
P
LAY
Julius Caesar
, Roman statesman and general.
Octavius
, Triumvir after Caesar's death, later Augustus Caesar, first emperor of Rome.
Mark Antony
, general and friend of Caesar, a Triumvir after his death.
Lepidus
, third member of the Triumvirate.
Marcus Brutus
, leader of the conspiracy against Caesar.
Cassius
, instigator of the conspiracy.
Casca
,
Trebonius
,
Ligarius
,
Decius Brutus
,
Metellus Cimber
,
Cinna
, conspirators against Caesar.
Calpurnia
, wife of Caesar.
Portia
, wife of Brutus.
Cicero
,
Popilius
, senators.
Flavius
,
Marullus
, tribunes.
Cato
,
Lucilius
,
Titinius
,
Messala
,
Volumnius
, supportors of Brutus.
Artemidorus
, a teacher of rhetoric.
Cinna The Poet
.
Varro
,
Clitus
,
Claudius
,
Strato
,
Lucius
,
Dardanius
, servants to Brutus.
Pindarus
, servant to Cassius.
The
Ghost
of Caesar.
A
Soothsayer
.
A
Poet
.
Senators, Citizens, Soldiers, Commoners, Messengers, and Servants
Scene: Rome, the conspirators' camp near Sardis, and the plains of Philippi.
A
CT
I
S
CENE
I. R
OME
. A
STREET
.
Enter Flavius, Marullus, and certain Commoners
Flavius
Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:
Is this a holiday? what! know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?
First Commoner
Why, sir, a carpenter.
Marullus
Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir, what trade are you?
