Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Act 5 - Scene 3

A churchyard; in it a tomb belonging to the Capulets.

Paris : Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof: [p]Yet put it out, for
I would not be seen. [p]Under yond yew-trees lay thee all
along, [p]Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground; [p]So shall no
foot upon the churchyard tread, [p]Being loose, unfirm, with digging
up of graves, [p]But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me, [p]As
signal that thou hear'st something approach. [p]Give me those flowers.
Do as I bid thee, go.

Page : [Aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone [p]Here in the churchyard;
yet I will adventure.

Paris : Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,-- [p]O woe! thy
canopy is dust and stones;-- [p]Which with sweet water nightly I will
dew, [p]Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans: [p]The
obsequies that I for thee will keep [p]Nightly shall be to strew thy
grave and weep. [p][The Page whistles] [p]The boy gives warning
something doth approach. [p]What cursed foot wanders this way
to-night, [p]To cross my obsequies and true love's rite? [p]What with
a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.

Romeo : Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron. [p]Hold, take this
letter; early in the morning [p]See thou deliver it to my lord and
father. [p]Give me the light: upon thy life, I charge
thee, [p]Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof, [p]And do
not interrupt me in my course. [p]Why I descend into this bed of
death, [p]Is partly to behold my lady's face; [p]But chiefly to take
thence from her dead finger [p]A precious ring, a ring that I must
use [p]In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone: [p]But if thou,
jealous, dost return to pry [p]In what I further shall intend to
do, [p]By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint [p]And strew this
hungry churchyard with thy limbs: [p]The time and my intents are
savage-wild, [p]More fierce and more inexorable far [p]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: [p]Live, and be
prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.

Balthasar : [Aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout: [p]His looks I
fear, and his intents I doubt.

Romeo : Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, [p]Gorged with the dearest
morsel of the earth, [p]Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to
open, [p]And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!

Paris : This is that banish'd haughty Montague, [p]That murder'd my love's
cousin, with which grief, [p]It is supposed, the fair creature
died; [p]And here is come to do some villanous shame [p]To the dead
bodies: I will apprehend him. [p][Comes forward] [p]Stop thy
unhallow'd toil, vile Montague! [p]Can vengeance be pursued further
than death? [p]Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee: [p]Obey, and go
with me; for thou must die.

Romeo : I must indeed; and therefore came I hither. [p]Good gentle youth,
tempt not a desperate man; [p]Fly hence, and leave me: think upon
these gone; [p]Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth, [p]Put
not another sin upon my head, [p]By urging me to fury: O, be
gone! [p]By heaven, I love thee better than myself; [p]For I come
hither arm'd against myself: [p]Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter
say, [p]A madman's mercy bade thee run away.

Paris : I do defy thy conjurations, [p]And apprehend thee for a felon here.

Romeo : Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!

Page : O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

Paris : O, I am slain! [p][Falls] [p]If thou be merciful, [p]Open the tomb,
lay me with Juliet.

Romeo : In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face. [p]Mercutio's kinsman,
noble County Paris! [p]What said my man, when my betossed soul [p]Did
not attend him as we rode? I think [p]He told me Paris should have
married Juliet: [p]Said he not so? or did I dream it so? [p]Or am I
mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, [p]To think it was so? O, give me thy
hand, [p]One writ with me in sour misfortune's book! [p]I'll bury thee
in a triumphant grave; [p]A grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd
youth, [p]For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes [p]This vault a
feasting presence full of light. [p]Death, lie thou there, by a dead
man interr'd. [p][Laying PARIS in the tomb] [p]How oft when men are at
the point of death [p]Have they been merry! which their keepers
call [p]A lightning before death: O, how may I [p]Call this a
lightning? O my love! my wife! [p]Death, that hath suck'd the honey of
thy breath, [p]Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: [p]Thou art not
conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet [p]Is crimson in thy lips and in thy
cheeks, [p]And death's pale flag is not advanced there. [p]Tybalt,
liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? [p]O, what more favour can I do
to thee, [p]Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain [p]To
sunder his that was thine enemy? [p]Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear
Juliet, [p]Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe [p]That
unsubstantial death is amorous, [p]And that the lean abhorred monster
keeps [p]Thee here in dark to be his paramour? [p]For fear of that, I
still will stay with thee; [p]And never from this palace of dim
night [p]Depart again: here, here will I remain [p]With worms that are
thy chamber-maids; O, here [p]Will I set up my everlasting
rest, [p]And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars [p]From this
world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! [p]Arms, take your last
embrace! and, lips, O you [p]The doors of breath, seal with a
righteous kiss [p]A dateless bargain to engrossing death! [p]Come,
bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide! [p]Thou desperate pilot, now at
once run on [p]The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! [p]Here's to
my love! [p][Drinks] [p]O true apothecary! [p]Thy drugs are quick.
Thus with a kiss I die. [p][Dies] [p][Enter, at the other end of the
churchyard, FRIAR] [p]LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade]

Friar Laurence : Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night [p]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, [p]What torch is yond,
that vainly lends his light [p]To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I
discern, [p]It burneth in the Capel's monument.

Balthasar : It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, [p]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 [p]My master knows not but I am gone hence; [p]And
fearfully did menace me with death, [p]If I did stay to look on his
intents.

Friar Laurence : Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me: [p]O, much I fear some
ill unlucky thing.

Balthasar : As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, [p]I dreamt my master and
another fought, [p]And that my master slew him.

Friar Laurence : Romeo! [p][Advances] [p]Alack, alack, what blood is this, which
stains [p]The stony entrance of this sepulchre? [p]What mean these
masterless and gory swords [p]To lie discolour'd by this place of
peace? [p][Enters the tomb] [p]Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris
too? [p]And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour [p]Is guilty of
this lamentable chance! [p]The lady stirs.

Juliet : O comfortable friar! where is my lord? [p]I do remember well where I
should be, [p]And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

Friar Laurence : I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest [p]Of death, contagion,
and unnatural sleep: [p]A greater power than we can contradict [p]Hath
thwarted our intents. Come, come away. [p]Thy husband in thy bosom
there lies dead; [p]And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee [p]Among
a sisterhood of holy nuns: [p]Stay not to question, for the watch is
coming; [p]Come, go, good Juliet, [p][Noise again] [p]I dare no longer
stay.

Juliet : Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. [p][Exit FRIAR
LAURENCE] [p]What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's
hand? [p]Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end: [p]O churl! drunk
all, and left no friendly drop [p]To help me after? I will kiss thy
lips; [p]Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, [p]To make die with
a restorative. [p][Kisses him] [p]Thy lips are warm.

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

Juliet : Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger! [p][Snatching ROMEO's
dagger] [p]This is thy sheath; [p][Stabs herself] [p]there rust, and
let me die.

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

First Watchman : The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard: [p]Go, some of you,
whoe'er you find attach. [p]Pitiful sight! here lies the county
slain, [p]And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead, [p]Who here hath
lain these two days buried. [p]Go, tell the prince: run to the
Capulets: [p]Raise up the Montagues: some others search: [p]We see the
ground whereon these woes do lie; [p]But the true ground of all these
piteous woes [p]We cannot without circumstance descry.

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

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

Third Watchman : Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs and weeps: [p]We took this
mattock and this spade from him, [p]As he was coming from this
churchyard side.

First Watchman : A great suspicion: stay the friar too.

Prince Escalus : What misadventure is so early up, [p]That calls our person from our
morning's rest?

Capulet : What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

Lady Capulet : The people in the street cry Romeo, [p]Some Juliet, and some Paris;
and all run, [p]With open outcry toward our monument.

Prince Escalus : What fear is this which startles in our ears?

First Watchman : Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain; [p]And Romeo dead; and
Juliet, dead before, [p]Warm and new kill'd.

Prince Escalus : Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

First Watchman : Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man; [p]With instruments upon
them, fit to open [p]These dead men's tombs.

Capulet : O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds! [p]This dagger hath
mista'en--for, lo, his house [p]Is empty on the back of
Montague,-- [p]And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom!

Lady Capulet : O me! this sight of death is as a bell, [p]That warns my old age to a
sepulchre.

Prince Escalus : Come, Montague; for thou art early up, [p]To see thy son and heir more
early down.

Montague : Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; [p]Grief of my son's exile
hath stopp'd her breath: [p]What further woe conspires against mine
age?

Prince Escalus : Look, and thou shalt see.

Montague : O thou untaught! what manners is in this? [p]To press before thy
father to a grave?

Prince Escalus : Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, [p]Till we can clear these
ambiguities, [p]And know their spring, their head, their [p]true
descent; [p]And then will I be general of your woes, [p]And lead you
even to death: meantime forbear, [p]And let mischance be slave to
patience. [p]Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Friar Laurence : I am the greatest, able to do least, [p]Yet most suspected, as the
time and place [p]Doth make against me of this direful murder; [p]And
here I stand, both to impeach and purge [p]Myself condemned and myself
excused.

Prince Escalus : Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

Friar Laurence : I will be brief, for my short date of breath [p]Is not so long as is a
tedious tale. [p]Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet; [p]And
she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife: [p]I married them; and
their stol'n marriage-day [p]Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely
death [p]Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city, [p]For whom,
and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined. [p]You, to remove that siege of
grief from her, [p]Betroth'd and would have married her perforce [p]To
County Paris: then comes she to me, [p]And, with wild looks, bid me
devise some mean [p]To rid her from this second marriage, [p]Or in my
cell there would she kill herself. [p]Then gave I her, so tutor'd by
my art, [p]A sleeping potion; which so took effect [p]As I intended,
for it wrought on her [p]The form of death: meantime I writ to
Romeo, [p]That he should hither come as this dire night, [p]To help to
take her from her borrow'd grave, [p]Being the time the potion's force
should cease. [p]But he which bore my letter, Friar John, [p]Was
stay'd by accident, and yesternight [p]Return'd my letter back. Then
all alone [p]At the prefixed hour of her waking, [p]Came I to take her
from her kindred's vault; [p]Meaning to keep her closely at my
cell, [p]Till I conveniently could send to Romeo: [p]But when I came,
some minute ere the time [p]Of her awaking, here untimely lay [p]The
noble Paris and true Romeo dead. [p]She wakes; and I entreated her
come forth, [p]And bear this work of heaven with patience: [p]But then
a noise did scare me from the tomb; [p]And she, too desperate, would
not go with me, [p]But, as it seems, did violence on herself. [p]All
this I know; and to the marriage [p]Her nurse is privy: and, if aught
in this [p]Miscarried by my fault, let my old life [p]Be sacrificed,
some hour before his time, [p]Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince Escalus : We still have known thee for a holy man. [p]Where's Romeo's man? what
can he say in this?

Balthasar : I brought my master news of Juliet's death; [p]And then in post he
came from Mantua [p]To this same place, to this same monument. [p]This
letter he early bid me give his father, [p]And threatened me with
death, going in the vault, [p]I departed not and left him there.

Prince Escalus : Give me the letter; I will look on it. [p]Where is the county's page,
that raised the watch? [p]Sirrah, what made your master in this
place?

Page : He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave; [p]And bid me stand
aloof, and so I did: [p]Anon comes one with light to ope the
tomb; [p]And by and by my master drew on him; [p]And then I ran away
to call the watch.

Prince Escalus : This letter doth make good the friar's words, [p]Their course of love,
the tidings of her death: [p]And here he writes that he did buy a
poison [p]Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal [p]Came to this vault
to die, and lie with Juliet. [p]Where be these enemies? Capulet!
Montague! [p]See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, [p]That
heaven finds means to kill your joys with love. [p]And I for winking
at your discords too [p]Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are
punish'd.

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

Montague : But I can give thee more: [p]For I will raise her statue in pure
gold; [p]That while Verona by that name is known, [p]There shall no
figure at such rate be set [p]As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Capulet : As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie; [p]Poor sacrifices of our
enmity!

Prince Escalus : A glooming peace this morning with it brings; [p]The sun, for sorrow,
will not show his head: [p]Go hence, to have more talk of these sad
things; [p]Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: [p]For never was
a story of more woe [p]Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

Previous: Act 5 - Scene 2

Next: Act 5 - Scene 3

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