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 grown 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 on 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.

Enter the Nurse, ⌈wringing her hands,⌉ with the ladder of cords ⌈in her lap⌉

O, here comes my Nurse,

And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks

But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.

Now, Nurse, what news ? What, hast thou there

The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?

NURSE ⌈putting down the cords⌉ Ay, ay, the cords.

JULIET

Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?

NURSE

Ah, welladay! 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 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 of my weal or woe.

NURSE

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

God save the mark, here on his manly breast—

A piteous corpse, a bloody, piteous corpse—

Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,

All in gore blood; I swooned 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

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

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⌉

It did, it did, alas the day, it did.

⌈JULIET⌉

O serpent heart hid with a flow‘ring face!

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical!

Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!

Despisèd substance of divinest show!

Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st—

A damnèd 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

There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men;

All perjured, all forsworn, all naught, dissemblers all.

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

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!