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With funeral praises do adorn thy tomb!

[The boy whistles.
The boy gives warning, something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies, and true-love's rites?
What, with a torch! muffle me, night, a while.

[Retires.

Enter Romeo and Balthazar, with a torch, mattock, &c.

Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching
iron.

Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light: Upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is, partly, to behold my lady's face:
But, chiefly, to take hence from her dead finger
A precious ring; a ring that I must use

In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone :-
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry church-yard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce, and more inexorable far,
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.

Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship.-Take

thou that:

Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.
Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout;
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires.
Rom. Thou détestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the door of the monument.
And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food.
Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
That murder'd my love's cousin ;-with which grief,
It is supposed the fair creature died ;—
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.-

[Advances.

Stop, thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague;
Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Rom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man,
Fly hence and leave me;-think upon these gone ;
Let them affright thee.-I beseech thee, youth,
Heap not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury:-0, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself:
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, begone;-live, and hereafter say-
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,"
And do attach thee as a felon here.

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee,
boy.
[They fight.
Page. O lord! they fight: I will go call the
watch.
[Exit Page.
Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.]-If thou be mer-
ciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

(1) i e. Action of importance.

Rom. 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?
To think it was so?-0, give me thy hand,
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
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 monument.
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry? which their keepers call
A lightning before death: 0, 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 favour 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 will still stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again; here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids; 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!-
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.

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[Dies.

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(2) I do refuse to do as thou conjurest me to do, illuminated.

i. e. depart.

VOL. II.

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

Bal.

Full half an hour.

Fri. Go with me to the vault. Bal.

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.

Enter another Watchman, with Friar Laurence.
3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs,
and weeps:

Fri. Stay then, I'll go alone :-Fear comes upon We took this mattock and this spade from him,

me:

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,

I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

Fri.
Romeo! [Advances.
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 monument. 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 and stirs. Jul. 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. Fri. 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
stay no longer.

[Exit.
Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
What's here? a cap, clos'd in my true-love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end ;—
O churi! drink all? and leave 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.
Thy lips are warm!

[Kisses him.

Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:-Which way? Jul. 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 Watch, with the Page of Paris. Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.

1 Watch. The ground is bloody; Search about the church-yard:

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 bath lain these two days buried.Go, tell the prince,-run to the Capulets,Raise up the Montagues,-some others search;[Exeunt the other Watchmen. 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 Balthasar. 2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man, we found him in the church-yard.

(1) 1. e. The scabbard. (2) Seat.

As he was coming from this church-yard side. 1 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 Capulet, Lady Capulet, and others. Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

La. Cap. 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?

1 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.

1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man;

With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Cap. 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 is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.
La. Cap. 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.

Mon. Álas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath: What further wo conspires against mine age? Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.

Mon. 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 de-
scent;

And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death: Mean time forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.-
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. 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 condemn'd and myself accus'd.

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know

in this.

Fri. 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 stolen marriage-day
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.
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 means
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 at 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 staid 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 awakening,) 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 sacrific'd, 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?
Bal. 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 threaten'd me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

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This play is one of the most pleasing of our author's performances. The scenes are busy and various, incidents numerous and important, the catastrophe irresistibly affecting, and the process of the action carried on with such probability, at least with such congruity to popular opinions, as tragedy requires.

Here is one of the few attempts of Shakspeare to exhibit the conversation of gentlemen, to repre sent the airy sprightliness of juvenile elegance. Mr. Dryden mentions a tradition, which might easily reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakspeare, that he was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third Act, lest he should have been killed by him. Yet he thinks him no such formidable person, but that he might have lived through the play, and died in his bed, without danger to the poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in quest of truth, in a pointed sentence, that more regard is commonly had to the words than the thought, and that it is very seldom to be rigorously understood. Mercu

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it.— Where is the county's page, that rais'd the watch?-tio's wit, gaiety, and courage, will always procure

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,

him friends that wish him a longer life; but his death is not precipitated, he has lived out the time allotted him in the construction of the play; nor do I doubt the ability of Shakspeare to have continued his existence, though some of his sallies are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden; whose genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute, argumentative, comprehensive, and sublime.

The Nurse is one of the characters in which the author delighted: he has, with great subtilty of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and disho

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!—nest.
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.
Cap. O, brother Montague, give me thy hand:
(1) Mercutio and Paris.

His comic scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetic strains are always polluted with some unexpected depravations. His persons, however distressed, have a conceit left them in their misery, a miserable conceit.

JOHNSON.

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Claudius, king of Denmark.

Francisco, a soldier.

Hamlet, son to the former king, and nephew to the Reynaldo, servant to Polonius.

Laertes, son to Polonius.

present king.

Polonius, lord chamberlain.

Horatio, friend to Hamlet.

Voltimand,

Cornelius,

Rosencrantz,

Guildenstern,

Another Courtier.

courtiers.

Osric, a courtier.

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A Captain. An Ambassador.
Ghost of Hamlet's father.

Fortinbras, prince of Norway.

Gertrude, queen of Denmark, and mother of
Hamlet.

Ophelia, daughter of Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Grace diggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Atendants.

Scene, Elsinore.

ACT I.

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Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again tonight?

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us;
Therefore I have entreated him, along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;

Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold That, if again this apparition come,

Ber. Long live the king!
Fran.

Ber.

Bernardo ?

He.

Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.
Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed,

Francisco.

Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

Ber. Have you had quiet guard?
Fran.

Ber. Well, good night.

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And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Well, sit we down,
Ber. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the
pole,

Not a mouse stirring. Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one,-

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals' of my watch, bid them make haste.
Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

Fran. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who
is there?

And liegemen to the Dane.

Hor. Friends to this ground.
Mar.
Fran. Give you good night.
Mar.

O, farewell, honest soldier:

Who hath reliev'd you?
Fran. Bernardo hath my place.
Give you good night.

Mar.

Ber.

What, is Horatio there?

Hor.

[Exit Francisco. Holla! Bernardo!

Say,

A piece of him.

(1) Partners.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.

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Ber.
See! it stalks away.
Her. Stay, speak: speak I charge thee, speak.
[Exit Ghost.
Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look
pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?
Hor. As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in angry parle,'
He smote the sledded2 Polack' on the ice.
'Tis strange.

Mer. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know
not;

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that
knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land;
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me ?

Hor.
That can I;
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart,
And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fontinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,"
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsatory, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage1o in the land.

[Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so:
Well may it sort," that this portentious figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.

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But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it:-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus.
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan?
Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Ber. Hor.

Mar. 'Tis gone!

'Tis here!

'Tis here! [Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring15 spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation. 16

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Hor. So I have heard, and do in part believe it. But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill: Break we our watch up; and, by my advice, Let us impart what we have seen to night Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him: Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needful in our loves, fitting our duty? Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know

(7) Full of spirit without experience. (8) Picked.

(11) Suit.

(14) Event.

(9) Resolution. (10) Search. (12) Victorious. (13) The moon. (15) Wandering. (16) Proof.

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