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Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2

Juliet learns Romeo's sentence · William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

Previously, in Act 3, Scene 1

Mercutio receives a mortal wound when Romeo intervenes in his duel with Tybalt. Enraged by Mercutio’s death, Romeo fights Tybalt and kills him. After hearing the witnesses, Prince Escalus sentences Romeo to exile from Verona.

SCENE II. A Room in Capulet’s House.

Enter Juliet.
JULIET
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a waggonerAs Phaeton would whip you to the westAnd bring in cloudy night immediately.Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,That runaway’s eyes may wink, and RomeoLeap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.Lovers can see to do their amorous ritesBy 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,Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.Hood my unmann’d blood, batingto deduct, diminish, or leave out; in the form ‘bating’, excepting. in my cheeks,With thy black mantle, till strange love, grow bold,Think true love acted simple modesty.Come, night, come Romeo; come, thou day in night;For thou wilt lie upon the wings of nightWhiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.Come gentle night, come loving black-brow’d 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 fineThat 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 possess’d it; and though I am sold,Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this dayAs is the night before some festivalTo an impatient child that hath new robesAnd may not wear them. O, here comes my Nurse,And she brings news, and every tongue that speaksBut Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.
Enter Nurse, with cords.
JULIET
Now, Nurse, what news? What hast thou there?The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?
NURSE
Ay, ay, the cords.
Throws them down.
JULIET
Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?
NURSE
Ah, well-a-day, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!We are undone, lady, we are undone.Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, 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 roar’d in dismal hell.Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but Ay,And that bare vowel I shall poison moreThan the death-darting eye of cockatricea fabulous serpent whose glance was believed to be deadly..I am not I if there be such an I;Or those eyes shut that make 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 markan exclamation seeking protection from the ill omen or offence of what has been said.!—here on his manly breast.A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.
JULIET
O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, 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 slaughter’d 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 kill’d 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 flowering face!Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!Despised substance of divinest show!Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,A damned saint, an honourable villain!O nature, what hadst thou to do in hellWhen thou didst bower the spirit of a fiendIn mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?Was ever book containing such vile matterSo fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwellIn such a gorgeous palace.
NURSE
There’s no trust,No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitaeA strong distilled alcoholic spirit..These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.Shame come to Romeo.
JULIET
Blister’d be thy tongueFor such a wish! He was not born to shame.Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’dSole monarch of the universal earth.O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
NURSE
Will you speak well of him that kill’d 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 kill’d my husband.Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,Your tributary drops belong to woe,Which you mistaking offer up to joy.My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,That murder’d me. I would forget it fain,But O, it presses to my memoryLike damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s deathWas woe enough, if it had ended there.Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,And needlynecessarily; unavoidably. will be rank’d with other griefs,Why follow’d not, when she said Tybalt’s dead,Thy father or thy mother, nay or both,Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?But with a rear-wardthe rear division of an army or procession. following Tybalt’s death,‘Romeo is banished’—to speak that wordIs father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,All slain, all dead. Romeo is banished,There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?
NURSE
Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse.Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
JULIET
Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent,When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,Both you and I; for Romeo is exil’d.He made you for a highway to my bed,But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.Come cords, come Nurse, I’ll to my wedding bed,And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.
NURSE
Hie to your chamber. I’ll find RomeoTo comfort you. I wot well where he is.Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.
JULIET
O find him, give this ring to my true knight,And bid him come to take his last farewell.
Exeunt.