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Home > Romeo and Juliet > ACT III - SCENE III. Friar Laurence's cell.

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ACT III - SCENE III. Friar Laurence's cell.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE

FRIAR LAURENCE
1    Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:
2    Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
3    And thou art wedded to calamity.
Enter ROMEO

ROMEO
4    Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?
5    What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
6    That I yet know not?
FRIAR LAURENCE
7    Too familiar
8    Is my dear son with such sour company:
9    I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.
ROMEO
10   What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?
FRIAR LAURENCE
11   A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,
12   Not body's death, but body's banishment.
ROMEO
13   Ha, banishment! be merciful, say 'death;'
14   For exile hath more terror in his look,
15   Much more than death: do not say 'banishment.'
FRIAR LAURENCE
16   Hence from Verona art thou banished:
17   Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
ROMEO
18   There is no world without Verona walls,
19   But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
20   Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
21   And world's exile is death: then banished,
22   Is death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,
23   Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,
24   And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
FRIAR LAURENCE
25   O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!
26   Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
27   Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
28   And turn'd that black word death to banishment:
29   This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.
ROMEO
30   'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
31   Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
32   And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
33   Live here in heaven and may look on her;
34   But Romeo may not: more validity,
35   More honourable state, more courtship lives
36   In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize
37   On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand
38   And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
39   Who even in pure and vestal modesty,
40   Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
41   But Romeo may not; he is banished:
42   Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
43   They are free men, but I am banished.
44   And say'st thou yet that exile is not death?
45   Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,
46   No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
47   But 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'?
48   O friar, the damned use that word in hell;
49   Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,
50   Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
51   A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
52   To mangle me with that word 'banished'?
FRIAR LAURENCE
53   Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.
ROMEO
54   O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAURENCE
55   I'll give thee armour to keep off that word:
56   Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
57   To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
ROMEO
58   Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!
59   Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
60   Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
61   It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
FRIAR LAURENCE
62   O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
ROMEO
63   How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
FRIAR LAURENCE
64   Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO
65   Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
66   Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
67   An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
68   Doting like me and like me banished,
69   Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
70   And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
71   Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
Knocking within

FRIAR LAURENCE
72   Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.
ROMEO
73   Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,
74   Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.
Knocking

FRIAR LAURENCE
75   Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;
76   Thou wilt be taken. Stay awhile! Stand up;
Knocking
77   Run to my study. By and by! God's will,
78   What simpleness is this! I come, I come!
Knocking
79   Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?
Nurse
Within
80    Let me come in, and you shall know
81   my errand;
82   I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAURENCE
83   Welcome, then.
Enter Nurse

Nurse
84   O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,
85   Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?
FRIAR LAURENCE
86   There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
Nurse
87   O, he is even in my mistress' case,
88   Just in her case! O woful sympathy!
89   Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
90   Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
91   Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man:
92   For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
93   Why should you fall into so deep an O?
ROMEO
94   Nurse!
Nurse
95   Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.
ROMEO
96   Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?
97   Doth she not think me an old murderer,
98   Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy
99   With blood removed but little from her own?
100  Where is she? and how doth she? and what says
101  My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?
Nurse
102  O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
103  And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
104  And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
105  And then down falls again.
ROMEO
106  As if that name,
107  Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
108  Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand
109  Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,
110  In what vile part of this anatomy
111  Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
112  The hateful mansion.
Drawing his sword

FRIAR LAURENCE
113  Hold thy desperate hand:
114  Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:
115  Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
116  The unreasonable fury of a beast:
117  Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
118  Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
119  Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,
120  I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
121  Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
122  And stay thy lady too that lives in thee,
123  By doing damned hate upon thyself?
124  Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?
125  Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet
126  In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
127  Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
128  Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,
129  And usest none in that true use indeed
130  Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
131  Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
132  Digressing from the valour of a man;
133  Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
134  Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
135  Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
136  Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
137  Like powder in a skitless soldier's flask,
138  Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
139  And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.
140  What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
141  For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
142  There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
143  But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
144  The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
145  And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
146  A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
147  Happiness courts thee in her best array;
148  But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
149  Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
150  Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
151  Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
152  Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
153  But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
154  For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
155  Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
156  To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
157  Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
158  With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
159  Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
160  Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
161  And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
162  Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:
163  Romeo is coming.
Nurse
164  O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night
165  To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!
166  My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.
ROMEO
167  Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
Nurse
168  Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:
169  Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
Exit

ROMEO
170  How well my comfort is revived by this!
FRIAR LAURENCE
171  Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:
172  Either be gone before the watch be set,
173  Or by the break of day disguised from hence:
174  Sojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,
175  And he shall signify from time to time
176  Every good hap to you that chances here:
177  Give me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.
ROMEO
178  But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
179  It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell.
Exeunt

< (Previous) ACT III, SCENE IIACT III, IV (Next) >
Scene Index
ACT I
  • PROLOGUE
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V


  • ACT II
  • PROLOGUE
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V
  • SCENE VI


  • ACT III
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V


  • ACT IV
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III
  • SCENE IV
  • SCENE V


  • ACT V
  • SCENE I
  • SCENE II
  • SCENE III

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