ROMEO AND JULIET
Page: 67

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.

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

Lady Capulet.
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.

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

Prince.
Look, and thou shalt see.

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

Friar.
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 condemned and myself excus'd.

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

Friar.
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 stol'n 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.