Paris

Give me your torch, boy. Go stand away from me. No, put out the torch. I’d rather not been seen. Lie there under those yew trees with your ears close to the ground. That way you’ll hear if anyone comes into the churchyard or tries to dig up a grave. If you hear someone, signal me by whistling. Give me those flowers. Do as I asked you to. Go.

Page

I’m almost afraid to wait here in the churchyard, but I’ll try to be brave.

Paris

Juliet, sweet flower, I’ll spread flowers on your bridal bed. Oh woe! Your bed’s canopy is made of dust and stones.  I’ll sprinkle it with perfume every night, or in lieu of scent, I’ll sprinkle it with my own tears distilled from my sadness. I’ll keep an observance for you every night, sprinkling your grave with perfume and weeping here.

The boy gave the signal that something’s coming. Who could possibly be wandering here tonight, interfering with the rituals of my true love? Oh, they’ve got a torch! Night, hide me for awhile.

Romeo

Give me the ax and the crowbar. Hang on, take this letter. Make sure you deliver it to my father early in the morning. Give me the torch. On my life, I order you to stay here. Don’t follow me no matter what your hear or see. Don’t interrupt me in my business. I’m going into this tomb partly to see her face, but mostly because I have to take a precious ring that I need for a very costly business. So get out of here, go away.

If you come back to pry into what I’m doing, I swear by heaven that I’ll rip you apart and spread your limbs around this churchyard. This is a desperate time and I’m a desperate man, and these things make me more savage, fiercer, and harder to stop than a tiger or a stormy sea. Both of those will roar but not do anything.

Balthasar

I’ll go and not bother you, sir.

Romeo

In doing so you’re being a good friend. Take this.  Live on and be prosperous. And farewell, good fellow.

Balthasar

[Aside] All the same, I’ll hide here. I’m afraid for him and I doubt he’ll do what he threatened.

Romeo

You, entrance to the tomb, are like the hated mouth of an animal. You’ve eaten the sweetest thing in the world, my Juliet, and she’s made you sick with her sweetness. Now I’m going to force your rotten jaws open to cram your mouth full with another victim.

Paris

Why that’s the exiled Montague, who murdered my love’s cousin. Everyone supposes that the murder caused her to die of grief. And here he comes to desecrate the dead bodies! I’ll apprehend him. Stop this unholy work, you vile Montague! Are you trying to get vengeance on these people beyond death? Damned villain, I will arrest you. Obey and go with me, for you must die.

Romeo

I must indeed, and that’s what I came here for. Gentle young man, don’t tempt someone as desperate as me to violence.

Get out of here and leave me. Let your fear of these dead bodies spur you to go. I beg you, young man, don’t make me commit more sins by provoking me to fight you. Oh, go away! I swear to heaven, I have more love for you than for myself. After all, I came here intending to hurt myself. Don’t stay here, go away, live, and tell people later that a merciful madman urged you to run away.

Paris

I challenge your disgusting behaviour, and I’m arresting you as a criminal here.

Romeo

You’re going to provoke me? Well then have at it, boy!

Page

Oh Lord, they’re fighting! I’ll go call the night’s watch.

Paris

Oh, I’ve been killed! If you are truly merciful, open up the tomb and lay me down beside Juliet.

Romeo

Indeed I will. Let me look at this face. It’s Mercutio’s cousin, Count Paris! What did my servant say, when my mind was too troubled to pay attention as we were riding here? I think he told me Paris was supposed to marry Juliet. Didn’t he say that? Or did I dream it?

Or have I gone mad, hearing him talking about Juliet, and that’s why I think that’s true? Oh give me your hand. You, like me, seem to be written down on fate’s list of the unlucky! I’ll bury you in a glorious grave. A grave? Oh no! I’ll bury you where there is light, poor slaughtered youth. For here lies Juliet, and her radiant beauty makes this dark crypt full of light. Dead soul, lie there, buried by one soon to be dead himself. Isn’t it strange how often people are described as happy when they’re at the point of death? Their caretakers call it lightning before death.

Oh how can I call my own a lightning? Oh my love! My wife! Death, which has taken away your sweet breath, has not yet taken away your beauty. You haven’t yet been truly conquered, and Beauty still carries its red coat-of arms in your cheeks and lips like a proud army that has not yet submitted to Death and its pale flags. Tybalt, are you lying there in your bloody shroud? Oh what more can I do for you than to kill myself, your enemy, with the very hand that cut off your youth?

Forgive me, cousin! Ah dear Juliet, why are you still so beautiful? Is invisible death in love with you? Is that hated monster keeping you in this tomb to be his lover? I’m afraid he might be, so I’ll stay here with you, and I’ll never leave this palace of dim night again. Here, right here, I’ll remain with the worms that are your chambermaids now. Oh, here I’ll set up my everlasting rest, and I’ll shake off the burden of my unlucky fate from my weary body. Eyes, look for the last time!

Arms, take your last embrace! And lips, with this virtuous kiss seal a contract with death that has no end or limit! Let’s go, bitter action. Let’s go, guiding hand! Rush on like a pilot driven mad with sea-sickness, crashing a ship on the rocks. Here’s to my love! [Drinks] Oh you were a true apothecary! Your drugs work quickly. I’ll die with a kiss.

Friar Laurence

Saint Francis lead me on! How frequently tonight I’ve stumbled over graves! Who’s there?

Balthasar

I’m here, I know you well.

Friar Laurence

Happiness be yours! Tell me, my good friend, what’s that torch over there that casts a light over the skulls? It seems as though it’s burning from inside the Capulet’s mausoleum.

Balthasar

Yes it is, holy father, and my master’s in there--someone you’re very fond of.

Friar Laurence

Who is it?    

Balthasar

Romeo.    

Friar Laurence

How long has he been in there?

Balthasar

A whole half an hour.

Friar Laurence

Go with me to the crypt.

Balthasar

I dare not, sir. My master thinks I left him alone, and he threatened to kill me if I watched what he was doing.

Friar Laurence

Stay, then. I’ll go alone. I’m beginning to be very afraid. Oh I fear some disaster.

Balthasar

I fell asleep under this yew tree here, and I had a dream my master fought another man and killed him.

Friar Laurence

Romeo! Oh no, oh no, who’s blood is this that’s all over the entrance to the crypt? Why are there bloody swords without owners lying here in this place of peace?

Romeo! Oh, you are pale! Who else? What, Paris too? And Paris is all bloodied? Ah, what an evil time made this tragic accident occur! Juliet is waking up.

Juliet

Oh my comforting friar! Where is my husband? I remembered where I was going to wake up, and here I am. Where is my Romeo?

Friar Laurence

I hear a noise. Lady, come out of this place of death, disease, and unnatural sleep.

Some greater power than we can know has thwarted our plans. Come on, come away. Your husband next to you lies dead, and Paris is lying here as well. Come on, I’ll hide you in a convent of holy nuns. Don’t stay here to question me, for the night’s watch is coming. Come on, good Juliet, let’s go. I don’t dare stay here any longer.

Juliet

Go, get away from here, I won’t move. What’s this? A cup my in my true love’s hand?

I see that poison has been his untimely end. Oh you’re so selfish! You drank it all, and didn’t leave any to help me follow you? I’ll kiss your lips. Perhaps there’s still some poison that remains on them which will cure me by killing me. Your lips are warm.

First Watchman

Lead us, boy. Which way did they go?

Juliet

Someone’s coming? Then I’ll be quick. Oh, how lucky to have this dagger!

Let my body be your sheath. Rust there forever, and let me die.    

Page

This is the place. There, where the torch is burning.

First Watchman

There’s blood on the ground, search the churchyard. Go, arrest whomever you find. What a pitiful sight! The count lies here, killed. And Juliet, is warm, bleeding, and must be newly dead, although she has been buried here for two days. Go, tell the Prince. Run to the Capulets. Go get the Montagues. We need some others to search.

We can see the ground on which all these tragedies occurred, but without motives or context, they seem groundless. Without more information, we can’t figure out what really happened.

Second Watchman

Here’s Romeo’s servant. We found him in the churchyard.

First Watchman

Hold him in custody until the Prince gets here.

Third Watchman

Here’s a friar we found trembling, sighing, and weeping. We took this ax and this spade away from him as he was coming from this side of the churchyard.

First Watchman

Very suspicious. Keep the friar here, too.

Prince

What calamity happened so early that we were forced to get up so soon in the morning?

Capulet

What’s going on that’s making everyone so distraught?    

Lady Capulet

Some people in the street cried Romeo’s name, some cried Juliet’s, some cried Paris’, and all of them were running in the direction of our mausoleum.

Prince

What’s this fearful thing we’ve been hearing?

First Watchman

Your highness, here lies Count Paris, killed, and Romeo, dead. And Juliet, who we thought had died before, is warm and seems to have been newly killed.

Prince

Search around, seek out the culprits, and find out how these foul murders happened.

First Watchman

There’s a friar here, and Romeo’s dead servant, who had tools with them that could have opened this tomb.

Capulet

Oh heavens! Oh, wife, look how our daughter is bleeding! This dagger has the Montague crest on it, and yet it rests in our daughter’s heart!

Lady Capulet

Oh no!  This terrible sight of death is like a bell summoning me to my own grave.

Prince

Come forward, Montague, you’ve woken up to see your son brought down.

Montague

Alas, my lord, my wife died tonight. She was overcome with grief after his exile. What further sorrow threatens me in my old age?

Prince

Look, and you will see.

Montague

Oh you boy! What kind of thanks is this, to go to your grave before your father?

Prince

Quiet your outrage for awhile, until we can clear up the confusion and figure out how all this started and how it occurred. Then I will be understanding of your grief and lead you to death if you wish.  In the meantime, hold on, and let patience rule over this misfortune.  Bring forth the suspects.

Friar Laurence

I am the most suspected, although I was able to do the least. The timing and the place where I was found make it seem like I was responsible for this terrible murder. And here I stand ready for your accusations and punishments, as I have already accused and punished myself.

Prince

Then tell us immediately what you know about this.

Friar Laurence

I will be brief. I fear I may not have long to live, so I won’t tell a tedious story. Romeo, who lies dead there, was Juliet’s husband, and she was his faithful wife. I married them, and their wedding day, which was cut so short, was the day Tybalt was killed. That caused Romeo, the new groom, to flee the city. It was for him, and not for Tybalt, that Juliet was grieving.

You tried to alleviate her grief by forcing her to marry Count Paris. She came to me totally desperate, asking me for some way to get her out of this second marriage or else she would try to kill herself right there in my cell. I gave her a sleeping potion, which had the intended effect of making her seem like she had died. In the meantime, I wrote to Romeo, and told him he should return on this night to help take her from her borrowed grave, as by that time, the potion would no longer be in effect.

But the person who carried my letter, Friar John, was held up accidentally and gave that letter back to me tonight. I came all alone to take her out of her family’s crypt. I was going to watch over her at my cell until I could get Romeo to come back. But when I got here barely a minute before Juliet was to wake up, I saw that the noble Paris and the true Romeo were dead. Juliet woke up, and I begged her to come out of the tomb and handle her grief with patience.

But then a noise startled me out of the tomb, and she, who was in despair, wouldn’t come with me. It seems she killed herself. That’s all I know, and her nurse knows about their marriage, too. If any of this turned out so badly because of me, let my old life be sacrificed within this hour according to the law.

Prince

We have always known you to be a holy man. Where’s Romeo’s servant? What can he add to this?

Balthasar

I brought Romeo news of Juliet’s death. And then he came right away from Mantua to this exact place and this exact mausoleum. He told me to give this letter to his father, and he threatened to kill me if I followed him into the crypt. I didn’t follow him, but I didn’t leave, either.

Prince

Give me the letter. I will look at it.  Where is the count’s page, who called the night’s watch? You there, what was your master doing here?

Page

He came to put flowers on Juliet’s grave, and told me not to approach, so I didn’t.

Someone came soon after with a light, intending to open the time, and then my master drew his sword to fight him. That’s when I ran away to call the watch.

Prince

This letter reinforces the friar’s story, and tells of the course of their love and that he had received the news of her death. And here he writes that he bought posion from an impoverished apothecary, and brought it with him to this crypt to die and lie beside Juliet. Where are those enemies? Lord Capulet! Lord Montague! Look what a terrible punishment has come from your shared hate, that Heaven found a way to kill your children with love. And for not dealing with your feud I, too, have lost two family members. Everyone has been punished.

Capulet

Oh brother Montague, give me your hand. This gesture of reconciliation all I can ask of you.

Montague

But I can give you more. I’ll erect a statue for her from pure gold, and as long as Verona exists there will be no figure more admired than true and faithful Juliet.

Capulet

I’ll make one of equal richness for Romeo, to place beside his lady’s. Oh these poor children sacrificed to our hatred!

Prince

This is a sad peace that the morning has brought. Indeed, even the sun won’t show his face today. Let’s go from here to talk more about these tragic events. Some people will be pardoned, others punished. For their was never a sadder story than this one of Juliet and Romeo.