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ROMEO
Give me that mattock and 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.
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I farther shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild,
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
BALTHASAR
I will be gone, sir, and not trouble ye.
ROMEO
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that,
[Gives a purse]
Live and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.
BALTHASAR
[Aside to the audience.]
For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout,
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
[Retires to the back of the AUDITORIUM, stage right, and hides.]
ROMEO
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotton jaws to open,
And in despite I'll cram thee with more food.
[ROMEO begins to set down his tools. Lights come up on PARIS, who begins his aside to the AUDIENCE as ROMEO
begins to work without seeing him.]
PARIS
This is that banished haughty Montague,
That murdered my love's cousin, with which grief,
It is supposed the fair creature died,
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.
[Steps forth and draws his sword, to ROMEO'S astonishment, who also grabs his sword.]
PARIS
Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.
Obey and go with me, for thou must die.
ROMEO
I must indeed, and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth. Tempt not a desp'rate man,
I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury.
PARIS
I do defy thy conjuration,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.
ROMEO
Wilt thou provoke me? [Draws his own sword.]
Then have at thee, boy!
[They fight.]
JOHN
[Light comes up on him as he speaks.]
O Lord, they fight! I will go call for help.
PARIS
[ROMEO dispatches of PARIS easily, almost embarrassingly so.]
O, I am slain! [Falls.] If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. [Dies.]
ROMEO
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
[Drags PARIS up the steps of the opened tomb.]
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred.
[Laying Paris in front of JULIET'S bier. The music of "Valentine"
begins, underscoring the words following.]
O my love, my wife,
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not yet conquered, beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And Death's pale flag is not advanced there.
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 still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again.
Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips,
Seal with a righteous kiss
Here's to my love!
[Drinks.]
O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[ROMEO dies. Music comes to a sudden stop as FRIAR LAWRENCE enters with lantern, crow and spade from the back of the AUDITORIUM, stage left.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight
Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?
BALTHASAR
Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,
It burneth in the Capel's monument.
BALTHASAR
It doth so, holy sir, and there's my master,
One that you love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Who is it?
BALTHASAR
Romeo
FRIAR LAWRENCE
How long hath he been there?
BALTHASAR
Full half an hour.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Go with me to the vault.
BALTHASAR
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.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Stay then, I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me.
O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.
BALTHASAR
As I did sleep under this yew tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Romeo!
[Friar runs up the aisle toward the stage and
stoops over the entrance to the tomb.]
What blood is this which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolored by this place of peace?
[Goes up the steps into the tomb.]
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?
And steeped in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
[He sees JULIET begins to awaken.]
The lady stirs.
JULIET
O comfortable Friar, where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be;
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
[Noises come from the back of the AUDITORIUM.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE
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.
Come go, good Juliet, I dare no longer stay.
JULIET
Go get thee hence, for I will not away.
[FRIAR exits down the steps and out the stage left AUDITORIUM door.]
What's here? A cup closed in my true lover's hand?
Poison I see hath been his timeless end.
O churl, drunk all, and left 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.
CAPTAIN
[At the back door of the AUDITORIUM.]
Which way?
JULIET
Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger,
[Taking ROMEO'S dagger.]
This is thy sheath;
[Stabs herself]
there rust and let me d[She falls on ROMEO'S body and dies. Enter JOHN and CAPTAIN from the back of the AUDITORIUM. Members of the POLICE FORCE follow him in and begin to search efficiently with lights and weapons at ready.]
JOHN
This is the place.
CAPTAIN
The ground is bloody, search about the churchyard.
Go, some of you, who'er you find attach.
[The CAPTAIN enters into the tomb, looks around, and then returns.]
Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain this two days buried.
Go tell the Mayor, run to the Capulets,
Raise up the Montagues; some others search.
AMANDA, FIRST POLICEWOMAN
Here's Romeo's man, we found him in the churchyard.
CAPTAIN
Hold him in safety till the Mayor come hither.
SUSAN, SECOND POLICEWOMAN
Here is a friar that trembles, sighs and weeps.
We took this mattock and this spade from him,
As he was coming from this churchyard's side.
CAPTAIN
A great suspicion. Stay the friar too.
[We hear the helicopter, and then the MAYOR enters, with BODYGUARDS and AIDE.]
What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning rest?
[LORD CAPULET, SAMPSON, GREGORY, LADY CAPULET and KATHRYN enter]
GREGORY
What should it be that is so shrieked abroad?
KATHRYN
O, the people in the streets cry 'Romeo',
Some 'Juliet', and some 'Paris'.
LADY CAPULET
And all run
With open outcry toward our monument.
MAYOR
What fear is this which startles in your ears?
CAPTAIN
Here lies the County Paris slain,
And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new killed.
MAYOR
Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.
CAPTAIN
Here is a friar, and slaughtered Romeo's man,
With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.
LORD CAPULET
O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
LADY CAPULET
O me, this sight of death is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
[Enter LORD MONTAGUE]
MAYOR
Come, Montague, for thou art early up
To see thy son and heir so early down.
LORD MONTAGUE
Alas, my lord, my wife is dead tonight;
Grief of my son's exile hath stopped her breath.
What further woe conspires against my age?
MAYOR
Look and thou shalt see.
LORD MONTAGUE
O thou untaught! What manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?
MAYOR
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.
[By now, the MAYOR is standing on the MAIN STAGE directly upstage of the two biers with the bodies of ROMEO and JULIET lying on them.]
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
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 excused.
MAYOR
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
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
Banished the new-made bridegroom from this city,
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betrothed and would have married her by force
To County Paris. Then comes she to me,
And with wild looks bid me devise some mean
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her (so tutored by my art)
A sleeping potion, which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death. Mean time I writ to Romeo
That he should hither come as this dire night
To help to take her from her borrowed grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But that which bore my letter stayed by accident,
and yesternight
Returned 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 send to Romeo.
But when I came, some minutes ere the time,
Of her awakening, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes, and I entreated her to 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 ought in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my own life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Under the rigor of severest law.
[By now the entire cast has assembled onstage and stand in tableau, watching the Friar as he speaks, brokenly. Light smoke wisps across the crowd standing on the various levels across the entire STAGE and AUDITORIUM.]
MAYOR
We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where's Romeo's man? What can he say to this?
BALTHASAR
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 threatened me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not and left him there.
MAYOR
Give me the letter, I will look on it.
Where is the County's AIDE that raised the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
[The MAYOR reads the letter as he listens, occasionally looking up to watch JOHN speak. The townspeople quietly watch.]
JOHN
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 Police.
MAYOR
This letter doth make good the Friar's words,
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?
[LORD MONTAGUE enters upstage left of the biers; LORD and LADY CAPULET slowly enter upstage right. They come to stand directly beside the biers, downstage of the MAYOR.]
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 punished.
[Everyone goes into a freeze as the strains of "Uninvited" come up from the BAND. The FRIAR, who has been standing upstage, with two policemen on either side, comes forward, taking off her robe and revealing the simple black costume of the CLOWN. She walks forward, making her way through the tableau of townspeople. She is holding a sword. She stops at the end of the thrust stage, looks at the sword meaningfully, and then leans on it like a cane as she speaks.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings,
The sun for sorrow will not show its head.
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo