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Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end :-
O churl! drink all; and leave 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. [Kisses him.
Thy lips are warm!

I Watch. Within.] Lead, boy:-Which way? Jul. Yea, noise then I'll be brief.-O happy dagger! [Snatching Romeo's dagger. This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rust, and let me die.

[Falls on Romeo's body, and dies.

Enter Watch, with the Page of Paris. Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.

1 Watch. The ground is bloody: Search about the churchyard:

Go, some of you, who e'er you find, attach. [Exeunt some.

Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain ;— And Juliet bleeding; warm, and newly dead, Who here hath lain these two days buried.Go, tell the prince,-run to the Capulets,-. Raise up the Montagues, some others search;[Exeunt other Watchmen. We see the ground whereon these woes do lie; But the true ground of all these piteous woes, We cannot without circumstance descry.

Enter some of the Watch, with Balthasar. 2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man, we found him in the churchyard.

1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come hither.

Enter another Watchman, with Friar LAURENCE 3 Watch. 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 side. 1 Watch. A great suspicion: Stay the friar too.

Enter the Prince and Attendants. Prince. What misadventure is so early up, That calls our person from our morning's rest? Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and Others. Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?

La. Cap. The people in the street cry-Ro

meo,

Some-Juliet, and some-Paris; and all run, With open outcry, toward our monument. Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our cars?

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 Re-
meo's man;

With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Cap. O, heavens!-O wife! look how our
daughter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista'en,-for, lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,-
And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.
La. Cap. 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.

Mon. 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.

Mon. 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: Mean time forbes,
And let mischance be slave to patience.-
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. 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.

Fri. 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 stolen marriage-day Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this

city;

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.
You-to remove that siege of grief from her,-
Betroth'd, and would have married her perforce,
To county Paris:-Then comes she to me;
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or, in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor❜d 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 borrow'd grave,

Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, friar John,
Was staid by accident; and yesternight
Return'd 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 could send to Romeo:
But, when I came, (some minute ere the time
Of her awakening,) here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo, dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her 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 aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy

man.

Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this? Bal. 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 threaten'd me with death, going in the
vault,

If I departed not, and left him there.

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on ⚫it.

Where is the county's page, that rais'd the watch?

Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

Page. 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 watch.
Prince. 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!→→
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 punish'd.
Cap. O, brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Mon. But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie; Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

[Exeunt.

HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

CLAUDIUS, king of Denmark.

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

FRANCISCO, a soldier.

HAMLET, Son to the former, and nephew to the REYNALDO, servant to Polonius.

present king.

POLONIUS, lord chamberlain.

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A Captain.

An Ambassador.

Ghost of Hamlet's father.

FORTINBRAS, prince of Norway.

GERTRUDE, queen of Denmark, and mother Hamlet.

OPHELIA, daughter of Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Gravediggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other At

tendants.

SCENE,-Elsinore.

ACT I

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Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.

Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy; And will not let belief take hold of him, Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us : Therefore I have entreated him, along With us to watch the minutes of this night; That, if again this apparition come,

He

may approve our eyes, and speak to it. Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear. Ber. Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

Hor. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Ber. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,

Had made his course to illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself, The bell then beating one,

Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Enter Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio. Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

Hor. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and wonder.

Ber. It would be spoke to.
Mar. Speak to it, Horatio.

Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee,
speak.

Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay; speak: speak I charge thee,
speak.
[Exit Ghost.
Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and
look pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,

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At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant
Hamlet

(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him,)

Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compáct,

Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart,
And carriage of the article design'd,
His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsatory, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The source of this our watch; and the chief
head

Of this post-haste and romage in the land,

Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so: Well may it sort, that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch; so like the king

That was, and is, the question of these wars.

Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,—
Have heaven and earth together démonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.—

Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in
death,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it :-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Mar-
cellus.

Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan ? Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Ber. 'Tis here!

Hor. 'Tis here!

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And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe

it.

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:
Break we our watch up; and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him:
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I this inorning know,

Where we shall find him most convenient.

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In equal scale weighing delight and dole,Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd [Exit Ghost. Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along:-For all, our thanks. Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock

crew.

Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. Í have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein This present object made probation.

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes, Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long:

Holding a weak supposal of our worth;
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands,
Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
To our most valiant brother.-So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,-
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject:-and we here despatch

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