than avoid the strife, knowing nothing of the possibility of any reconciliation. The furious Tybalt, who, ever since he was forced at the ball by his uncle's order to curb his anger at Romeo's intrusion, is so filled with rage against this very Romeo, that he puts off fighting with the others until Romeo himself appears. He flies at him, exclaiming, "Thou art a villain!" With a patience inexplicable to his friends, and blamed by them, Romeo answers, remembering what has just taken place, of which his friends know nothing:

Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting: villain am I none;
Therefore farewell: I see thou know'st me not.

Romeo and Juliet, act iii. scene 1.

Bitterly annoyed at Romeo's supposed cowardice, Mercutio taunts him for his "calm, dishonourable, vile submission," and draws his own sword against Tybalt, whom he defies with irritating phrases. In vain Romeo, who foresees the fatal influence this brawl will have upon his scarce blossomed happiness, tries to part the fighters. Mercutio falls, mortally wounded, is carried out, and Benvolio soon brings back the news that he has expired. Romeo already, before hearing the sad announcement, laments with profound grief the irreconcilable quarrel between the two families:

This gentleman, the prince's near ally,
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation stain'd

With Tybalt's slander,-Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
And in my temper soften'd valour's steel!

Romeo and Juliet, act iii. scene I.

But now, when his friend has died for the insult Tybalt put upon Romeo, rage and thirst of vengeance seizes him. Tameless in fury, forgetting all prudence, his anger breaks forth wildly:

Away to heaven, respective lenity,

And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!

Storming, he returns Tybalt's scorn, and after a brief combat strikes him dead at his feet. Hardly has the deed occurred than he perceives with horror that he has irrevocably destroyed his own happiness. Struck with dismay, he only says these words, "Oh, I am fortune's fool!" and at Benvolio's instance flies to escape the threatened consequences. The Prince, greatly angered by this fresh outbreak, which has cost the lives of two gentlemen, one of them his near relation, pronounces sentence of banishment upon Romeo, in spite of Benvolio's eloquent pleading, and in spite of the fact that Tybalt in his criminal attack was the person really to blame.

Meantime, Juliet, unconscious of these misfortunes, is awaiting her husband with glowing passion. As soon as the night falls he is to climb by a slender ladder to her chamber. We give the whole of the soliloquy in which she expresses her love-saturated longing, because it confirms our abovementioned belief that Juliet, although she was a child but yesterday, has heard more and knows more than a girl of her age ought to hear or to know:

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards l'hobus' lodging; such a waggoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaways' cycs may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods;
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them.

Romeo and Juliet, act iii. scene 2.

Abruptly is she precipitated out of this heaven, when her weeping nurse enters with the awful news that Romeo has slain Tybalt. Her whole being is shaken by the dreadful contrast of these bloody tidings with the passionate happiness to which she had just abandoned herself. She utters a speech which sounds strange, and yet is in keeping with her character. First she rages against Romco:

O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!

Dove-feather'd raven ! wolvish-ravening lamb !
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain !
nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!

Romeo and Juliet, act iii. scene 2.

Then she abuses the nurse because she in her vulgar way chimes in with this, saying, "Shame come to Romeo! Blister'd be thy tongue for such a wish!" she replies, ending with the passionate anger against herself, so natural in such a character:

Ah! poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?

Victorious over all these warring feelings rises the star of love. Juliet forgets the mourning of her house, the death of her kinsman, the sorrow of her parents, when the thunderbolt "Romeo is banished" falls hard and crushing upon her ear, more terrible to her than if they told her that both her parents were dead. The sight of the ladder which is to bring her Romeo fills her with grief. She calls herself a widowed bride, to whom Death, not Romeo, will be husband. But the nurse, who, rough as she be, is filled with idolatrous love for her foster-child, promises that she will bring Romeo "to comfort her." Juliet replies, "Bid him come to take his last farewell." With wild untamable passion Romeo rages in Friar Lawrence's cell, where he is hidden, when he hears the sentence of banishment. Vainly the monk strives to quiet him. We already perceive the vehemence of his temperament, which is fated to drag him and his beloved to destruction. As, later on, when he believes Juliet dead, without stopping to ascertain the truth, he rushes blindly into the arms of death, so now, when the nurse, who has come to seek him, describes Juliet's distress, he lays hands upon himself for causing her grief. With stern reproof the Friar hinders his mad intent, saying, "Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself, and slay thy lady too, that lives in thee? A pack of blessings light upon thy back; thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love! Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. Tybalt would kill thee, but thou slew'st Tybalt. And for his, thou art only banished. Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed, but look thou stay not till the watch be set.

For then thou canst not pass to Mantua ;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation."

Romeo and Juliet, act iii. scene 3.

Now, at last, Romeo says, "How well my comfort is

revived by this!" The nurse goes to prepare Juliet for his advent, and Friar Lawrence promises to send him word by a trusty servant from time to time of news of "every good hap to him that chances" in Verona. But even before the poet introduces the bitter-sweet parting of the lovers, he shows us the fearful threatening storm-cloud that rises in the heaven of their love. Juliet's parents lend a favourable ear to the suit of the young Count Paris. Her father, who has no notion that his girl, hitherto so obedient and submissive, is capable of resisting his expressed will, settles that the marriage shall take place in three days. Unaware of this new misfortune, the most dreadful that has yet threatened them, the lovers abide together in their quiet bridal chamber. Their feelings are divided between love's entrancing bliss and the bitter pain of parting. The night is nearly over, the lark already warns them of the break of day. But Juliet will not let her lover leave her arms:

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree;
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo and Juliet, act iii. scene 5.

Romeo has to undeceive her: "It is the lark, no nightingale; he must begone and live, or stay and die." But if she chooses to keep him, let him be taken, let him be put to death, he is content. "Yon grey is not the morning's eye, 'tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; he has more care to stay than will to go." But Juliet awakens from her dream. She says, "It is, it is the lark, that sings so out of tune, straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Hie hence! begone! away!" With sweet tender words they take leave, to meet no more in life, consoling one another with the hope of a brighter future. To her question, "O, thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?" he answers:

I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.