William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (190 page)
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Authors: William Shakespeare
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BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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CHIEF WATCHMAN
Here is a friar, and slaughtered Romeo’s man,
With instruments upon them fit to open
These dead men’s tombs.
With instruments upon them fit to open
These dead men’s tombs.
CAPULET
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 it mis-sheathèd in my daughter’s bosom.
This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,
And it mis-sheathèd in my daughter’s bosom.
CAPULET’S WIFE
O me, this sight of death is as a bell 205
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
Enter Montague
PRINCE
Come, Montague, for thou art early up
To see thy son and heir more early down.
To see thy son and heir more early down.
MONTAGUE
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath. 210
What further woe conspires against mine age?
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath. 210
What further woe conspires against mine age?
PRINCE Look, and thou shalt see.
MONTAGUE (seeing Romeo’s body)
O thou untaught! What manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?
To press before thy father to a grave?
PRINCE
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, 215
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. 220
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
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. 220
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
FRIAR LAURENCE
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.
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.
PRINCE
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
FRIAR LAURENCE
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 perforce
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. Meantime 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 he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stayed by accident, and yesternight 250
Returned my letter back. Then all alone,
At the prefixèd 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. 260
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 sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
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 perforce
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. Meantime 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 he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stayed by accident, and yesternight 250
Returned my letter back. Then all alone,
At the prefixèd 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. 260
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 sacrificed, 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 to this? 270
Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this? 270
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.
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.
PRINCE
Give me the letter. I will look on it.
Where is the County’s page that raised the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
He takes the letter
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.
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, 290
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.
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, 290
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.
CAPULET
O brother Montague, give me thy hand. 295
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.
MONTAGUE But I can give thee more,
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known
There shall no figure at such rate be set 300
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
That whiles Verona by that name is known
There shall no figure at such rate be set 300
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
CAPULET
As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.
PRINCE
A glooming peace this morning with it brings.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head. 305
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head. 305
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
⌈
The tomb is closed.
⌉
Exeunt
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
FRANCIS MERES mentions
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
in his
Palladis Tamia,
of 1598, and it was first printed in 1600. The Folio (1623) version offers significant variations apparently deriving from performance, and is followed in the present edition. It has often been thought that Shakespeare wrote the play for an aristocratic wedding, but there is no evidence to support this speculation, and the 1600 title-page states that it had been ’sundry times publicly acted’ by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In stylistic variation it resembles Love’s Labour’s Lost: both plays employ a wide variety of verse measures and rhyme schemes, along with prose that is sometimes (as in Bottom’s account of his dream, 4.1.202―15) rhetorically patterned. Probably it was written in 1594 or 1595, either just before or just after Romeo and Juliet.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
in his
Palladis Tamia,
of 1598, and it was first printed in 1600. The Folio (1623) version offers significant variations apparently deriving from performance, and is followed in the present edition. It has often been thought that Shakespeare wrote the play for an aristocratic wedding, but there is no evidence to support this speculation, and the 1600 title-page states that it had been ’sundry times publicly acted’ by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In stylistic variation it resembles Love’s Labour’s Lost: both plays employ a wide variety of verse measures and rhyme schemes, along with prose that is sometimes (as in Bottom’s account of his dream, 4.1.202―15) rhetorically patterned. Probably it was written in 1594 or 1595, either just before or just after Romeo and Juliet.
Shakespeare built his own plot from diverse elements of literature, drama, legend, and folklore, supplemented by his imagination and observation. There are four main strands. One, which forms the basis of the action, shows the preparations for the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and (in the last act) its celebration. This is indebted to Chaucer’s
Knight’s Tale
, as is the play’s second strand, the love story of Lysander and Hermia (who elope to escape her father’s opposition) and of Demetrius. In Chaucer, two young men fall in love with the same girl and quarrel over her; Shakespeare adds the comic complication of another girl (Helena) jilted by, but still loving, one of the young men. A third strand shows the efforts of a group of Athenian workmen—the ‘mechanicals’—led by Bottom the Weaver to prepare a play, Pyramus and Thisbe (based mainly on Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses) for performance at the Duke’s wedding. The mechanicals themselves belong rather to Elizabethan England than to ancient Greece. Bottom’s partial transformation into an ass has many literary precedents. Fourthly, Shakespeare depicts a quarrel between Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies. Oberon’s attendant, Robin Goodfellow, a puck (or pixie), interferes mischievously in the workmen’s rehearsals and the affairs of the lovers. The fairy part of the play owes something to both folklore and literature; Robin Goodfellow was a well-known figure about whom Shakespeare could have read in Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft (1586).
Knight’s Tale
, as is the play’s second strand, the love story of Lysander and Hermia (who elope to escape her father’s opposition) and of Demetrius. In Chaucer, two young men fall in love with the same girl and quarrel over her; Shakespeare adds the comic complication of another girl (Helena) jilted by, but still loving, one of the young men. A third strand shows the efforts of a group of Athenian workmen—the ‘mechanicals’—led by Bottom the Weaver to prepare a play, Pyramus and Thisbe (based mainly on Arthur Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses) for performance at the Duke’s wedding. The mechanicals themselves belong rather to Elizabethan England than to ancient Greece. Bottom’s partial transformation into an ass has many literary precedents. Fourthly, Shakespeare depicts a quarrel between Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies. Oberon’s attendant, Robin Goodfellow, a puck (or pixie), interferes mischievously in the workmen’s rehearsals and the affairs of the lovers. The fairy part of the play owes something to both folklore and literature; Robin Goodfellow was a well-known figure about whom Shakespeare could have read in Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft (1586).
A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers a glorious celebration of the powers of the human imagination while also making comic capital out of its limitations. It is one of Shakespeare’s most polished achievements, a poetic drama of exquisite grace, wit, and humanity. In performance, its imaginative unity has sometimes been violated, but it has become one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, with a special appeal for the young.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAYTHESEUS, Duke of Athens
HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus
PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus
EGEUS, father of Hermia
HERMIA, daughter of Egeus, in love with Lysander
LYSANDER, loved by Hermia
DEMETRIUS, suitor to Hermia
HELENA, in love with DemetriusOBERON, King of Fairies
TITANIA, Queen of Fairies
ROBIN GOODFELLOW, a puckPeter QUINCE, a carpenter
Nick BOTTOM, a weaver
Francis FLUTE, a bellows-mender
Tom SNOUT, a tinker
SNUG, a joiner
Robin STARVELING, a tailorAttendant lords and fairies
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, and Philostrate, with others
THESEUS
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in
Another moon—but O, methinks how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires
Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in
Another moon—but O, methinks how slow
This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires
Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
HIPPOLYTA
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night,
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.
THESEUS Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments.
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.
Turn melancholy forth to funerals—
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.
Turn melancholy forth to funerals—
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
⌈
Exit Philostrate
⌉
Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,
And won thy love doing thee injuries.
But I will wed thee in another key—
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
And won thy love doing thee injuries.
But I will wed thee in another key—
With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.
Enter Egeus and his daughter Hermia, and Lysander and Demetrius
EGEUS
Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke.
THESEUS
Thanks, good Egeus. What’s the news with thee?
EGEUS
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.—
Stand forth Demetrius.—My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.—
Stand forth Lysander.—And, my gracious Duke,
This hath bewitched the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchanged love tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats—messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth. 35
With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,
Turned her obedience which is due to me
To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
Be it so she will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
As she is mine, I may dispose of her,
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.—
Stand forth Demetrius.—My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.—
Stand forth Lysander.—And, my gracious Duke,
This hath bewitched the bosom of my child.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
And interchanged love tokens with my child.
Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung
With feigning voice verses of feigning love,
And stol’n the impression of her fantasy
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats—messengers
Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth. 35
With cunning hast thou filched my daughter’s heart,
Turned her obedience which is due to me
To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
Be it so she will not here before your grace
Consent to marry with Demetrius,
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
As she is mine, I may dispose of her,
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
THESEUS
What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid.
To you your father should be as a god,
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
To you your father should be as a god,
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
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