1 Act 5, Scene 3 ➤

2 [A graveyard containing the Capulet family's tomb. Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers
3 and a torch.]
4 Paris
5 Give me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof.
6 Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
7 Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along
8 Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground,
9 So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread —
10 Being loose, un-firm with digging up of graves —
11 But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me
12 As signal that thou hearest something approach.
13 Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
14 Page
15 [Aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone
16 Here in the churchyard, yet I will adventure.
17 [Retires]
18 Paris
19 Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew, —
20 O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones! —
21 Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
22 Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans.
23 The obsequies that I for thee will keep
24 Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
25 [The Page whistles]
26 The boy gives warning something doth approach.
27 What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
28 To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?
29 What, with a torch! Muffle me, night, a while.
30 [Retires. Enter Romeo and Balthasar, with a torch]
31 Romeo
32 Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
33 Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning
34 See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
35 Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee,
36 Whate'er thou hearest or seest, stand all aloof
37 And do not interrupt me in my course.
38 Why I descend into this bed of death
39 Is partly to behold my lady's face,
40 But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
41 A precious ring, a ring that I must use
42 In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
43 But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
44 In what I further shall intend to do,
45 By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
46 And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
47 The time and my intents are savage-wild,
48 More fierce and more inexorable far
49 Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
50 Balthasar
51 I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
52 Romeo
53 So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.
54 [Gives him some money]
55 Live, and be prosperous. and farewell, good fellow.
56 Balthasar
57 [Aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout.
58 His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
59 [Retires]
Wordnerd
60 Romeo
“womb”
61 Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
62 Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
63 Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
64 And in despite I'll cram thee with more food!
65 [Opens the tomb]
66 Paris
67 This is that banished haughty Montague,
68 That murdered my love's cousin, with which grief
69 It is supposed the fair creature died;
70 And here is come to do some villainous shame
71 To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.
72 [Comes forward]
73 Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!
74 Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
75 Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.
76 Obey and go with me, for thou must die.
77 Romeo
78 I must indeed, and therefore came I hither.
79 Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.
80 Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;
81 Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
82 Put not another sin upon my head
83 By urging me to fury. O, be gone!
84 By heaven, I love thee better than myself,
85 For I come hither armed against myself.
86 Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say
87 A madman's mercy bid thee run away.
 88 Paris
89 I do defy thy conjurations,
90 And apprehend thee for a felon here.
91 Romeo
92 Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!
93 [They fight]
94 Page
95 O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.
96 [Exit]
97 Paris
98 O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,
99 Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
100 [Dies]
101 Romeo
102 In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face —
103 Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!
104 What said my man when my betossed soul
105 Did not attend him as we rode? I think
106 He told me Paris should have married Juliet.
107 Said he not so, or did I dream it so?
108 Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
109 To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
110 One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
111 I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
Language
112 A grave — O no, a lantern, slaughtered youth,
113 For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes "I'll bury thee in a ... grave"

114 This vault a feasting presence full of light. In Shakespeare’s day a grave
referred to any receptacle for a
115 [Laying Paris in the vault] corpse. Here “grave” refers to the
Capulet family’s burial vault (a
116 Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred. room with an arched stone
ceiling). When Romeo says that
he’s going to “bury” Paris’ corpse
he means that he’s going to lay it
in the burial vault.
117 [Turning away from Paris' body]
118 How oft when men are at the point of death
119 Have they been merry, which their keepers call
120 A lightning before death. O, how may I
121 Call this a lightning?
122 [Looking upon Juliet's body]
123 O my love, my wife,
124 Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
125 Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
126 Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet
127 Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
128 And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
129 [Romeo sees Tybalt's body laid out nearby and addresses it]
130 Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
131 O, what more favor can I do to thee
132 Than, with that hand that cut thy youth in twain,
133 To sunder his, that was thine enemy?
134 Forgive me, cousin!
135 [Romeo turns back to face Juliet's body]
136 Ah, dear Juliet,
137 Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
138 That unsubstantial Death is amorous,
139 And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
140 Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
141 For fear of that I still will stay with thee,
142 And never from this palace of dim night
143 Depart again. Here, here will I remain
144 With worms that are thy chamber-maids. O, here
145 Will I set up my everlasting rest,
146 And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
147 From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
148 Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
149 The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
150 A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
151 [Romeo kisses Juliet, then takes out the vial of poison and addresses it]
152 Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide,
153 Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
154 The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
155 Here's to my love!
156 [He drinks the potion]
157 O true apothecary,
158 Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies.]
159 [Enter at the other end of the graveyard Friar Laurence with a lantern, a crowbar, and a
160 shovel]
161 Friar Laurence
162 Saint Francis, be my speed! How oft tonight
163 Have my old feet stumbled at graves. Who's there?
164 Balthasar
165 Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
166 Friar Laurence
167 Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend,
168 What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light
169 To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern, Wordnerd
170 It burneth in the Capel's monument. “monument”
171 Balthasar
172 It doth so, holy sir, and there's my master,
173 One that you love.
174 Friar Laurence
175 Who is it?
176 Balthasar
177 Romeo.
178 Friar Laurence
179 How long hath he been there?
180 Balthasar
181 Full half an hour.
182 Friar Laurence
183 Go with me to the vault.
184 Balthasar
185 I dare not, sir
186 My master knows not but I am gone hence,
187 And fearfully did menace me with death,
188 If I did stay to look on his intents.
189 Friar Laurence
190 Stay, then, I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me.
191 O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.
192 Balthasar
193 As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
194 I dreamt my master and another fought,
195 And that my master slew him.
196 Friar Laurence
197 Romeo!
198 [Advances]
199 Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
200 The stony entrance of this sepulchre? Language
201 What mean these masterless and gory swords "unkind"
202 To lie discolored by this place of peace?  "Unkind" can mean
203 [Enters the tomb] "cruel," which is how we
use it today.
204 Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?
 But in this case, it also
means "unnatural," or
contrary to the normal
nature of things. In this
case, the hour is unkind
because of the deaths that
205 And steeped in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
206 Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
207 The lady stirs.
208 [Juliet wakes]
209 Juliet
210 O comfortable friar, Where is my lord?
211 I do remember well where I should be,
212 And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
213 [Noise of someone approaching the tomb]
214 Friar Laurence
215 I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
216 Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.
217 A greater power than we can contradict
218 Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
219 Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead,
220 And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee
221 Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.
222 Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.
223 Come, go, good Juliet,
224 [Noise again]
225 I dare no longer stay.
226 Juliet
227 Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
Wordplay
228 [Exit Friar Laurence]
"restorative"
229 What's here? A cup closed in my true love's hand?
A restorative is a medicine or
230 Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. liquor which would restore Juliet
and bring her back to
231 O churl, drunk all and left no friendly drop
consciousness. In other words, it
232 To help me after. I will kiss thy lips. would do the opposite of "to make
me die." In one sense, the kiss is
233 Haply some poison yet doth hang on them
her restorative, and the drops of
poison, its opposite. In another
sense, in dying, Juliet is restored
to Romeo.
234 To make me die with a restorative.
235 [Kisses him]
236 Thy lips are warm.
237 [Enter watchmen and Paris’ page]
238 First Watchman
239 Lead, boy. Which way?
240 Juliet
241 Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger,
242 [Picking up Romeo's dagger]
243 This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.
244 [Stabs herself and falls on Romeo's body]
245 Page
246 This is the place, there where the torch doth burn.
247 First Watchman
248 The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.
249 Go, some of you, whoe'er you find, attach.
250 Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain,
251 And Juliet bleeding, warm and newly dead,
252 Who here hath lain these two days buried.
253 Go tell the prince. Run to the Capulets.
254 Raise up the Montagues. Some others search.
255 We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
256 But the true ground of all these piteous woes
257 We cannot without circumstance descry.
258 [Re-enter some of the Watch, with Balthasar]
259 Second Watchman
260 Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the churchyard.
261 First Watchman
262 Hold him in safety till the prince come hither.
263 [Re-Enter others of the Watch with Friar Laurence]
264 Third Watchman
265 Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.
266 We took this mattock and this spade from him
267 As he was coming from this churchyard’s side.
268 First Watchman
269 A great suspicion. Stay the friar too.
270 [Enter the Prince and Attendants]
271 Prince
272 What misadventure is so early up,
273 That calls our person from our morning's rest?
274 [Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, and others]
275 Capulet
276 What should it be that they so shriek abroad?
277 Lady Capulet
278 The people in the street cry Romeo,
279 Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run
280 With open outcry toward our monument.
281 Prince
282 What fear is this which startles in our ears?
283 First Watchman
284 Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,
285 And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,
286 Warm and new killed.
287 Prince
288 Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.
289 First Watchman
290 Here is a friar, and slaughtered Romeo's man,
291 With instruments upon them fit to open
292 These dead men's tombs.
293 Capulet
294 O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
295 This dagger hath mista'en — for lo, his house
296 Is empty on the back of Montague, —
297 And it mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.
298 Lady Capulet
299 O me, this sight of death is as a bell
300 That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
301 [Enter Montague and others]
302 Prince
303 Come, Montague, for thou art early up
304 To see thy son and heir now early down.
305 Montague
306 Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
307 Grief of my son's exile hath stopped her breath.
308 What further woe conspires against mine age?
309 Prince
310 Look, and thou shalt see.
311 Montague
312 O thou untaught! What manners is in this,
313 To press before thy father to a grave?
314 Prince
315 Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
316 Till we can clear these ambiguities,
317 And know their spring, their head, their true descent;
318 And then will I be general of your woes,
319 And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,
320 And let mischance be slave to patience.
321 Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
322 Friar Laurence
323 I am the greatest, able to do least;
324 Yet most suspected as the time and place
325 Doth make against me of this direful murder;
326 And here I stand both to impeach and purge,
327 Myself condemned and myself excused.
328 Prince
329 Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
330 Friar Laurence
331 I will be brief, for my short date of breath
332 Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
333 Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
334 And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife.
335 I married them, and their stol'n marriage-day
336 Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death
337 Banished the new-made bridegroom from the city,
338 For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
339 You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
340 Betrothed and would have married her perforce
341 To County Paris. Then comes she to me,
342 And with wild looks bid me devise some mean
343 To rid her from this second marriage,
344 Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
345 Then gave I her — so tutored by my art —
346 A sleeping potion, which so took effect
347 As I intended, for it wrought on her
348 The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo,
349 That he should hither come as this dire night
350 To help to take her from her borrowed grave,
351 Being the time the potion's force should cease.
352 But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
353 Was stayed by accident, and yesternight
354 Returned my letter back. Then all alone,
355 At the prefixed hour of her waking,
356 Came I to take her from her kindred's vault,
357 Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
358 Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
359 But when I came, some minute ere the time
360 Of her awaking, here untimely lay
361 The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
362 She wakes, and I entreated her come forth
363 And bear this work of heaven with patience.
364 But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,
365 And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
366 But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
367 All this I know, and to the marriage
368 Her nurse is privy. And, if aught in this
369 Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
370 Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
371 Unto the rigor of severest law.
372 Prince
373 We still have known thee for a holy man.
374 Where's Romeo's man? What can he say to this?
375 Balthasar
376 I brought my master news of Juliet's death,
377 And then in post he came from Mantua
378 To this same place, to this same monument.
379 This letter he early bid me give his father,
380 And threatened me with death, going in the vault,
381 If I departed not and left him there.
382 Prince
383 Give me the letter; I will look on it.
384 Where is the County's page that raised the watch?
385 Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
386 Page
387 He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave,
388 And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.
389 Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb,
390 And by and by my master drew on him,
391 And then I ran away to call the watch.
392 [The prince looks over Romeo's letter]
393 Prince
394 This letter doth make good the friar's words —
395 Their course of love, the tidings of her death.
396 And here he writes that he did buy a poison Allusion
397 Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal "jointure"
398 Came to this vault to die and lie with Juliet.
399 Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
400 See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
401 That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love;
402 And I, for winking at your discords too,
403 Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished.
404 Capulet The jointure was an amount of money that
Montague would have set aside to provide for
405 O brother Montague, give me thy hand. Juliet in case Romeo died. But a handshake is
406 This is my daughter's jointure, for no more all Capulet can demand since Juliet has also
passed away.
407 Can I demand.
(The Reconciliation of the Montagues and
Capulets over the Dead Bodies of Romeo
and Juliet, Frederic Lord leighton, 1853-55)
408 Montague
409 But I can give thee more.
410 For I will ray her statue in pure gold;
411 That while Verona by that name is known,
412 There shall no figure at such rate be set
413 As that of true and faithful Juliet.
Word nerd
414 Capulet
“sacrifice”
415 As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;
416 Poor sacrifices of our enmity.
417 Prince
418 A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
419 The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.
420 Go hence to have more talk of these sad things;
421 Some shall be pardoned, and some punished.
422 For never was a story of more woe
423 Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
424 [Exit]