“Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,—O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;—Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans;The obsequies that I for thee will keepNightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.”
“Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,—O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;—Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans;The obsequies that I for thee will keepNightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.”
Warned by a whistle from the page, Paris retired into the shadow, as other footsteps were heard approaching. Romeo, accompanied by Balthasar, bearing a torch and some tools for opening the vault, now came near, and Paris could hear the instructions Romeo gave his servant.
“Give me the mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning see you deliver it to my lord and father. Give methe light. I charge you on your life, whatever you hear or see, stand quite aloof, and do not interrupt me in what I am doing. The reason I descend into this abode of death is partly to behold my lady’s face, but chiefly to take from her dead finger a precious ring. Therefore, hence, begone! But if you jealously return to pry into what I further intend to do, by heaven, I will tear you joint from joint!”
“I will begone, sir, and not trouble you,” replied Balthasar; but, all the same, he intended to hide himself somewhere near, for he feared the looks of Romeo, and doubted his intention.
When the serving-man had retired, Romeo took up the tools, and began to wrench open the door of the tomb. But now Paris came forward to interfere.
“This is that banished, haughty Montague,” he said to himself, “who murdered my love’s cousin, out of grief for whom it is supposed she died. Now he has come here to do some villainous shame to the dead bodies. I will seize him. Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague! Can vengeance be pursued further than death? Villain, I seize thee! Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.”
“I must indeed, and therefore came I hither,” said Romeo. “Good, gentle youth, do not tempt a desperate man. Fly hence and leave me; think on those who are dead. I beseech thee, youth, do not put another sin on my head by urging me to fury. Oh, begone! By heaven, I love thee better than myself. Stay not; begone!”
“I defy all thy entreaties,” cried Paris hotly, “and seize thee here for a felon.”
“Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!” said Romeo, compelled to draw in self-defence.
They fought, and Paris was wounded.
“Oh, I am slain!”
“Oh, I am slain!”
“Oh, I am slain!” he moaned. “If thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.”
“In faith, I will. Let me see this face,” said Romeo, and he took up the torch to look at the dead man. “Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris! What was it my man said when my troubled soul paid no heed to him as we rode hither? I think he told me Paris should have married Juliet. Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, to think it was so?—Oh, give me thy hand, one writ with me in sour misfortune’s book! I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.”
Taking up the dead body of the gallant youth, Romeo laid it gently inside the tomb. Then all other thoughts faded from his mind, for there, uncovered on the bier, clad in her wedding-robes, radiant in all her beauty, lay the young wife from whom he had only parted a few days before.
“O my love! my wife!” he sighed. “Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.... Ah, dear Juliet! why art thou yet so fair?... I will stay here with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart again. Oh, here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh! Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace!... Here’s to my love! O true apothecary, thy drugs are quick! Thus with a kiss I die.”
At the further end of the churchyard, Friar Laurence, with a lantern, crowbar, and spade, was picking his way through the crowded ranks of graves, when he stumbled across a friend. This was Balthasar,who told him that Romeo had gone to the Capulets’ vault, but from fear of his master, did not dare accompany the Friar there. Dreading some fresh misfortune, Friar Laurence hurried onwards. At the entrance to the vault he was horrified to see fresh stains of blood, and on entering it he found, to his dismay, Romeo lying there beside the bier of Juliet, and Paris newly slain. But there was no time to spare for lament or wonder; Juliet was awakening.
“O comforting Friar, where is my lord?” she asked, opening her sweet eyes, and glancing about a little fearfully at her dreary surroundings. “I remember well where I should be, and there I am. Where is my Romeo?”
At this moment a noise was heard outside. Paris’s little page had warned the night-watchmen of Verona, and they were now approaching. Friar Laurence implored Juliet to leave the place at once. A greater power than theirs had thwarted their plans; her husband lay dead beside her, and Paris, too, was slain. The Friar said he would place Juliet in safety among a sisterhood of holy nuns, only let her come at once; he dared stay no longer.
“Go, get thee hence, for I will not go,” replied Juliet firmly; and seeing it was useless to attempt to argue with her, Friar Laurence slipped away.
Left alone, for one brief terrified moment Juliet glanced around her, but when her gaze fell on her dead husband all doubt and hesitation fled for ever.
“What’s here? A cup, closed in my true love’s hand?” she said, bending over him tenderly. “Poison, I see, has been his untimely end.O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me to follow thee? I will kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet hangs on them.” She leant forward and kissed him, and in the same moment caught sight of the dagger in Romeo’s belt. “Thy lips are warm.”
“Lead, boy! Which way?” said the voice of a watchman outside.
“Yea, noise! Then I’ll be brief,” said Juliet, snatching the dagger. “O happy dagger, this is thy sheath; there rest and let me die!” And she fell back dead on Romeo’s body.
When the watchmen, followed by the Prince of Verona and the parents of the ill-fated lovers, entered the vault, there was nothing to be done. All was over now—the joy and the sorrow, the hatred and the strife. Revenge was silenced; henceforth the voice of dissension was mute. In the presence of those unseeing witnesses the bitter enemies were reconciled.
In this “palace of dim night,” this dark abode of death, nothing was left now but peace and the abiding memory of undying love.