Página 1 de 8

Part 16

1 Watch. The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard. Go, some of you, whoe'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 180 We cannot without circumstance descry.

Re-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.

Re-enter others of the Watch, 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

Capulet. What should it be that they so shriek abroad? 190

Lady Capulet. The people in the street cry Romeo, Some Juliet, and some Paris, and all run With open outcry toward our monument.

Prince. What fear is this which startles in our ears?

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 murther comes.

1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man, With instruments upon them fit to open 200 These dead men's tombs.

Capulet. O heaven!--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!

Lady Capulet. 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.

Montague. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; 210 Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath. What further woe conspires against mine age?

Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.

Montague. 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. Meantime forbear, 220 And let mischance be slave to patience.-- 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 murther; 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.

Friar Laurence. I will be brief, for my short date of breath Is not so long as is a tedious tale. 230 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 doomsday, 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 240 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; meantime 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, 250 Was stay'd 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 awaking, here untimely lay The noble Paris and true Romeo dead. She wakes, and I entreated her come forth 260 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? 271

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 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? 280

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.-- 290 Where be these enemies?--Capulet!--Montague! See, what a scourge is aid 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.

Capulet. O brother Montague, give me thy hand; 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 while Verona by that name is known 300 There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Capulet. 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 309 Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. [Exeunt.

NOTES [Illustration: THE NURSE AND PETER]

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

THE METRE OF THE PLAY.--It should be understood at the outset that metre, or the mechanism of verse, is something altogether distinct from the music of verse. The one is matter of rule, the other of taste and feeling. Music is not an absolute necessity of verse; the metrical form is a necessity, being that which constitutes the verse.

The plays of Shakespeare (with the exception of rhymed passages, and of occasional songs and interludes) are all in unrhymed or blank verse; and the normal form of this blank verse is illustrated by the second line of the prologue to the present play: "In fair Verona, where we lay our scene."

This line, it will be seen, consists of ten syllables, with the even syllables (2d, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th) accented, the odd syllables (1st, 3d, etc.) being unaccented. Theoretically, it is made up of five feet of two syllables each, with the accent on the second syllable. Such a foot is called an iambus (plural, iambuses, or the Latin iambi), and the form of verse is called iambic.

This fundamental law of Shakespeare's verse is subject to certain modifications, the most important of which are as follows:--

After the tenth syllable an unaccented syllable (or even two such syllables) may be added, forming what is sometimes called a female line; as in the 103d line of the first scene: "Here were the servants of your adversary." The rhythm is complete with the third syllable of adversary, the fourth being an extra eleventh syllable. In iv. 3. 27 and v. 3. 256 we have two extra syllables,--the last two of Romeo in both lines.
The accent in any part of the verse may be shifted from an even to an odd syllable; as in line 3 of the prologue, "From ancient grudge break to new mutiny," where the accent is shifted from the sixth to the fifth syllable. See also i. 1. 92: "Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate;" where the accent is shifted from the second to the first syllable. This change occurs very rarely in the tenth syllable, and seldom in the fourth; and it is not allowable in two successive accented syllables.
An extra unaccented syllable may occur in any part of the line; as in line 7 of the prologue, where the second syllable of piteous is superfluous. In i. 1. 64 the third syllable of Benvolio, and in line 71 below the second syllable of Capulets and the second the are both superfluous.
Any unaccented syllable, occurring in an even place immediately before or after an even syllable which is properly accented, is reckoned as accented for the purposes of the verse; as, for instance, in lines 1, 3, and 7 of the prologue. In 1 the last syllable of dignity and in 3 the last of mutiny are metrically equivalent to accented syllables. In 7 the same is true of the first syllable of misadventur'd and the third of overthrows. In iv. 2. 18 ("Of disobedient opposition") only two regular accents occur, but we have a metrical accent on the first syllable of disobedient, and on the first and the last syllables of opposition, which word has metrically five syllables. In disobedient there is an extra unaccented syllable.
In many instances in Shakespeare words must be lengthened in order to fill out the rhythm:--

(a) In a large class of words in which e or i is followed by another vowel, the e or i is made a separate syllable; as ocean, opinion, soldier, patience, partial, marriage, etc. For instance, iii. 5. 29 ("Some say the lark makes sweet division") appears to have only nine syllables, but division is a quadrisyllable; and so is devotion in iv. 1. 41: "God shield I should disturb devotion!" Marriage is a trisyllable in iv. 1. 11, and also in v. 3. 241; and the same is true of patience in v. 1. 27 v. 1. 27, v. 3. 221 and 261. This lengthening occurs most frequently at the end of the line.

(b) Many monosyllables ending in r, re, rs, res, preceded by a long vowel or diphthong, are often made dissyllables; as fare, fear, dear, fire, hair, hour, your, etc. In iii. 1. 198: "Else, when he's found, that hour is his last," hour is a dissyllable. If the word is repeated in a verse it is often both monosyllable and dissyllable; as in M. of V. iii. 2. 20: "And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so," where either yours (preferably the first) is a dissyllable, the other being a monosyllable. In J.C. iii. 1. 172: "As fire drives fire, so pity, pity," the first fire is a dissyllable.

Domínio Público

Libros públicos·—

Comentarios (0)

Aún no hay comentarios. Empieza la conversación.