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What, shall I be the first? Hath none done so ere this,

To 'scape the bondage of their friends ? Thyself can answer, yes.

Or dost thou stand in doubt that I thy wife ne can

By service pleasure thee as much as may thy hiréd man?

Or is my loyalty of both accompted less?

Perhaps thou fear'st lest I for gain forsake thee in distress.

What, hath my beauty now no power at all on you,

Whose brightness, force, and praise, sometime up to the skies you blew?

My tears, my friendship and my pleasures done of old,

Shall they be quite forgot indeed?" When Romeus did behold

The wildness of her look, her colour pale and dead,

The worst of all that might betide to her, he 'gan to dread;

And once again he did in arms his Juliet take,

And kissed her with a loving kiss, and thus to her he spake:

"Ah, Juliet," quoth he, "the mistress of my heart,

For whom, even now, thy servant doth abide in deadly smart,

Even for the happy days which thou desir'st to see,

And for the fervent friendship's sake that thou dost owe to me,

At once these fancies vain out of thy mind root out,

Except, perhaps, unto thy blame, thou fondly go about

To hasten forth my death, and to thine own to run,

Which Nature's law and wisdom's lore teach every wight to shun.

For, but thou change thy mind, I do foretell the end,

Thou shalt undo thyself for aye, and me thy trusty friend.

For why, thy absence known, thy father will be wroth,

And in his rage so narrowly he will pursue us both,

That we shall try in vain to 'scape away by flight,

And vainly seek a lurking place to hide us from his sight.

Then we, found out and caught, quite void of strong defence,

Shall cruelly be punishéd for thy departure hence;

I as a ravisher, thou as a careless child,

I as a man who doth defile, thou as a maid defiled;

Thinking to lead in ease a long contented life,

Shall short our days by shameful death: but if, my loving wife,

Thou banish from thy mind two foes that counsel hath,

That wont to hinder sound advice, rash hastiness and wrath;

If thou be bent t'obey the lore of reason's skill

And wisely by her princely power suppress rebelling will,

If thou our safety seek, more than thine own delight,

Since surety stands in parting, and thy pleasures grow of sight,

Forbear the cause of joy, and suffer for a while,

So shall I safely live abroad, and safe turn from exile,

So shall no slander's blot thy spotless life distain,

So shall thy kinsmen be unstirred, and I exempt from pain.

And think thou not, that aye the cause of care shall last;

These stormy broils shall overblow, much like a winter's blast.

For Fortune changeth more than fickle fantasy;

In nothing Fortune constant is save in unconstancy.

Her hasty running wheel is of a restless course,

That turns the climbers headlong down, from better to the worse,

And those that are beneath she heaveth up again:

So we shall rise to pleasure's mount, out of the pit of pain.

Ere four months overpass, such order will I take,

And by my letters and my friends such means I mind to make,

That of my wand'ring race ended shall be the toil,

And I called home with honour great unto my native soil.

But if I be condemned to wander still in thrall,

I will return to you, mine own, befall what may befall.

And then by strength of friends, and with a mighty hand,

From Verone will I carry thee into a foreign land,

Not in man's weed disguised, or as one scarcely known,

But as my wife and only fere, in garment of thine own.

Wherefore repress at once the passions of thy heart,

And where there is no cause of grief, cause hope to heal thy smart.

For of this one thing thou may'st well assuréd be,

That nothing else but only death shall sunder me from thee."

The reasons that he made did seem of so great weight,

And had with her such force, that she to him 'gan answer straight:

"Dear sir, nought else wish I but to obey your will;

But sure whereso you go, your heart with me shall tarry still,

As sign and certain pledge, till here I shall you see,

Of all the power that over you yourself did grant to