• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

But also to so close and to so hard a gaol

I shall thee wed, for all thy life, that sure thou shalt not fail

A thousand times a day to wish for sudden death,

And curse the day and hour when first thy lungs did give thee breath.

Advise thee well, and say that thou art warnéd now,

And think not that I speak in sport, or mind to break my vow.

For were it not that I to County Paris gave

My faith, which I must keep unfalsed, my honour so to save,

Ere thou go hence, myself would see thee chastened so,

That thou should'st once for all be taught thy duty how to know;

And what revenge of old the angry sires did find

Against their children that rebelled and showed themself unkind."

These said, the old man straight is gone in haste away,

Ne for his daughter's answer would the testy father stay.

And after him his wife doth follow out of door,

And there they leave their chidden child kneeling upon the floor:

Then she that oft had seen the fury of her sire,

Dreading what might come of his rage, nould farther stir his ire.

Unto her chamber she withdrew herself apart,

Where she was wonted to unload the sorrows of her heart.

There did she not so much busy her eyes in sleeping,

As overpressed with restless thoughts in piteous bootless weeping.

The fast falling of tears make not her tears decrease,

Ne, by the pouring forth of plaint, the cause of plaint doth cease.

So that to th'end the moan and sorrow may decay,

The best is that she seek some mean to take the cause away.

Her weary bed betime the woeful wight forsakes,

And to Saint Francis' church to mass her way devoutly takes.

The friar forth is called; she prays him hear her shrift;

Devotion is in so young years a rare and precious gift.

When on her tender knees the dainty lady kneels,

In mind to pour forth all the grief that inwardly she feels,

With sighs and salted tears her shriving doth begin,

For she of heapéd sorrows hath to speak, and not of sin.

Her voice with piteous plaint was made already hoarse,

And hasty sobs, when she would speak, brake off her words perforce.

But as she may, piece-meal, she poureth in his lap

The marriage news, a mischief new, preparéd by mishap,

Her parents' promise erst to County Paris past,

Her father's threats she telleth him, and thus concludes at last:

"Once was I wedded well, ne will I wed again;

For since I know I may not be the wedded wife of twain,

For I am bound to have one God, one faith, one make,

My purpose is as soon as I shall hence my journey take,

With these two hands, which joined unto the heavens I stretch,

The hasty death which I desire, unto myself to reach.

This day, O Romeus, this day thy woeful wife

Will bring the end of all her cares by ending careful life.

So my departed sprite shall witness to the sky,

And eke my blood unto the earth bear record, how that I

Have kept my faith unbroke, steadfast unto my friend."

When this her heavy tale was told, her vow eke at an end,

Her gazing here and there, her fierce and staring look,

Did witness that some lewd attempt her heart had undertook.

Whereat the friar astound, and ghastfully afraid

Lest she by deed perform her word, thus much to her he said:

"Ah, Lady Juliet, what need the words you spake?

I pray you, grant me one request, for blesséd Mary's sake.

Measure somewhat your grief, hold here awhile your peace;

Whilst I bethink me of your case, your plaint and sorrows cease.

Such comfort will I give you, ere you part from hence,

And for th'assaults of Fortune's ire prepare so sure defence,

So wholesome salve will I for your afflictions find,

That you shall hence depart again with well contented mind."

His words have chaséd straight out of her heart despair,

Her black and ugly dreadful thoughts by hope are waxen fair.

So Friar Laurence now hath left her there alone,

And he out of the church in haste is to his chamber gone;

Where sundry thoughts within his careful head arise;

The old man's foresight divers doubts hath set before his eyes,

His conscience one while condemns it for a sin