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To let her take Paris to spouse, since he himself had bin

The chiefest cause, that she unknown to father or mother,

Not five months past, in that self place was wedded to another.

Another while an hugy heap of dangers dread

His restless thought hath heapéd up within his troubled head.

Even of itself th'attempt he judgeth perilous;

The execution eke he deems so much more dangerous,

That to a woman's grace he must himself commit,

That young is, simple and unware, for weighty affairs unfit;

For if she fail in aught, the matter publishéd,

Both she and Romeus were undone, himself eke punishéd.

When to and fro in mind he divers thoughts had cast,

With tender pity and with ruth his heart was won at last;

He thought he rather would in hazard set his fame,

Than suffer such adultery. Resolving on the same,

Out of his closet straight he took a little glass,

And then with double haste returned where woeful Juliet was;

Whom he hath found well-nigh in trance, scarce drawing breath,

Attending still to hear the news of life or else of death.

Of whom he did enquire of the appointed day:

"On Wednesday next," quod Juliet, "so doth my father say,

I must give my consent; but, as I do remember,

The solemn day of marriage is the tenth day of September."

"Dear daughter," quoth the friar, "of good cheer see thou be,

For lo, Saint Francis of his grace hath showed a way to me,

By which I may both thee and Romeus together

Out of the bondage which you fear assurédly deliver.

Even from the holy font thy husband have I known,

And, since he grew in years, have kept his counsels as mine own.

For from his youth he would unfold to me his heart,

And often have I curéd him of anguish and of smart;

I know that by desert his friendship I have won,

And I him hold as dear as if he were my proper son.

Wherefore my friendly heart cannot abide that he

Should wrongfully in aught be harmed, if that it lay in me

To right or to revenge the wrong by my advice,

Or timely to prevent the same in any other wise.

And sith thou art his wife, thee am I bound to love,

For Romeus' friendship's sake, and seek thy anguish to remove,

And dreadful torments, which thy heart besiegen round;

Wherefore, my daughter, give good ear unto my counsels sound.

Forget not what I say, ne tell it any wight,

Not to the nurse thou trustest so, as Romeus is thy knight;

For on this thread doth hang thy death and eke thy life,

My fame or shame, his weal or woe that chose thee to his wife.

Thou art not ignorant -- because of such renown

As everywhere is spread of me, but chiefly in this town --

That in my youthful days abroad I travelléd,

Through every land found out by men, by men inhabited;

So twenty years from home, in lands unknown a guest,

I never gave my weary limbs long time of quiet rest,

But in the desert woods, to beasts of cruel kind,

Or on the seas to drenching waves, at pleasure of the wind,

I have committed them, to ruth of rover's hand,

And to a thousand dangers more, by water and by land.

But not in vain, my child, hath all my wand'ring bin;

Beside the great contentedness my sprite abideth in,

That by the pleasant thought of passéd things doth grow,

One private fruit more have I plucked, which thou shalt shortly know:

What force the stones, the plants, and metals have to work,

And divers other things that in the bowels of earth do lurk,

With care I have sought out, with pain I did them prove;

With them eke can I help myself at times of my behove, --

Although the science be against the laws of men, --

When sudden danger forceth me; but yet most chiefly when

The work to do is least displeasing unto God,

Not helping to do any sin that wreakful Jove forbode.

For since in life no hope of long abode I have,

But now am come unto the brink of my appointed grave,

And that my death draws near, whose stripe I may not shun,

But shall be called make account of all that I have done,

Now ought I from henceforth more deeply print in mind

The judgment of the Lord, than when youth's folly made me blind,

When love and