Page:Romeo and Juliet (1917) Yale.djvu/121

Romeo and Juliet, V. iii

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!

They fight.

Page. O Lord! they fight: I will go call the watch.

[Exit.]

Par. [Falls.] O, I am slain!—If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

Rom. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face:

Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!

What said my man when my betossed soul

Did not attend him as we rode? 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? O! give me thy hand,

One writ with me in sour misfortune's book:

I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;

A grave? O, no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,

For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes

This vault a feasting presence full of light.

Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd,

How oft when men are at the point of death

Have they been merry! which their keepers call

A lightning before death: O! how may I

Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death's pale flag is not advanced there.

 74 peruse: survey

76 betossed: troubled

84 lantern: a windowed turret, as often over the center of large churches

86 presence: presence-chamber, great room of state

89 keepers: sick-nurses

90 lightning: exhilaration

