Page:Romeo and Juliet (1917) Yale.djvu/127

Romeo and Juliet, V. iii

Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.

Mon. 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,

And let mischance be slave to patience.

Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

''Fri. L''. I am the greatest, able to do least,

Yet most suspected, as the time and place

Doth make against me, of this direful murder;

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.

''Fri. L''. I will be brief, for my short date of breath

Is not so long as is a tedious tale.

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 mean

To rid her from this second marriage,

Or in my cell there would she kill herself.

 216 outrage: violent language

221 Cf. n.

222 of: under

226 purge: free from suspicion

