Page:Romeo and Juliet (1917) Yale.djvu/79

Romeo and Juliet, III. ii

My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;

And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:

All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,

That murder'd me: I would forget it fain;

But O! it presses to my memory,

Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds.

'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished!'

That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death

Was woe enough, if it had ended there:

Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship,

And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,

Why follow'd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'

Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,

Which modern lamentation might have mov'd?

But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,

'Romeo is banished!' to speak that word

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,

All slain, all dead: 'Romeo is banished!'

There is no end, no limit, measure, bound

In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.—

Where is my father and my mother, nurse?

Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:

Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,

When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.

Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil'd,

 117 needly: necessarily

be rank'd: stand in line

120 modern: commonplace

121 rearward: rear guard; cf. n. 