Come cords, come Nurse, I’ll to my wedding bed,

And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.


NURSE.

Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo

To comfort you. I wot well where he is.

Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.

I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.


JULIET.

O find him, give this ring to my true knight,

And bid him come to take his last farewell.


 [Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.
 Enter Friar Lawrence.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.

Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.

Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts

And thou art wedded to calamity.


 Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.

Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,

That I yet know not?


FRIAR LAWRENCE.

Too familiar

Is my dear son with such sour company.

I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.


ROMEO.

What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?


FRIAR LAWRENCE.

A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,

Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.


ROMEO.

Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death;

For exile hath more terror in his look,

Much more than death. Do not say banishment.


FRIAR LAWRENCE.

Hence from Verona art thou banished.

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.


ROMEO.

There is no world without Verona walls,

But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

Hence banished is banish’d from the world,

And world’s exile is death. Then banished

Is death misterm’d. Calling death banished,

Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,

And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.


FRIAR LAWRENCE.

O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!

Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,

Taking thy part, hath brush’d aside the law,

And turn’d that black word death to banishment.

This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.


ROMEO.

’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here

Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog,

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,