Page 3204 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

ROMEO

What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?

FRIAR LAURENCE

A gentler judgement vanish’d from his lips: [10]
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 LAURENCE

Hence from Verona art thou banished. [15]
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’[20]
Is death, misterm’d. Calling death ‘banished’
Thou cut’st my head off with a golden axe
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

FRIAR LAURENCE

O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness.
Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince, [25]
Taking thy part, hath rush’d aside the law
And turn’d that black word ‘death’ to banishment.
This is dear mercy and thou seest it not.

ROMEO

’Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog [30]
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize [35]