Page 3245 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me
As signal that thou hear’st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee. Go.

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I am almost afraid to stand alone [10]
Here in the churchyard. Yet I will adventure.

(Retires.)
Paris strews the tomb with flowers.

PARIS Page whistles.
(Paris retires.)
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans. [15]
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite? [20]
What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile.

Enter Romeo and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock and a crow of iron.

ROMEO

Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter. Early in the moming
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee, [25]
Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death
Is partly to behold my lady’s face
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger [30]
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I farther shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint, [35]