The Shakespeare Story-Book

“Banished!”

When Juliet hastened to Friar Laurence’s cell to be married to Romeo, her nurse went off in another direction, to secure a ladder of cords, so that the young husband might visit his wife that evening, and speak to her with less danger of discovery than if she were up in the balcony and he below in the orchard.

This nurse of Juliet’s was a talkative, easy-tempered old person, very fond of her nursling – of whom she had had charge since she was a baby – and good-natured after a fashion, but vulgar-minded, and very selfish if anything came to cross her own convenience. Juliet had coaxed her into sympathy about her present affairs, and Romeo, being a very handsome, open-handed young gentleman, the nurse for the moment was on their side, and consented to act as messenger between them. But her own aches and pains were at all times more important to the old woman than the concerns of anyone else; and even when returning from her mission to settle the time of the marriage, she was more occupied in recounting her own ailments than in relieving the anxiety of her young mistress to hear news of Romeo.

However, as long as things went well, she was willing to be amiable, and the young girl was at least not left entirely destitute of any confidant. But when trouble arose, the nurse’s shallow, selfish nature became apparent, and poor Juliet was soon to learn that she must rely solely on her own strength and judgment in the sorrows that overwhelmed her.

After the marriage Juliet returned home, and there presently the nurse joined her. She carried the ladder of cords she had gone to fetch, but she flung it down with a gesture of despair, and her face was the picture of woe.

“Ay me! What news? Why do you wring your hands?” exclaimed Juliet, a sudden chill of terror clouding the sunshine of her joy.

“Ah, well-a-day! he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!” wailed the nurse. “We are undone, lady – we are undone! Alack the day! He’s gone, he’s killed, he’s dead!”

Juliet thought, of course, that the nurse referred to Romeo, especially when she went on weeping and wailing and saying that she had seen him lying dead with her own eyes. Juliet’s heart was nearly broken at the dreadful news, when suddenly the stupid old woman, in her confused style began to lament:

“O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had! O courteous Tybalt! Honest gentleman! That ever I should live to see thee dead!”

“What do you mean?” said poor, bewildered Juliet. “Is Romeo slaughtered, and is Tybalt dead? My dear-loved cousin and my dearer lord?”

“Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,” said the nurse. “Romeo that killed him, he is banished.”

Her words were plain enough now. Juliet shrank back in horror.

“Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?”

“It did – it did. Alas the day, it did!”

Juliet’s first impulse was to heap reproaches on her newly made husband, who hid so vile a nature under so fair a seeming; but when the nurse chimed eagerly in, and said there was no trust, no faith, no honesty in man, – they were all perjured, all dissemblers, Juliet immediately changed her tone, and broke into an indignant defence of Romeo.

“Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?” asked the nurse.

“Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” cried Juliet. “Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name when I, thy three-hours wife, have wronged it?”

Worse, far worse to her, than her cousin’s death was the terrible news that Romeo was banished. “Tybalt is dead, and Romeo – banished!” The dreadful words kept ringing in her ears. “Romeo is banished! There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, in that word’s death; no words can fathom that woe,” she mourned.

Juliet bade the nurse carry away the ladder of cords, for it was of no use now. Romeo was exiled, she would never see him again; death, and not Romeo, would be her husband.

The old woman was melted to pity at the sight of Juliet’s misery.

“Go to your room,” she said soothingly. “I’ll find Romeo to comfort you. I know well where he is. Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night. I’ll go to him; he is hidden in Friar Laurence’s cell.”

“Oh, find him! Give this ring to my true knight,” cried Juliet, “and bid him come to take his last farewell.”

Forced to find a refuge after the death of Tybalt, Romeo had gone to the man who had always been a friend to him, and the good Friar Laurence had given him shelter in his cell. He then sallied forth to learn how matters were going, and presently returned with the news of the doom that the Prince had pronounced – Romeo was banished. Romeo was in despair when he heard the sentence. To him banishment seemed worse than death. In vain the Friar tried to comfort him, pointing out that the sentence was more merciful than what he had a right to expect. Romeo declared it was torture, and not mercy. Heaven was here where Juliet lived; and henceforth every cat and dog, and little mouse, and unworthy thing, might look at her, but he might not. Every creature was free, but he was banished. Was there no poison, no sharp knife, no sudden way of death, however mean, that might have killed him, that he must live on in torture, with that word “banished”?

The good Friar tried to reason with him, but for the moment Romeo was past all reason; he refused to listen to any words of counsel, and flung himself down on the ground in a perfect frenzy of grief.

At that moment there came a knocking at the outside door.

“Arise; someone is knocking. Good Romeo hide thyself,” entreated the Friar.

But Romeo refused to stir. The knocking came again, louder and more imperative.

“Hark how they knock!.. Who’s there?.. Romeo, arise; thou wilt be taken… Stay awhile… Stand up! Run to my study… In a minute… Heavens! what folly is this?.. I come – I come!”

The Friar’s entreaties to Romeo were mixed with broken ejaculations to the person knocking outside, but as the headstrong young man refused to move from the spot where he had flung himself down on the floor of the cell, Friar Laurence dared no longer delay to open the door.

Happily the new-comer was only Juliet’s nurse, and no dangerous or inquisitive visitor. Romeo eagerly demanded news, and then, in a fresh passion of remorse at the misery he had brought on his dear lady, threatened madly to kill himself, and drew his sword.

The Friar stayed his hand, and now began sternly to rebuke him for his frantic behaviour and unmanly lack of all self-control. Then he pointed out that he had still many blessings left to him, though he chose sullenly to ignore them. Juliet still lived – he was happy in that; the law that might have condemned him to death had turned it into exile – he was happy in that; finally, the Friar bade him go to Juliet as had been arranged, and comfort her.

“But take care not to stay till the watch be set,” he counselled, “for then you cannot pass to Mantua, where you shall live till we can find a time to publish your marriage, reconcile your friends, beg pardon of the Prince, and call you back, with twenty hundred thousand times more joy than you went forth in lamentation.”

Romeo was greatly cheered by the brave words of the Friar, and the nurse hurried back to Juliet with the news that her husband would soon be with her.

Comfort and Counsel

The second parting of Romeo and Juliet at the balcony looking into Capulet’s orchard was very different from the first. Then, indeed, Romeo had reluctantly torn himself away; but, after all, they had another happier meeting to look forward to on the morrow. Now, all was gloom and uncertainty, and who knew when they would ever see each other again? The lark, the herald of the morning, that sang joyously high overhead, – the golden rays of dawn that pierced the eastern clouds, – only brought sadness to the hearts of the young husband and wife, for they told that the fatal hour of parting had come. Longing to keep Romeo with her, yet dreading the peril he ran if he delayed too long, Juliet one moment implored him to stay, and the next urged him to depart.

“Oh, now be gone; more light and light it grows,” she sighed at last; and Romeo echoed despairingly:

“More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!”

At this moment the nurse came hastily to warn Juliet that her mother was approaching, and now indeed Romeo must take his last farewell. As Juliet looked down to him from the balcony it seemed to her that Romeo’s face, in the gray light of dawn, looked pale as one in the bottom of a tomb, and even his cheering words that spoke of a future meeting failed to bring comfort to her breaking heart.

But she had no time to brood over this sorrow, for she was now called to face another and almost more terrible trial.

Lady Capulet had come to her daughter’s room at this unusual hour to bring news of great importance. The County Paris had renewed his suit to Juliet’s father. All was arranged; the marriage was fixed to take place in three days’ time, on the following Thursday. It did not occur to the parents that Juliet would have any voice in the matter; or, rather, Lady Capulet thought it would be joyful tidings to her, and would help to console her for the death of her cousin Tybalt. She was, therefore, somewhat astonished to find the way in which her news was received. In answer to her intelligence that early next Thursday the gallant, young, and noble gentleman, the County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church, would happily make Juliet a joyful bride, her daughter exclaimed with fire:

“Now, by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too, he shall not make me there a joyful bride!”

Juliet went on to say that she would not marry in this haste, and when she did marry it would be Romeo, their enemy, rather than Paris.

Then in came Capulet, her father, and, deaf to all Juliet’s pleadings, he swore in a furious rage that she should marry Paris; and if she did not, she might beg, starve, die in the streets, for he would not own her as a daughter.

Juliet appealed to her mother, but Lady Capulet was really angry with her, or perhaps she did not dare to go against her husband; at any rate, she took his side in the matter, and harshly refused to listen to anything Juliet might say.

“Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee,” were her final cruel words, as she followed her husband from the room.

Cut to the heart, stunned with misery, Juliet turned to her last hope. Her old nurse was still beside her; she, at least, knew that what her parents demanded was impossible; she knew that Juliet could not marry Paris, for she was already married to Romeo. Perhaps she could suggest some way of escape.

“Comfort me, counsel me,” implored the distracted young girl. “What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, nurse.”

And this is the comfort and counsel the old nurse gave. Romeo was banished, she said; she would wager anything he would never dare to come back to challenge her, or, if he did, it would have to be by stealth. Then, since the case stood as it did, she thought the best thing would be for Juliet to marry the County Paris. Oh, he was a lovely gentleman! Romeo was nothing to him! Indeed, she thought Juliet very happy in her second match, for it far excelled her first; or, if it did not, her first was dead, or he might just as well be dead as living, when banished from Juliet.

So spoke the selfish, base-minded old woman. Juliet looked at her fixedly.

“Do you speak this from your heart?” she asked solemnly.

“And from my soul too,” returned the old woman, “or evil befall them.”

“Amen!” said Juliet.

“What?”

“Well, you have comforted me marvellous much,” said Juliet, speaking with strange calm. “Go in, and tell my lady that, having displeased my father, I have gone to Friar Laurence’s cell to make confession and to be absolved.”

“Marry I will, and this is wisely done,” said the old nurse, pottering away to fulfil her errand.

Then, for a moment, Juliet’s self-restraint gave way.

“Oh, most wicked fiend!” she cried, in just indignation. “Is it more sin to wish me to be thus forsworn, or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue with which she has praised him as above compare so many thousand times! Go, counsellor; thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I will go to the Friar to ask his remedy. If everything else fail, I have power myself to die.”

The good Friar did not fail the young girl in her need, as the old nurse had done. But the way of escape he suggested was such a terrible one that none but the bravest and most faithful heart could ever have consented to it. Juliet’s position, however, was so desperate, and she was so determined to be true to Romeo, that she would have died rather than have married Paris; and now she declared she was ready to go down to the gates of death itself if only she might live a true wife to Romeo.

Seeing her resolution, Friar Laurence went on to describe his plan. The marriage was to take place two days hence, on the Thursday. On the Wednesday night Juliet, when she went to bed, was to drink off the contents of a phial, which the Friar would give her. This was a very strong sleeping draught, which would make her lie exactly like dead, pale as ashes, stiff and cold, for forty-two hours, after which she would awaken as if from a pleasant sleep. On the Thursday morning, when they came to rouse her for the marriage, they would find her apparently dead, and then – according to the custom of the country – in her best robes, uncovered on the bier, she would be borne to the ancient vault of the Capulets.

In the meantime, before she awoke, news would be sent to Romeo to tell him everything. He would come back to Verona, and he and Friar Laurence would watch beside Juliet in the vault until she awoke, and that very same night Romeo should convey her away to Mantua.

This was the desperate plan which the Friar suggested, and which Juliet’s love for her husband gave her strength to accept and carry out. With unflinching courage she seized the little phial, while Friar Laurence went immediately to despatch a speedy messenger to Mantua with letters to Romeo.

All through the night before the marriage there was bustle and stir in the household of the Capulets. Great preparations were being made for the festivities, and Capulet himself was up all night, urging forward the servants, and hurrying them here and there about their different tasks. As the moments sped by, he became more and more excited, and when the musicians arrived to serenade the bride on her wedding morning, he shouted to the nurse to go and waken Juliet at once, and get her dressed.

“Hie, make haste!” he said. “I’ll go and chat with Paris. Make haste, make haste! The bridegroom, he is come already! Make haste, I say!”

So the nurse went to Juliet’s chamber…

How calm and restful was everything here! What a contrast to the rush and noisy confusion outside the closed door! Not a sound broke the stillness, not a rustle of movement showed that any living creature was an inmate of the room. Behind those drawn curtains the bride slept well.

But she must rouse herself now; the time for slumber is past. She must shake off the heaviness from her dreaming eyes; she must leave this peaceful haven of her childhood; her happy girlish days are over and done with. The wedding feast is set, the guests are assembling, the bridegroom is waiting. Wake, Juliet, awaken!..

Shout, nurse, wail for sorrow, and wring your hands. Call louder, the bride does not hear you. Weep, mother, for the child whom you turned from when living; mourn, father, for the daughter you rejected and disowned.

There in her bridal robes lies the bride upon her bed, pale as ashes, stiff and cold. The snowy whiteness of her wedding raiment is not more white than her face; her closed eyes smile back no greeting to the rising sun. The little phial has done its work. Here at the door stands the bridegroom, but to the mourners in that desolate chamber it seems that a mightier than he has stepped before him and claimed the bride, and the name of that bridegroom is Death.

The Palace of Dim Night

Friar Laurence had done his best for the young lovers, and he carried out his scheme with speed and vigilance. But an unfortunate accident prevented the letters he wrote to Romeo ever reaching their destination. The friar to whom he entrusted them went to find a brother friar of their order to go with him. This man was occupied in visiting the sick; the plague was then raging in Verona, and the searchers of the town, finding Friar John and his companion, and suspecting they were both in a house where the pestilence was, sealed up the doors, and refused to let them forth. Thus Friar John never got to Mantua at all, and he was even unable to forward the letter to Romeo or to return it to Friar Laurence, so fearful was everyone of infection.

On his release, two days later, he hurried back to the cell of Friar Laurence, and the latter learnt with dismay how his plan had failed. There was now only one thing to be done: he must go to the vault alone, to be there when Juliet awakened, for in three hours’ time the power of the sleeping potion would be exhausted.

Though Friar Laurence’s message never got to Romeo, other tidings of sadder import reached him. When Romeo had started for Mantua, he left his servant, Balthasar, to follow him later with all news. Balthasar, of course, like all Verona, had heard of the tragedy at the Capulets’ house, and never doubted of the truth of Juliet’s death. At the moment he reached Mantua, it happened that Romeo was in the highest spirits; an unaccustomed lightness of heart seemed that day to have taken possession of him. As he strolled through the streets of Mantua just before Balthasar’s arrival, Romeo was musing happily over a dream of good omen that he had had the night before.

“My dream foretells some joyful news at hand,” he thought.“ I dreamt my lady came and found me dead – strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think! – and breathed such life with kisses on my lips that I revived, and was an emperor. Ah me! how sweet is love itself, when but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!”

At that moment Balthasar appeared, just as he had come off his journey. Romeo’s heart leapt up anew at the sight of him.

“News from Verona!” he cried. “How now, Balthasar? Do you not bring me letters from the Friar? How doth my lady? Is my father well? How fares my Juliet? I ask that again, for nothing can be ill if she be well.”

Balthasar bowed his head, and spoke sadly and solemnly.

“Then she is well, and nothing can be ill. Her body sleeps in Capulet’s monument, and her immortal part with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault, and took post at once to tell it you. Oh, pardon me for bringing this ill news, since you left it for my office, sir.”

Stunned by the blow. Romeo made no loud outcry; those who are stricken to the heart have no power to bewail their misery.

“Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!” was all he said, when he heard the fatal tidings. The boyish turbulence, the violent outpourings of grief, the noisy despair that had followed his former woes found no voice in his present calamity. His was the calmness of one who knows that for him all hope is over. “You know my lodging; get me ink and paper,” he said to Balthasar. “And hire post-horses. I will hence to-night.”

“I do beseech you, sir, have patience,” said the serving-man. “Your looks are wild and pale, and import some misadventure.”

“Tush! You are deceived,” said Romeo. “Leave me, and do the thing I bid you do. Have you no letters to me from the Friar?”

“No, my good lord.”

“No matter. Get you gone, and hire those horses. I’ll be with you directly.”

Romeo’s resolution was taken. Juliet was dead. Well, he would die too. Now for the means. Then Romeo remembered that near the very spot where he was standing dwelt an old apothecary – a meagre wretch, wasted with misery and famine, whose sordid little shop contained a few musty odds and ends of rubbish, thinly scattered to make up a show. Noting this penury when he had first seen him, Romeo had said to himself: “Now, if a man needed a poison whose sale would be instant death in Mantua, here lives a caitiff wretch who would sell it him.” That thought had only been the forerunner of his present need, and now he found that, won over by the handsome bribe offered, the starving apothecary could indeed supply him with a fatal drug of deadly power.

The hour of awakening had not yet come, and Juliet still slept peacefully in her strange abode of death.

To the churchyard at night came the gallant County Paris, to lay flowers at the tomb of the young bride who had been so untimely snatched away. His little page kept watch at a distance, while Paris laid the flowers with loving words at the door of the tomb.

Warned by a whistle from the page, Paris retired into the shadow, as other footsteps were heard approaching. Romeo, accompanied by Balthasar, bearing a torch and some tools for opening the vault, now came near, and Paris could hear the instructions Romeo gave his servant.

“Give me the mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning see you deliver it to my lord and father. Give me the light. I charge you on your life, whatever you hear or see, stand quite aloof, and do not interrupt me in what I am doing. The reason I descend into this abode of death is partly to behold my lady’s face, but chiefly to take from her dead finger a precious ring. Therefore, hence, begone! But if you jealously return to pry into what I further intend to do, by heaven, I will tear you joint from joint!”

“I will begone, sir, and not trouble you,” replied Balthasar; but, all the same, he intended to hide himself somewhere near, for he feared the looks of Romeo, and doubted his intention.

When the serving-man had retired, Romeo took up the tools, and began to wrench open the door of the tomb. But now Paris came forward to interfere.

“This is that banished, haughty Montague,” he said to himself, “who murdered my love’s cousin, out of grief for whom it is supposed she died. Now he has come here to do some villainous shame to the dead bodies. I will seize him. Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague! Can vengeance be pursued further than death? Villain, I seize thee! Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.”

“I must indeed, and therefore came I hither,” said Romeo. “Good, gentle youth, do not tempt a desperate man. Fly hence and leave me; think on those who are dead. I beseech thee, youth, do not put another sin on my head by urging me to fury. Oh, begone! By heaven, I love thee better than myself. Stay not; begone!”

“I defy all thy entreaties,” cried Paris hotly, “and seize thee here for a felon.”

“Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!” said Romeo, compelled to draw in self-defence.

They fought, and Paris was wounded.

“Oh, I am slain!” he moaned. “If thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.”

“In faith, I will. Let me see this face,” said Romeo, and he took up the torch to look at the dead man. “Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris! What was it my man said when my troubled soul paid no heed to him as we rode hither? I think he told me Paris should have married Juliet. Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, to think it was so? – Oh, give me thy hand, one writ with me in sour misfortune’s book! I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.”

Taking up the dead body of the gallant youth, Romeo laid it gently inside the tomb. Then all other thoughts faded from his mind, for there, uncovered on the bier, clad in her wedding-robes, radiant in all her beauty, lay the young wife from whom he had only parted a few days before.