The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 3: Books for ChildrenLamb, Charles
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The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 3: Books for Children
Lamb, Charles
Children's poetry; Children's stories
she about to awake to complain that Romeo had not kept his time, or
that he had come too soon.
For now the hour was arrived at which the friar had promised that she
should awake; and he, having learned that his letters which he had
sent to Mantua, by some unlucky detention of the messenger, had never
reached Romeo, came himself, provided with a pick-axe and lantern, to
deliver the lady from her confinement; but he was surprised to find a
light already burning in the Capulets' monument, and to see swords and
blood near it, and Romeo and Paris lying breathless by the monument.
Before he could entertain a conjecture, to imagine how these fatal
accidents had fallen out, Juliet awoke out of her trance, and seeing
the friar near her, she remembered the place where she was, and the
occasion of her being there, and asked for Romeo: but the friar,
hearing a noise, bade her come out of that place of death, and of
unnatural sleep, for a greater power than they could contradict had
thwarted their intents; and being frighted by the noise of people
coming, he fled; but when Juliet saw the cup closed in her true love's
hands, she guessed that poison had been the cause of his end, and she
would have swallowed the dregs if any had been left, and she kissed
his still warm lips to try if any poison yet did hang upon them: then
hearing a nearer noise of people coming, she quickly unsheathed a
dagger which she wore, and stabbing herself, died by her true Romeo's
side.
The watch by this time had come up to the place. A page belonging to
count Paris, who had witnessed the fight between his master and Romeo,
had given the alarm, which had spread among the citizens, who went
up and down the streets of Verona confusedly, exclaiming, A Paris, a
Romeo, a Juliet, as the rumour had imperfectly reached them, till the
uproar brought lord Mountague and lord Capulet out of their beds,
with the prince, to enquire into the causes of the disturbance. The
friar had been apprehended by some of the watch, coming from the
church-yard, trembling, sighing, and weeping, in a suspicious manner.
A great multitude being assembled at the Capulets' monument, the friar
was commanded by the prince to deliver what he knew of these strange
and disastrous accidents.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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