قراءة كتاب Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

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Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

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المؤلف:

Shakespeare William

دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

الصفحة رقم: 5

divine law of love—while by an evil destiny it brings death to themselves, involves also the death of the hate which was the primal cause of all the tragic consequences.

This is no less distinctly expressed in the last speeches of the play. After hearing the Friar's story, the Prince says:—

"Where be these enemies?—Capulet!—Montague!

See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!

And I, for winking at your discords too,

Have lost a brace of kinsmen; all are punish'd.

Capulet. O brother Montague, give me thy hand;

This is my daughter's jointure, for no more

Can I demand.

Montague. But I can give thee more;

For I will raise her statue in pure gold,

That while Verona by that name is known

There shall no figure at such rate be set

As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Capulet. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie;

Poor sacrifices of our enmity!"

It is the parents who are punished. The scourge is laid upon their hate, and it was the love of their children by which Heaven found the means to wield that scourge. The Prince himself has a share in the penalty for tolerating the discords of the families. "We all," he says, "all are punished." But the good Friar's hope, expressed when he consented to perform the marriage,—

"For this alliance may so happy prove

To turn your households' rancour to pure love,"—

is now fulfilled. Both Capulet and Montague, as they join hands in amity over the dead bodies of their children, acknowledge the debt they owe to the "star-cross'd" love of those "poor sacrifices of their enmity." They vie with each other in doing honour to the guiltless victims of their "pernicious rage." Montague will raise the golden statue to Juliet, and Capulet promises as rich a monument to Romeo.

Da Porto and Paynter and Brooke, in like manner, refer to the reconciliation of the rival families as the fortunate result of the tragic history. Da Porto says: "Their fathers, weeping over the bodies of their children and overcome by mutual pity, embraced each other; so that the long enmity between them and their houses, which neither the prayers of their friends, nor the menaces of the Prince, nor even time itself had been able to extinguish, was ended by the piteous death of the two lovers." As Paynter puts it, "The Montesches and Capellets poured forth such abundance of tears, as with the same they did evacuate their ancient grudge and choler, whereby they were then reconciled: and they which could not be brought to atonement [3] by any wisdom or human counsel were in the end vanquished and made friends by pity." So Brooke, in his lumbering verse:—

"The straungenes of the chaunce, when tryed was the truth,

The Montagewes and Capelets hath moved so to ruth,

That with their emptyed teares, theyr choler and theyr rage

Was emptied quite; and they whose wrath no wisdom could asswage,

Nor threatning of the prince, ne mynd of murthers donne

At length (so mighty Jove it would) by pitye they are wonne."

And then the poem, like the play, ends with a reference to the monumental honour done to the lovers:

"And lest that length of time might from our myndes remove

The memory of so perfect, sound, and so approved love,

The bodies dead, removed from vaulte where they did dye,

In stately tombe, on pillers great of marble, rayse they hye.

On every syde above were set, and eke beneath,

Great store of cunning Epitaphes, in honor of theyr death.

And even at this day the tombe is to be seene;

So that among the monumentes that in Verona been,

There is no monument more worthy of the sight,

Then is the tombe of Juliet and Romeus her knight."

ROMEO AND JULIET

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Escalus, prince of Verona.
Paris, a young nobleman, kinsman to the prince.
Montague, }
Capulet, } heads of two houses at variance with each other.
An old man of the Capulet family.
Romeo, son to Montague.
Mercutio, kinsman to the prince, and friend to Romeo.
Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo.
Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.
Friar Laurence, }
Friar John, } Franciscans.
Balthasar, servant to Romeo.
Sampson, }
Gregory, } servants to Capulet.
Peter, servant to Juliet's nurse.
Abram, servant to Montague.
An Apothecary.
Three Musicians.
Page to Paris; another Page; an Officer.

Lady Montague, wife to Montague.
Lady Capulet, wife to Capulet.
Juliet, daughter to Capulet.
Nurse to Juliet.

Citizens of Verona; Kinsfolk of both houses; Maskers, Guards, Watchmen, and Attendants.

Chorus.

Scene: Verona; Mantua.

The "Measure"

PROLOGUE

Two households, both alike in dignity,

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