Shall I speak ill of him that is my husb...

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name

When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?

But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?

That villain cousin would have killed my husband.

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!

Your tributary drops belong to woe,

Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.

My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;

And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.

All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,

That murd'red me. I would forget it fain;

But O, it presses to my memory

Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds!

'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banishèd!'

That 'banishèd,' that one word 'banishèd,'

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death

Was woe enough, if it had ended there;

Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship

And needly will be ranked with other griefs,

Why followèd not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'

Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,

Which modern lamentation might have moved?

But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,

'Romeo is banishèd'--to speak that word

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,

All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banishèd'--

There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,

In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.

William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet Act 3, sc.2, ll.97-127

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