‘The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet’ was the key source for William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It was translated by Arthur Brooke from an Italian novella (written by Matteo Bandello) and published in 1562. The poem ends very differently from Shakespeare's play; while Romeus and Juliet still die for eachother, the nurse is banished and Friar Lawrence leaves Verona to live in hiding until he dies.
At the start of the tale, Brooke adds an irregular sonnet summing up ‘The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet’:
And both do grant the
thing that both desire
They wed in shrift by
counsel of a friar.
Young Romeus climbs fair
Juliet's bower by night.
Three months he doth
enjoy his chief delight.
By Tybalt's rage provoked
unto ire,
He payeth death to
Tybalt for his hire.
A banished man he
'scapes by secret flight.
New marriage is offered
to his wife.
She drinks a drink that
seems to reave her breath:
They bury her that
sleeping yet hath life.
Her husband hears the
tidings of her death.
He drinks his bane. And
she with Romeus' knife,
When she awakes,
herself, alas! she slay'th.’
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