Cap. Hang thee, young baggage ! disobedient wretch ! [day,
I tell thee what,-get thee to church o'ThursOr never after look me in the face :
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me :
My fingers itch.-Wife, we scarce thought us
That God had sent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her:
Out on her, bilding!
Nurse. God in heaven bless her!-
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your
tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Narse. I speak no treason.
Cap. O God ye good den!
Nurse. May not one speak?
Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,
For here we need it not.
La. Cap. You are too hot.
Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.
Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart?
Nurse. From my soul too;
Or else beshrew them both.
Jul. Amen!
Nurse. To what?
Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession, and to be absolv'd.
Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done. [Exit.
Jul. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais'd him with above com-
So many thousand times ?-Go, counsellor ; Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
Cap. God's bread! it makes me mad: Day, I'll to the friar, to know his remedy;
A gentleman of princely parentage,
of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd (as they say,) with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's heart could wish a man,-
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer-Pll not wed,—I cannot love,
I am too young,-I pray you, pardon me ;-
But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will, you shall not house with
If all else fail, myself have power to die.
SCENE I.-Friar LAURENCE's Cell. Enter Friar LAURENCE, and PARIS. Fri. On Thursday, Sir? the time is very short.
Par. My father Capulet will have it so; And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste. Fri. You say you do not know the lady's mind:
Uneven is the course, I like it not.
Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's
And therefore have I little talk'd of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, Sir, her father counts it dangerous,
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway;
And, in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society:
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
Fri. I would I knew not why it should be
[Aside.
slow'd. Look, Sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own.-
Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
Or shall I come to you at evening mass ?
Fri. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter,
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Par. God shield, I should disturb
tion!-
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you:
Till then, adieu! and keep this holy kiss.
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning
[dead:
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou
Then (as the manner of our country is,)
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier,
devo-Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault,
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
| And hither shall be come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no unconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
[Exit PARIS. Jul. O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me; Past hope, past cure, past help!
Fri. Ah! Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must, and nothing must prorogue
On Thursday next be married to this county.
Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of
this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou
hands:
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,
Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire; arbitrating that
Which the commission + of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
Fri. Hold, daughter; I do spy a kind of
Which craves as desperate an execution [hope,
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry county Paris,
Thou hadst the strength of will to slay thyself;
Then is it likely, thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop'st with death himself to scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.
Jul. O bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house, [bears;
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling
bones,
With reeky sbanks, and yellow chapless sculls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud ;
Things that, to hear them told, have made ine
tremble:
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.
Fri. Hold, then; go home, be merry, give
To marry Paris; Wednesday is to-morrow;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this phial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize
Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep
His natural progress, but surcease to beat:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'st;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold appear like
death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours,
• Decide the struggle between me and my distresses.
Authority or power.
Jul. Give me, O give me ! tell me not of fear.
Fri. Hold; get you gone, be strong and
prosperous
In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.
Jul. Love, give me strength! and strength
shall help afford.
Cap. So many guests invite as here are [Exit SERVANT. Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks. 2 Serv. You shall have none ill, Sir; for I'l try if they can lick their fingers.
Cap. How canst thou try them so?
2 Serv. Marry, Sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me. Cap. Go, begone.(Exit SERVANT. We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.-What is my daughter gone to friar Laurence! Nurse. Ay, forsooth.
Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good
This is as't should be.-Let me see the county;
Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now, afore God, this reverend boly friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.
Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my
closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow ?
La. Cap. No, not till Thursday; there is
time enough.
Cap. Go, nurse, go with her :-We'll to church
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her ;
I'll not to bed to-night;-let me alone; [ho !
I'll play the housewife for this once.-What,
They are all forth: well, I will walk myself
[light,
To County Paris, to prepare him up
wondrous
Against to-morrow: my heart is
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III.-JULIET'S Chamber.
I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;
For I have need of many orisons⚫
To move the beavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of
sili.
Enter LADY CAPULET.
La. Cap. What, are you busy? do you need my help?
Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such neces-
saries
As are behoveful for our state to-morrow :
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you;
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business.
La. Cap. Good night!
Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.
[Exeunt Lady CAPULET and NURSE.
Jul. Farewell!-God knows, when we shall
meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my
veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
I'll call them back again to comfort me :-
Nurse!-What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.-
Come phial.-
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Must I of force be married to the county ?-
No, no-this shall forbid it :-lie thou there.-
[Laying down a Dagger.
What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly bath minister'd to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear, it is: and yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a boly man :
I will not entertain so bad a thought.-
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose
foul mouth no healthsome air
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes ?
Or, if I live, is it not very like
The borrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,-
A is a vault, and ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the
Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they
At some hours in the night spirits resort;-
Alack, alack! is it not like that I,
Se early waking,-what with loathsome smells;
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the
earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad;
O if I wake, shall I not be distraught, t
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefathers' joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, iu this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains t
O look! methinks, I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point :-Stay, Tybalt, stay!-
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
[She throws herself on the Bed
SCENE IV.-CAPULET'S Hall.
Enter Lady CAPULET and NURSE.
La. Cap. Hold, take these keys, and fetch
more spices, nurse.
Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the
pastry.
Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock.
bath crow'd,
The curfeu bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:-
Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica:
Spare not for cost.
Nurse. Go, go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; 'faith, you'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.
Cap. No, not a whit; What! I have watch'd
All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.
La. Cap. Ay, you have been a mouse hunt +
in your time:
But I will watch you from such watching-now,
[Exeunt Lady CAPULET and NURSE.
Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood !-Now,
fellow,
What's there?
Enter SERVANTS with Spits, Logs, and
Baskets.
1 Serv. Things for the cook, Sir; but I know
not what.
Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit 1 SERV.]
Sirrah, fetch drier logs;
Call Peter, he will shew thee where they are.
2 Serv. I have a head, Sir, that will find out
logs,
And never trouble Peter for the matter.
Cap. 'Mass, and well said; a merry whore-
son! ha,
Thou shalt be logger-head.-Good faith 'tis day:
The county will be hear with music straight,
[Music within.
For so he said he would. I hear him near :-
Nurse!-Wife! what, ho!-what, Nurse, I say!
Enter NURSE.
Go, waken Juliet, go, and trim her up;
I'll go and chat with Paris :-Hie, make haste,
Make haste! the bridegroom he is come al-
ready:
[Exeunt.
Make haste, I say!
SCENE V.-JULIET's Chamber; JULIET on
the Bed.
Enter NURSE.
Nurse. Mistress !-- what, mistress !-Juliet !
-fast, I warrant her, she :-
Why, lamb !-why, lady !--fle, you slug-a-bed!--
Why, love, I say!-madam! sweet-heart!-
why, bride!
What, not a word ?-you take your pennyworths [rant,
now; Sleep for a week :-for the next night, I warThe county Paris hath set up his rest, That you shall rest but little.-God forgive me, (Marry and amen!) how sound is she asleep! Madam, madam, I needs must wake her :
Ay, let the county, take you in your bed;
The room where pies were made.
+ Mouse was a term of endearment to a woman.
He'll fright you up, i'faith.-Will it not be? What, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!
I must needs wake you: Lady! lady! lady!
Alas! alas!-Help! help! my lady's dead!-
O well-a-day, that ever I was born!-
Some aqua vitæ, ho!-my lord !—my lady!
Enter Lady CAPULET.
La. Cap. What noise is here ?
Nurse. O lamentable day!
La. Cap. What is the matter?
Nurse. Look, look! O heavy day!
La. Cap. O me, O me! my child, my only life,
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!-
Help, help!-call help.
Cap. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.
Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead; alack the day!
La. Cap. Alack the day! she's dead, dead, she's dead.
Cap. Ha! let me see her:-Out, alas! she's cold;
Her blood is settled; and her jonts are stiff;
Life and these lips have long been separated :
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Accursed time! unfortunate old man!
Nurse. O lamentable day!
La. Cap. O woeful time!
Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak. Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS, with Mu
Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
Cap. Ready to go, but never to return: O son, the night before thy wedding-day
And all the better is it for the maid:
Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was-her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanc'd:
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
Oh! in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
She's not well married, that lives married long;
But she's best married, that dies married
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church:
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
Cap. All things, that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral :
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast;
Our solemu hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
Fri. Sir, you go in,—and, madam, go with
him ;-
And go, Sir Paris ;-every one prepare To follow this fair corse unto her grave: The heavens do low'r upon you, for some ill; Move them no more, by crossing their bigh will. [Exeunt CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, PARIS, and FRIAR. 1 Mus. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone. Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah! put up; put up;
For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.
[Exit NURSE. 1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be
Pet. Musicians, O musicans, Heart's ease, heart's ease; O an you will have me live, play
Hath death lain with thy bride :-See, there she heart's ease.
1 Mus. Why heart's ease?
Pet. O musicians, because my heart itself plays-My heart is full of woe: 6 play me some merry dump to comfort me.
2 Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to now.
And doth it give me such a sight as this?
La. Cap. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hate-
Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight. Nurse. O woel O woeful, woeful, woeful day!
Most lamentable day? most woeful day,
That ever ever I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this:
O woeful day, O woeful day!
Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged,
slain !
Pet. I will then give it you soundly.
1 Mus. What will you give us?
Pet. No money, on my faith, but the gleek :+
I will give you the minstrel.
1 Mus. Then will I give you the serving
Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets : I'll re you, I'll ja you: Do you note me?
1 Mus. An you re us, and fa us, you note us. 2 Mus. Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.
Pet. Then have at you with my wit; I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and put up my spited, iron dagger :-Answer me like men:
Pet. Pretty too!-What say you, Soundpost?
3 Mus. 'Faith, I know not what to say. Pet. O cry you mercy! you are the singer: It is music with her silver I will say for you. sound, because such fellows as you have seldom gold for sounding :
James | A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said-
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
but forerun
O this same thought did
need ;
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house:
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.-
What, ho! apothecary!
Then music, with her silver sound, With speedy help doth lend redress. [Exit singing. 1 Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same? 2 Mus. Haug hiin, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner.
SCENE 1.-Mantua.-A Street.
Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of
sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand :
My bosoun's lord sits lightly in his throne;
And, all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts
me above the ground with cheerful
thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead;
(Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to
think.)
And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv'd, and was an emperor.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy?
News from Verona!-How now, Balthazar ?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.
Enter APOTHECARY.
Ap. Who calls so loud?
Rom. Come hither, man.-I see that thou
art poor;
Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have
A dram of poison; such soon-speeding geer
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg'd of
As violently, as hasty powder fir'd
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.
Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
Is death, to any he that utters them.
Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretch-
edness,
And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Upon thy back hangs ragged misery,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's
The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor but break it, and take this.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will,
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will. Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will. And drink it off; and, if you had the strength it would despatch you twenty men, straight.
Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be of
ill;
Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives;
I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, Sir.
Rom. Is it even so? then I defy you, stars !Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.
Bal. Pardon me, Sir, I will not leave you
• This net is now introduced by a solemn dirge, and
† 1. e. Love.
funeral service.
: Herbs.
Rom. There is thy gold: worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou may'st
not sell :
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell; buy food and get thyself in flesh.-
for there must I use thee.
To Juliet's grave,
Come, cordial, and not poison; go with me
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.-Friar LAURENCE's Cell.
Enter Friar JOHN.
John. Holy Franciscan friar ! brother, ho!
Enter Friar LAURENCE.
Lau. This same should be the voice of friar
John.-
Welcome from Mantua: What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us
forth;
there was
Mantua
that my speed to
stay'd.
|