Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
My fingers itch. Wife we scarce thought us
bless'd,
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, hilding!
God in heaven bless her!
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
La. Cap. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word;
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. [Exit.
Jul. O God!-O nurse! how shall this be pre-
vented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth? - comfort me, counsel me. —
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your Upon so soft a subject as myself!·
What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, nurse.
'Faith, here 'tis : Romeo
Is banished; and all the world to nothing,
That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the county.
O, he's a lovely gentleman!
Cap. God's bread! it makes me mad: Day, Romeo's a dishclout to him; an eagle, madan.,
- I pray you, pardon me;
But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise :
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, dier the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to't, bethink you, I'll not be forsworn. [Exit.
Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
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Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an exc,
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
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.
Or else beshrew them both.
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.
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 compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor ;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy;
If all else fail, myself have power to die.
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 nct.
Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
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 slow'd.
[Aside.
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
Enter JULIET.
Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife!
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Par. That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.
Jul. What must be shall be.
Fri.
That's a certain text.
Par. Come you to make confession to this father?
Jul. To answer that, were to confess to you.
Par. Do not deny to him, that you love me.
Jul. I will confess to you, that I love him.
Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me.
Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back, than to your face. Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears. Jul. The tears have got small victory by that; For it was bad enough, before their spite.
Par. Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.
Jul. That is no slander, sir, that is a truth; And what I spake, I spake to my face.
Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it. 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 devotion! -
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you :
Till then, adieu! and keep this holy kiss.
[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 it,
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 our 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 hope, Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry county Paris,
Thou hast 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 bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks, 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 me
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 consent
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 tnen 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,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead :
Then (as the manner of our country is,)
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault,
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
And hither shall he 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.
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.
Farewell, dear father!
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SCENE II. A Room in Capulet's House. Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, Nurse, and Servants. Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ. — [Exit Servant.
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.
2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll 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.
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 on her: A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.
I wake before the time that Romeo
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.
Cap. Why, I am glad on't; this is well, stand
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 holy 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 to-morrow. [Exeunt JULIET and Nurse. La. Cap. We shall be short in our provision; 'Tis now near night.
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 breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place, —
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
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 say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort; -
Alack, alack! is it not like, that I,
So 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,
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefathers' joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
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.
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 hath 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 holy man :
I will not entertain so bad a thought.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.
Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd.
The curfeu bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:
Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica:
Spare not for cost.
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 ere
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 show thee where they are.
2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter. [Exit.
Cap. 'Mass, and well said; A merry whoreson! ha, Thou shalt be logger-head. — Good faith, 'tis day: The county will be here with musick straight, [Musick within
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 already :
Make haste, I say.
[Exeunt.
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!-fye, you slug-a-bed!
Why, love, I say! -madam! sweet-heart!-why,
What, not a word?-you take your pennyworths now;
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The county Paris hath set up his rest,
That you shall rest but little. God forgive me,
(Marry, and amen!) how sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her :-Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
He'll fright you up, i'faith. Will it not be?
What, drest! 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.
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.
La. Cap. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hatefu: day!
Most miserable hour, tnat 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 woe! O woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day! most woful 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 woful day, O woful day!
Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain !
Most détestable death, by thee beguil'd,
By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown! —
O love! O life!--not life, but love in death!
Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!—
Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now
To murder murder our solemnity? -
O child! O child!-my soul, and not my child!
Dead art thou, dead! · alack! my child is dead!
And, with my child, my joys are buried!
Fri. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives
Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
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:
O lamentable day! And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, 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 young.
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 lamen
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
Cap. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is
Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead; alack the day!
La. Cap. Alack the day! she's dead, she's dead,
she's dead.
Cap. Ha! let me see her :-Out, alas! she's cold;
Her blood is settled, and her joints 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.
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 musicians.
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
Hath death lain with thy bride :-See, there she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir;
My daughter he hath wedded! I will die,
And leave him all; life leaving, all is death's.
Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's
face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?
Cap. All things, that we ordained festiv
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
Fri. Sir, go you 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 high will.
[Exeunt CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, PARIL
and Friar.
My heart is full of woe: O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me.
2 Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now. Pet. You will not then?
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-creature. Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate. I will carry no crochets: I'll re you, I'll fa 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 drybeat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagAnswer me like men:
When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then musick, with her silver sound;
SCENE L· Mantua. A Street.
Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand :
My bosom'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, Balthasar?
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.
Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill;
Her body sleeps in Capels' 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
And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.
Bal. No, my good lora.
Rom.
No matter ger thee gone,
And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.
[Exit BALTHASAR
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's see for means: O, mischief! thou art
swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meager were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves
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
An if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but fore-run my 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!
Who calls so loud? Rom. Come hither, man. - I see, that thou art poor;
Bal. Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you 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 breath
As violently, as hasty powder fir'd
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.
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