Because he marry'd 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,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
hall 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, it is 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.
* The fabulous accounts of the plant called a mandrake give it a degree of animal life, and when it is torn from the ground it groans, which is fatal to him that pulls it up.
JOY CHANGED TO SORROW.
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 solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
ROMEO'S DESCRIPTION AND DISCOURSE WITH THE
APOTHECARY
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's see for means:-0, 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;* meagre were his looks,
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
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--
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.
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!
Enter Apothecary.
Who calls so loud?
Rom. Come hither, man.-I see that thou art
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.
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 wretchedness,
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 law;
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, consents.
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
Of twenty men it would despatch you straight.
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.
THE CONTEST OF ROMEO AND PARIS.
Par. Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague;
Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.
Rom. I must, indeed, and therefore came I hither
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man,
Fly hence and leave me;-think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee.-I beseech thee, youth,
Heap not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury:-0, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself:
For I come hither, arm'd against myself:
Stay not, begone:-live, and hereafter say-
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,*
And do attach thee as a felon here.
Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee,
Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.]—If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
[Dies.
Rom. In faith, I will:-Let me peruse this face;-
Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris:-
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think,
He told me, Paris should have married Juliet:
Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so!--O give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
ROMEO'S LAST SPEECH OVER JULIET IN THE TOMB.
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.-
Tybalt, liest t'.ou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain,
To sunder his that was thine enemy!
Forgive me, cousin!-Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair! Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour!
For fear of that, I will still stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again; here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
* I refuse to do as thou conjurest me to do, i. e. depart
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.-Eyes, look your last
Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!—
Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love!-[Drinks.] O, true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies.
THE painting is almost the natural man; For since dishonour traffics with man's nature, He is but outside: These pencil'd figures are Even such as they give out.†
THE PLEASURE OF DOING GOOD.
O, you gods, think I, what need we have any friends, if we should never have need of them? they were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er have use for them: and would most resemble sweet instruments hung up in cases, that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, I have often wished myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We are born to do benefits: and what better or properer can we call our own, than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious comfort 'tis, to have so many, like brothers, commanding one another's for
When all our officest have been oppress'd
* Conductor. + Pictures have no hypocrisy; they are what they profess to be.
The apartments allotted to culinary offices, &c.
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