My lord, I must intreat the time alone,
Par. Heav'n shield, I should disturb devotion:
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouze you:
Till then adieu? and keep this holy kiss.
[Exit Paris.
Jul. Go, shut the door; and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help,.
Fri. O Juliet, I already know thy grief.
Jul. Tell me not, Friar, that thou know'st my grief,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it;
If in thy wisdom thou can'st give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this steel I'll help it presently.
Heav'n 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
Give 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 dagger
Shall play the umpire
be brief; for I desire to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
Fri. Hold, daughter; I do espy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution,
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
lf rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength or will to slay thyself,
Then it is likely, thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to free thee from this marriage,
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 chain me to some steepy mountains top,
Where roaring bears and savage lions roam:
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er cover'd quite with dead-mens rattling boness.
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 nam'd, 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; look thou he alone.
(Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.)
And when thou art alone, take thou this phial,
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 natʼral 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;
And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake, as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouze 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 born 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 prospercus
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 af
Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and NURSE.
Cap. WHAT, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?
Cap. Well he may chance to do some good on her; A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.
Nurse. See where she comes from shrift with merry look. Cap. How now my head-strong? where have you been gadding?
Jul. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests; and am enjoin'd
By holy Lawrence, to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon; pardon I beseech you !
Hence forward I am ever-rul'd by you.
Cap. Send for the County, go tell him of this,
I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.
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.
Ea. Cap. We shall be short in our provision;
"Tis now near night.
Cap, Trush, all things shall be well.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her:
I'll not to bed, but walk myself to Paris,
T'appoint him 'gainst to-morrow. My heart's light,
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.
[Exeunt Capulet and Lady Capulet.
Y, those attires are best; but gentle Nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself to night,
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heav'ns to smile upon my state,
Which thou well know'st is cross and full of sin.
La. Cap. What, are you busy? do you need my help? Jul. No, madam, we have cull'd such necessaries As are behoveful for our state to-morrow;
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night set up with you;
For I am sure you have your hands full all,
In this so sudden business.
La. Cap. Then good night;
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.
Jul. Farewel-heav'n knows when weshall meet again!
I have a faint cold fear thrils through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I'll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse-yet what should they do bere?
My dismal scene I needs must-act alone;
Come, phial-What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I of force be married to the Count?
No, no, this shall forbid it; lie thou there-
What if it be a poison, which the Friar
Subtly hath ministred, 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-
How, if when I am laidinto the tomb,
1 wake before the time that Romeo
Comes 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 be strangled ere my Romeo comes ?
Or if I leave, 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 Tibalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festring in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort)
Alas, alas! is it not like, that I
So early waking, with what loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals hearing them, run mad-
Or if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
(Inviron'd with all these hideous fears),
And madly play with my forefather's joints,
And pluck the mangled Tibalt from his shroud?
And in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone
As with club dash out my desp'rate brains?
O look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo-Stay, Tibalt, stay!
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
[She throws herself on the bed.
Enter Lady CAPULET and NURSE.
L. Cup. HOLD take these keys, and fetch more spices,
Nurse. They call for debts and quinces in the pastry.
Enter CAPULET and LADY, meeting.
Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir, the second cock hath crow'd, The curphew 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;
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