Romeo and Juliet Page #17

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.

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 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 packed:

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,

Lies festering 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 forefather's 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 falls upon her bed, within the curtains

SCENE IV. Hall in Capulet's house.

Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse

LADY CAPULET:

Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

Nurse

They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

Enter CAPULET

CAPULET:

Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,

The curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:

Look to the baked meats, good Angelica:

Spare not for the cost.

Nurse

Go, you cot-quean, go,

Get you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow

For this night's watching.

CAPULET:

No, not a whit:
what! I have watch'd ere now

All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.

LADY CAPULET:

Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;

But I will watch you from such watching now.

Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse

CAPULET:

A jealous hood, a jealous hood!

Enter three or four Servingmen, with spits, logs, and baskets

Now, fellow,

What's there?

First Servant

Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.

CAPULET:

Make haste, make haste.

Exit First Servant

Sirrah, fetch drier logs:

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

Second Servant

I have a head, sir, that will find out logs,

And never trouble Peter for the matter.

Exit

CAPULET:

Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!

Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:

The county will be here with music straight,

For so he said he would: I hear him near.

Music within

Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!

Re-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 already:

Make haste, I say.

Exeunt

SCENE V. Juliet's chamber.

Enter Nurse

Nurse

Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant her, she:

Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!

Why, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! why, bride!

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 must needs 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?

Undraws the curtains

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 vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!

Enter LADY CAPULET

LADY CAPULET:

What noise is here?

Nurse

O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET:

What is the matter?

Nurse

Look, look! O heavy day!

LADY CAPULET:

O me, O me! My child, my only life,

Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!

Help, help! Call help.

Enter CAPULET

CAPULET:

For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.

Nurse

She's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!

LADY CAPULET:

Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!

CAPULET:

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.

Nurse

O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET:

O woful time!

CAPULET:

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

FRIAR LAURENCE:

Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

CAPULET:

Ready to go, but never to return.

O son! the night before thy wedding-day

Hath Death lain with thy wife. 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, living, all is Death's.

PARIS:

Have I thought long to see this morning's face,

And doth it give me such a sight as this?

LADY CAPULET:

Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!

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 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!

PARIS:

Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!

Most detestable death, by thee beguil'd,

By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!

O love! O life! not life, but love in death!

CAPULET:

Despised, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!

Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now

To murder, murder our solemnity?

O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!

Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;

And with my child my joys are buried.

FRIAR LAURENCE:

Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself

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 advanced:

And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced

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 an lament,

Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.

CAPULET:

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.

FRIAR LAURENCE:

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 lour upon you for some ill;

Move them no more by crossing their high will.

Exeunt CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, PARIS, and FRIAR LAURENCE

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