Romeo and Juliet (23 page)

Juliet.
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?°

Friar.
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.°

Paris.
God shield° I should disturb devotion!
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye.
Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss.
Exit.

Juliet.
O, shut the door, and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me—past hope, past care, past
help!

Friar.
O Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue° it,
On Thursday next be married to this County.

Juliet.
Tell me not, friar, that thou hearest 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 joined my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s sealed,
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-experienced 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 honor bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

Friar.
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 darest, I’ll give thee remedy.

Juliet.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of any tower,
Or walk in thievish° ways, or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears,
Or hide me nightly in a charnel house,°
O’ercovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky° shanks and yellow chapless° skulls;
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 unstained wife to my sweet love.

Friar.
Hold, then. Go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow.
Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not the nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilling° liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor;° for no pulse
Shall keep his native° progress, but surcease;°
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To wanny° ashes, thy eyes’ windows° fall
Like death when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, deprived of supple government,°
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death;
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 rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
Then, as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes uncovered on the bier
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 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 inconstant toy° nor womanish fear
Abate thy valor in the acting it.

Juliet.
Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

Friar.
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.

Juliet.
Love give me strength, and strength shall help
afford.
Farewell, dear father.
Exit
[
with Friar
].

 

Capulet.
So many guests invite as here are writ.

[
Exit a Servingman.
]

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning° cooks.

Servingman.
You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try°
if they can lick their fingers.

Capulet.
How canst thou try them so?

Servingman.
Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot
lick his own fingers.° Therefore he that cannot lick
his fingers goes not with me.

Capulet.
Go, begone. [
Exit Servingman.
]
We shall be much unfurnished° for this time.
What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?

Nurse.
Ay, forsooth.

Capulet.
Well, he may chance to do some good on her.
A peevish self-willed harlotry it is.°

Nurse.
See where she comes from shrift with merry
look.

Capulet.
How now, my headstrong? Where have you
been gadding?

Juliet.
Where I have learnt me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests, and am enjoined
By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here
To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you!
Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.

Capulet.
Send for the County. Go tell him of this.
I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.

Juliet.
I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell
And gave him what becomèd° love I might,
Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.

Capulet.
Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up.
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.

Juliet.
Nurse, will you go with me into my closet°
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?

Lady Capulet.
No, not till Thursday. There is time
enough.

Capulet.
Go, nurse, go with her. We’ll to church
tomorrow.
Exeunt
[
Juliet and Nurse
]
.

Lady Capulet.
We shall be short in our provision.
’Tis now near night.

Capulet.
Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.
I’ll not to bed tonight; let me alone.
I’ll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!
They are all forth; well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare up him
Against° tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light,
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed.

Exit
[
with Mother
].

 

Juliet.
Ay, those attires are best; but, gentle nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;
For I have need of many orisons°
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,°
Which, well thou knowest, is cross° and full of sin.

Lady Capulet.
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my
help?

Juliet.
No, madam; we have culled such necessaries
As are behoveful° for our state° tomorrow.
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.

Lady Capulet.
Good night.
Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.

Exeunt
[
Mother and Nurse
].

Juliet.
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, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, no! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.

[
Lays down a dagger.
]

What if it be a poison which the friar
Subtly hath minist’red° to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonored
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 this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed;
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,°
Environèd 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 desp’rate 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, Romeo, Romeo, I drink to thee.

[
She falls upon her bed within the curtains.
]

 

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

Nurse.
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.°

Capulet.
Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath
crowed,
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.

Look to the baked meats,° good Angelica;°
Spare not for cost.

Nurse.
Go, you cotquean,° go,
Get you to bed! Faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow
For this night’s watching.°

Capulet.
No, not a whit. What, I have watched 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.

Capulet.
A jealous hood,° a jealous hood!

Enter three or four
[
Fellows
]
with spits and
logs and baskets.

Now, fellow,

What is there?

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

Capulet.
Make haste, make haste. [
Exit first Fellow.
]
Sirrah, fetch drier logs.
Call Peter; he will show thee where they are.

Second Fellow.
I have a head, sir, that will find out
logs°
And never trouble Peter for the matter.