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.

Cap. Go, begone.

[Exit Servant.

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.

Enter JULIET.

merry look.

Cap. How now, my headstrong? 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 Laurence to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon:-Pardon, I beseech you!
Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.
Cap. Send for the county: go tell him of this;
I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.
Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;
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

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.
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.
Cap.
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 to-night;-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 him up
Against to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.
Becoming.

1 Commands.

[Exeunt.

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 dishonor'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,
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 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
• Prayers.

The fabulous accounts of the plant called mandrake

give it a degree of animal life, and say that when it is torn from the ground, it groans, which is fatal to him that pulls it up. 2 Distracted.

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!—
The room were pies were made.

Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead; alac 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.

O woeful time! 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 Mus cians.

Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church! Cap. Ready to go, but never to return:

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?

La. Cap. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!

Most miserable hour that e'er time saw
In lasting labor 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 woeful, woeful, woeful day!
Most lamentable day! most woeful 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 woeful day, O woeful 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 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.

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!

Enter Apothecary.

Ap.
Who calls so loud?
Rom. Come, hither, man.-I see, that thou art
poor;

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 discharged of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fired
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 thine 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 mayst not

sell:

SCENE II.-Friar Laurence's Cell.
Enter FRIAR JOHN.

John. Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE.

Lau. This same should be the voice of Friar
John.-

Welcome from Mantua: What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.

• Stuff.

Lau. Who bare my letter then to Romeo! John. I could not send it,-here it is again,Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, So fearful were they of infection.

Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood, The letter was not nice, but full of charge, Of dear import; and the neglecting it May do much danger: Friar John, go hence; Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight Unto my cell.

John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee. [Erit. Lau. Now must I to the monument alone; Within these three hours will fair Juliet wake; She will beshrew me much that Romeo Hath had no notice of these accidents: But I will write again to Mantua, And keep her at my cell till Romeo come; Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!

[Ent

SCENE III.-A Church-Yard; in it, a Mon ment belonging to the Capulets.

Enter PARIS, and his Page, bearing Flowers, and a Torch.

Par. Give me thy torch, boy: Hence, and stand aloof;

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yon yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
(Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves)
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
Page. I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

[Retira

The boy gives warning, something doth approach. What cursed foot wanders this way to-night, To cross my obsequies, and true love's rites! What, with a torch!-muffle me, night, a while [Retires

Enter ROMEO and BALTHAZAR, with a Torth, Mattock, &c.

Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching iron.

Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light: Upon thy life, I charge thee,
Whate'er thou hear'st or see'st stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is, partly, to behold my lady's face,

But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring; a ring that I must use
In dear employment: therefore hence, begone:-
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild;