Complete Plays, The (23 page)

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

S
CENE
IV. H
ALL
IN
C
APULET
’
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

S
CENE
V. J
ULIET
’
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

First Musician

Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.

Nurse

Honest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;
For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.

Exit

First Musician

Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

Enter Peter

Peter

Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease, Heart’s ease:’ O, an you will have me live, play ‘Heart’s ease.’

First Musician

Why ‘Heart’s ease?’

Peter

O, musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is full of woe:’ O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me.

First Musician

Not a dump we; ’tis no time to play now.

Peter

You will not, then?

First Musician

No.

Peter

I will then give it you soundly.

First Musician

What will you give us?

Peter

No money, on my faith, but the gleek;
I will give you the minstrel.

First Musician

Then I will give you the serving-creature.

Peter

Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I’ll re you, I’ll fa you; do you note me?

First Musician

An you re us and fa us, you note us.

Second Musician

Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

Peter

Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men:
‘When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound’—
why ‘silver sound’? why ‘music with her silver sound’? What say you, Simon Catling?

Musician

Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

Peter

Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

Second Musician

I say ‘silver sound,’ because musicians sound for silver.

Peter

Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?

Third Musician

Faith, I know not what to say.

Peter

O, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say for you. It is ‘music with her silver sound,’ because musicians have no gold for sounding: ‘Then music with her silver sound With speedy help doth lend redress.’

Exit

First Musician

What a pestilent knave is this same!

Second Musician

Hang him, Jack! Come, we’ll in here; tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner.

Exeunt

A
CT
V

S
CENE
I. M
ANTUA
. A
STREET
.

Enter Romeo

Romeo

If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead —
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,
That I revived, and was an emperor.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!

Enter Balthasar, booted

News from Verona!— How now, Balthasar!
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.

Balthasar

Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Romeo

Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.

Balthasar

I do beseech you, sir, have patience:
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Romeo

 
Tush, thou art deceived:
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

Balthasar

No, my good lord.

Romeo

 
No matter: get thee gone,
And hire those horses; I’ll be with thee straight.

Exit Balthasar

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let’s see for means: O mischief, thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,— which late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
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-shaped 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 forerun 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!