Complete Plays, The Read online

Unless that husband send it me from heaven

  By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me.

  Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems

  Upon so soft a subject as myself!

  What say’st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?

  Some comfort, nurse.

  Nurse

  Faith, here it is.

  Romeo is banish’d; and all the world to nothing,

  That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you;

  Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.

  Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,

  I think it best you married with the county.

  O, he’s a lovely gentleman!

  Romeo’s a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,

  Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye

  As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,

  I think you are happy in this second match,

  For it excels your first: or if it did not,

  Your first is dead; or ’twere as good he were,

  As living here and you no use of him.

  Juliet

  Speakest thou from thy heart?

  Nurse

  And from my soul too;

  Or else beshrew them both.

  Juliet

  Amen!

  Nurse

  What?

  Juliet

  Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.

  Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,

  Having displeased my father, to Laurence’ cell,

  To make confession and to be absolved.

  Nurse

  Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

  Exit

  Juliet

  Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!

  Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,

  Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue

  Which she hath praised him with above compare

  So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;

  Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.

  I’ll to the friar, to know his remedy:

  If all else fail, myself have power to die.

  Exit

  ACT IV

  SCENE I. FRIAR LAURENCE’S CELL.

  Enter Friar Laurence and Paris

  Friar Laurence

  On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.

  Paris

  My father Capulet will have it so;

  And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

  Friar Laurence

  You say you do not know the lady’s mind:

  Uneven is the course, I like it not.

  Paris

  Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,

  And therefore have I little talk’d of love;

  For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.

  Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous

  That she doth give her sorrow so much sway,

  And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,

  To stop the inundation of her tears;

  Which, too much minded by herself alone,

  May be put from her by society:

  Now do you know the reason of this haste.

  Friar Laurence

  [Aside] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.

  Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

  Enter Juliet

  Paris

  Happily met, my lady and my wife!

  Juliet

  That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

  Paris

  That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.

  Juliet

  What must be shall be.

  Friar Laurence

  That’s a certain text.

  Paris

  Come you to make confession to this father?

  Juliet

  To answer that, I should confess to you.

  Paris

  Do not deny to him that you love me.

  Juliet

  I will confess to you that I love him.

  Paris

  So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

  Juliet

  If I do so, it will be of more price,

  Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

  Paris

  Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.

  Juliet

  The tears have got small victory by that;

  For it was bad enough before their spite.

  Paris

  Thou wrong’st it, more than tears, with that report.

  Juliet

  That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;

  And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

  Paris

  Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.

  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 Laurence

  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 cure, past help!

  Friar Laurence

  Ah, 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 hear’st 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 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

  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 honour bring.

  Be not so long to speak; I long to die,

  If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

  Friar Laurence

  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 copest 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 yonder tower;

  Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk

  Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;

  Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,

  O’er-cover’d 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 unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

  Friar Laurence

  Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent

 
; To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:

  To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;

  Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:

  Take thou this vial, being then in bed,

  And this distilled liquor drink thou off;

  When presently through all thy veins shall run

  A cold and drowsy humour, 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 paly 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 borrow’d 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 uncover’d on the bier

  Thou shalt be borne 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 inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,

  Abate thy valour in the acting it.

  Juliet

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

  Friar Laurence

  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!

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. HALL IN CAPULET’S HOUSE.

  Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse, and two Servingmen

  Capulet

  So many guests invite as here are writ.

  Exit First Servant

  Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

  Second Servant

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

  Capulet

  How canst thou try them so?

  Second Servant

  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, be gone.

  Exit Second Servant

  We shall be much unfurnished for this time.

  What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?

  Nurse

  Ay, forsooth.

  Capulet

  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.

  Enter Juliet

  Capulet

  How now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?

  Juliet

  Where I have learn’d 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.

  Capulet

  Send for the county; go tell him of this:

  I’ll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.

  Juliet

  I met the youthful lord at Laurence’ cell;

  And gave him what becomed love I might,

  Not step 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,

  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 to-morrow?

  Lady Capulet

  No, not till Thursday; there is time enough.

  Capulet

  Go, nurse, go with her: we’ll to church to-morrow.

  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 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.

  Exeunt

  SCENE III. JULIET’S CHAMBER.

  Enter Juliet and Nurse

  Juliet

  Ay, those attires are best: but, gentle nurse,

  I pray thee, leave me to my self to-night,

  For I have need of many orisons

  To move the heavens to smile upon my state,

  Which, well thou know’st, is cross, and full of sin.

  Enter Lady Capulet

  Lady Capulet

  What, are you busy, ho? need you my help?

  Juliet

  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 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 Lady Capulet 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 to-morrow morning?

  No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.

  Laying down her 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 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 h
is 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,