Complete Plays, The Read online

  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

  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:

&nb
sp; ‘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

  ACT V

  SCENE I. MANTUA. 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!

  Enter Apothecary

  Apothecary

  Who calls so loud?

  Romeo

  Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor:

  Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have

  A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear

  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.

  Apothecary

  Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law

  Is death to any he that utters them.

  Romeo

  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,

  Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;

  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.

  Apothecary

  My poverty, but not my will, consents.

  Romeo

  I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

  Apothecary

  Put this in any liquid thing you will,

  And drink it off; and, if you had the strength

  Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.

  Romeo

  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.

  I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.

  Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.

  Come, cordial and not poison, go with me

  To Juliet’s grave; for there must I use thee.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. FRIAR LAURENCE’S CELL.

  Enter Friar John

  Friar John

  Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!

  Enter Friar Laurence

  Friar Laurence

  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.

  Friar John

  Going to find a bare-foot 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.

  Friar Laurence

  Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?

  Friar John

  I could not send it,— here it is again,—

  Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,

  So fearful were they of infection.

  Friar Laurence

  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.

  Friar John

  Br
other, I’ll go and bring it thee.

  Exit

  Friar Laurence

  Now must I to the monument alone;

  Within 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, closed in a dead man’s tomb!

  Exit

  SCENE III. A CHURCHYARD; IN IT A TOMB BELONGING TO THE CAPULETS.

  Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch

  Paris

  Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:

  Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.

  Under yond 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

  [Aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone

  Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

  Retires

  Paris

  Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,—

  O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;—

  Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,

  Or, wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans:

  The obsequies that I for thee will keep

  Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

  The Page whistles

  The boy gives warning something doth approach.

  What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,

  To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?

  What with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.

  Retires

  Enter Romeo and Balthasar, with a torch, mattock, & c

  Romeo

  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 seest, 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, be gone:

  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,

  More fierce and more inexorable far

  Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.