Capulet directs the bustling household as food and other necessities are readied before dawn. Hearing Paris approach with musicians, Capulet orders the Nurse to wake and dress Juliet.
SCENE V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE
Mistress! What, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.Why, lamb, why, lady, fie, you slug-abed!Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweetheart! 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 restto make a firm and final resolution or stake everything upon a course of action.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, 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 vitaeA strong distilled alcoholic spirit., 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, deceas’d, 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 frostUpon 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 Lawrence and Paris with Musicians.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
CAPULET
Ready to go, but never to return.O son, the night before thy wedding dayHath death lain with thy bride. 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 dieAnd 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
Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day.Most miserable hour that e’er time sawIn 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 woeful, woeful, woeful day.Most lamentable day, most woeful dayThat 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.
PARIS
Beguil’d, 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
Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d.Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou nowTo 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 LAWRENCE
Peace, ho, for shame. Confusion’s cure lives notIn these confusions. Heaven and yourselfHad 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 advanc’d,And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’dAbove the clouds, as high as heaven itself?O, in this love, you love your child so illThat 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 rosemaryOn this fair corse, and, as the custom is,And in her best array bear her to church;For though fond nature bids us all lament,Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.
CAPULET
All things that we ordained festivalTurn 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 LAWRENCE
Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepareTo follow this fair corse unto her grave.The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;Move them no more by crossing their high will.
Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar.
FIRST MUSICIAN
Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.
NURSE
Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up,For well you know this is a pitiful case.
FIRST MUSICIAN
Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
Exit Nurse.
Enter Peter.
PETER
Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’‘Heart’s Ease’, a popular song or dance tune. ‘Heart’s ease’, O, and 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’the title or opening words of a song expressing a heart overwhelmed with sorrow.. O play me some merry dumpA mournful tune or a state of melancholy. 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 gleekto mock, jeer, or make sport of someone.! I will give you the minstrelto call or label someone a minstrel..
FIRST MUSICIAN
Then will I 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 rethe second note of a musical scale. you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?
FIRST MUSICIAN
And 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-beatTo beat soundly with blows that do not draw blood. you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.‘When griping griefs 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 Catlinga string for a musical instrument made from animal gut.?
FIRST MUSICIAN
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
PETER
Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebecka small bowed stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body.?
SECOND MUSICIAN
I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.
PETER
Prates 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 soundWith 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.