The Nurse attempts to wake Juliet and concludes that she is dead. Juliet’s parents and Paris lament her apparent death, transforming the wedding day into mourning. Friar Laurence tells the household to prepare Juliet for burial instead of marriage.
SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO
If I may trust the flattering eye 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 spiritLifts 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 breath’d such life with kisses in my lips,That I reviv’d, 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.
ROMEO
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’sA shortened form of ‘Capulet’, denoting Juliet's family and household. 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-horsesa horse kept at a posting station for rapid travel, often exchanged for a fresh one along the route.. I will hence tonight.
BALTHASAR
I do beseech you sir, have patience.Your looks are pale and wild, and do importSome misadventure.
ROMEO
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.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.
ROMEO
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.Let’s see for means. O mischief thou art swiftTo enter in the thoughts of desperate men.I do remember an apothecary,—And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I notedIn 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 skinsOf ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelvesA beggarly account of empty boxes,Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of rosesWere thinly scatter’d, to make up a show.Noting this penury, to myself I said,And 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 haveA dram of poison, such soon-speeding gearAs will disperse itself through all the veins,That the life-weary taker may fall dead,And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breathAs violently as hasty powder fir’dDoth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
APOTHECARY
Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s lawIs 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 willAnd drink it off; and, if you had the strengthOf twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
ROMEO
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,Doing more murder in this loathsome worldThan these poor compoundsto settle a dispute or obligation by agreement. 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 meTo Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.