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-shap'd 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.

Of this same thought did but fore-run 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?
Romen.

Come hither, man.-I see, that thou art poor;
Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have
A dram of poison; such soon-speeding geer
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fir'd
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.

Holy Franciscan friar! brother! ho!
Enter Friar Laurence.
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.
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.
Laurence.

Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
John

Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
Laurence.

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

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.

John.

SCENE III. A Churchyard; in it a Monument 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.

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 O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones, [strew.

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 Boy 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, a
while.
[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 farther shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy

limbs.

Romeo.

In faith, I will.-Let me peruse this face:Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris.What said my man, when my betossed soul Did not attend him as we rode? I think, He told me, Paris should have married Juliet : Said he not so? or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, To think it was so?-O! give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune's book! I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave,A grave? O, no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth, For here lies Juliet; and her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light. Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.

[Laying Paris in the Monument. How oft, when men are at the point of death, Have they been merry, which their keepers call A lightning before death: O! how may I Call this a lightning?- O, my love! my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there.Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O! what more favour can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain, To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin!-Ah! dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous; And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that I still will stay with thee, And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O! Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars [last; From this world-wearied flesh. -Eyes, look your Arms, take your last embrace; and lips, O! you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death!Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! Here's to my love!-[Drinks.] O, true apothecary!

[here

Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies.

Enter, at the other End of the Churchyard, Friar Laurence, with a Lantern, Crow, and Spade.

Montague.

Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath. What farther woe conspires against mine age? Prince.

Look, and thou shalt see.

Montague.

O thou untaught ! what manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave?

Prince.

Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, Till we can clear these ambiguities, [descent; And know their spring, their head, their true And then will I be general of your woes, And lead you even to death. Mean time forAnd let mischance be slave to patience.- [bear, Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Friar.

I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place Doth make against me, of this direful murder;

And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned, and myself excus'd."

Prince.

But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But (as it seems) did violence on herself.
All this I know, and to the marriage
Her nurse is privy; and, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific'd some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince.

We still have known thee for a holy man.Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this? Balthasar.

I brought my master news of Juliet's death, And then in post he came from Mantua, To this same place, to this same monument. This letter he early bid me give his father; And threaten'd me with death, going in the vault, If I departed not, and left him there. Prince.

Give me the letter, I will look on it.Where is the County's page, that rais'd the watch ?

Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

Page.

I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:
1 married them; and their stolen marriage-day
Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this
city;

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth'd, and would have married her perforce,
To county Paris: then, comes she to me,
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,.
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, (so tutor'd by my art)
A sleeping potion; which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her

The form of death: meantime, I writ to Romeo.
That he should hither come, as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, friar John,
Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight
Return'd my letter back. Then, all alone,
At the prefixed hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault,
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo:
But, when I came, (some minute ere the time
Of her awakening) here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo, dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
And bear this work of heaven with patience:

Anon, comes one with light to ope the tomb, And, by and by, my master drew on him; And then I ran away to call the watch.

If he will touch the estimate; but, for that— Poct.

"When we for recompence have prais'd the vile,

It stains the glory in that happy verse

Merchant. 'Tis a good form. Jeweller. And rich: here is a water, look ye. Painter.

You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication To the great lord.

Poet.