La. Cap.

La. Cap. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word; Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. [Exit. Jul. O God!-0 nurse! how shall this be prevented?

My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;
How shall that faith return again to earth,
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 'tis : Romeo Is banished; 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!

night, late, early,

At home, abroad, alone, in company,
Waking, or sleeping, still my care hath been
To have her match'd: and having now provided
A gentleman of princely parentage,

Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd (as they say,) with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's heart could wish a man,
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer I'll not wed, • I cannot love,
I am too young,

I pray you, pardon me; But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you:

Graze where you will, you shall not house with me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise :
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die f the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to't, bethink you, I'll not be forsworn. [Exit.
Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an erc,
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.

Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart?
Nurse.

Or else beshrew them both.

Jul.

Nurse.

From my son wo

Amen!

To what?

SCENE I.-Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS.

Fri. On Thursday, sir? the time is very short. Par. My father Capulet will have it so; And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste.

Fri. You say, you do not know the lady's mind;

Uneven is the course, I like it nct.

Par. 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.
Fri. I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.
[Aside.
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
Enter JULIET.

Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife!
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Par. That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.
Jul. What must be shall be.
Fri.
That's a certain text.
Par. Come you to make confession to this father?
Jul. To answer that, were to confess to you.
Par. Do not deny to him, that you love me.
Jul. I will confess to you, that I love him.
Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me.

My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

Par. God shield, I should disturb devotion ! Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you : Till then, adieu! and keep this holy kiss.

[Exit PARIS. Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so, Come weep with me: Past hope, past cure, past help! Fri. Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief; It strains me past the compass of my wits: I hear thou must, and nothing must prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this county.

Jul. 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-experienc'd 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.

Fri. 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 cop'st with death himself to scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

Jul. 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 sculls;
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.
Fri. 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 phial, being tnen in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize
Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep
His natural progress, but surcease to beat:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv`st;
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, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt remain full 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 share ;
If no unconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

Jul. Give me, O give me! tell me not of fear.
Fri. 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.
Jul. Love, give me strength! and strength shall
help afford.
Farewell, dear father!

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Room in Capulet's House. Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, Nurse, and Servants. Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.

[Exit Servant.

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try

if they can lick their fingers.

Cap. How canst thou try them so?

2 Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he, that cannot lick his fingers, goes not with me.

Cap. Go, begone.

[Erit Servant.

We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.
What, is my daughter gone to friar Laurence?
Nurse. Ay, forsooth.

Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good on her: A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

And gave him what becomed love I might, Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.

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,
All our whole city is much bound to him.

Jul. 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?

La. Cap. No, not till Thursday; there is time enough.

Cap. Go, nurse, go with her: -we'll to church to-morrow. [Exeunt JULIET and Nurse. La. Cap. We shall be short in our provision; 'Tis now near night.

What if this mixture do not work at all?
Must I of force be married to the county?
No, no ;- this shall forbid it: - lie thou there.
[Laying down a 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 :
I will not entertain so bad a thought.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,

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 pack'd;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest'ring in his 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 forefathers' 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 throws herself on the bed.

All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick. La. Cap. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;

But I will watch you from such watching now. [Exeunt Lady CAPULET and Nurse. Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood! — Now, fellow, What's there?

Enter Servants, with spits, logs, and baskets.

1 Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.

Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit 1 Serv.]—
Sirrah, fetch drier logs;

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.
2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs,
And never trouble Peter for the matter. [Exit.
Cap. 'Mass, and well said; A merry whoreson! ha,
Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:
The county will be here with musick straight,

[Musick within