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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.

Heaven joined 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.

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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-covered quite with dead men's rattling bones;
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 then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor, 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 shame;
If no unconstant toy, nor womanish fear,

Abate thy valor 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!

SCENE III.-Juliet's Chamber.

Enter JULIET, and Nurse.

Jul. Ay, those attires are best :-But, gentle nurse, I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;

For I have need of many orisons

To move the heavens to smile upon my state,

Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin.

Enter Lady CAPULET.

La. Cap. What, are you busy? do you need my help?
Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries

As are behoveful for our state to-morrow:

So please you, let me now be left alone,

And let the nurse this night sit up with you;
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all,
In this so sudden business.

La. Cap.

Good night!

Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.

[Exeunt.

[Exeunt Lady CAPULET, and Nurse.

Jul. Farewell!-heaven knows, when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,

That almost freezes up the heat of life :

I'll call them back again to comfort me:-
Nurse!-What should she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.—

Come, phial.

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 đangger

What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead;
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonor'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,
I wake before the time that Romeo

Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,

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 :-
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.-Stay, Tybalt, stay!—
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee,

[She throws herself on the bed.

Juliet being supposed dead is interred in "the Tomb of the Capulets."

ACT V.

SCENE I.-Mantua. A Street.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. 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 spirit

Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt, my lady came and found me dead;
And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv'd, and was an emperor.

Enter BALTHASAR.

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.

Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
Her body sleeps in Capulet'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.

Rom. 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.

Bal. Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus:
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Rom.

Tush, thou art deceiv'd;

Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

Bal. No, my good lord.

Rom.

No matter: get thee gone,

And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight. [Exit BALTHASAR.
Well, Juliet, I will be 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,-whom 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 his 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 se' it him.

O, this same thought did but fore-run my need
As I remember, this should be the house:
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.--
What, ho! apothecary!

Ap.

Enter Apothecary.

Who calls so loud?

Rom. 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.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
Is death, to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Upon thy back hangs ragged misery,

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.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Ap. 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.

Rom. There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls,

Doing more murders in this loathsome world,

Than these poor compounds that thou may'st 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.

Friar Laurence learns that the messenger to Romeo has failed. He goes to the churchyard to remove Juliet from the Tomb.

SCENE III-A Church-Yard; in it, a Monument belonging to the

Capulets.

Enter PARIS, and his Page, bearing flowers and a torch.

Par. Give me thy torch, boy: Hence, and stand aloof ;— Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.

Under yon yew trees lay thee all along,

Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the church-yard 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.

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