La. Cap. Fie, fie! what, are you mad?] Jul. [Kneeling] Good father, I beseech you on my knees,

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Hear me with patience but to speak a word. Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!

I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,

Or never after look me in the face:
[Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us
bless'd

That God had sent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her:
Out on her, hilding!2

Nurse.
God in heaven bless her!
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so. 170
Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold
your tongue,

Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Nurse. I speak no treason.
Cap.

O, God ye god-den.
Nurse. May not one speak t'ye?

[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 in 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.

200

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. La. Cap. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:

Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. [Erit.

Jul. [Rising] O God!-O 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.-],

5 God's bread, i.e. the Host, the blessed Sacrament. Mammet, doll. 7 In her fortune's tender, i.e. just when fortune tenders her a prize.

220

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!
Romeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
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 't were as good he were,
As living here, and you no use of him.
Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart?

Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession, and to be absolv'd.
Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

[Exit. Jul. [Looking after Nurse] Ancient damnation! O most cursed fiend!

Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais'd him with above compare
So many thousand times?-Go, counsellor;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be
twain.-

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I'll to the friar, to know his remedy;
If all else fail, myself have power to die. [Exit.

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

Uneven is the course, I like it not.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,

11

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. L. [Aside] I would I knew not why it
should be slow'd.—

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. L.

20

That's a certain text. Par. Come you to make confession to this father?

Jul. To answer that, I should 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. Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.

Par. God shield I should disturb devotion!

Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you: Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

[Exit. Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,

Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!

Fri. L. Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief; It strains me past the compass of my wits: I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,

On Thursday next be married to this county. Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,

50

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, 60
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. L. Hold, daughter! I do spy a kind of
hope,

Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-covered quite with dead men's rattling
bones,

With reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls;
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 unstained wife to my sweet love.

Fri. L. Hold, then; go home, be merry, give

consent

To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow: 90
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber;
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
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:

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And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue 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,

110

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

Jul. Where I have learn'd me to repent the

sin

Of disobedient opposition

20

To you and your behests; and am enjoin'd
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon: pardon, I beseech you!
Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.

Cap. Send for the county: go tell him of this: I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning. Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;

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

Cap. Why, I am glad on't; this is well,-
stand 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, 31 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: "T is now near night.

Cap. Tush, I will stir about, And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:

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Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her;
I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;
I'll play the housewife for this once. What,
ho!

They are all forth. Well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare him up
Against to-morrow: my heart is wondrous
light,

Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.
[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Verona. Juliet's chamber:

night.

JULIET and NURSE.

Jul. Ay, those attires are best :-but, gentle

nurse,

I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;

30

I fear it is and yet, methinks, it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
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 réceptácle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the
bones

40