The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

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, In thy best robes uncovered 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 inconstant toy nor womanish fear Abate thy valour in the acting it.

Jul. Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

Friar. 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.

Capulet’s house.

 

Enter Father Capulet, Mother, Nurse, and Servingmen, two or three.

 

Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.

[Exit a Servingman.]

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their fingers.

Cap. How canst thou try them so?

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.

Exit Servingman.

We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time.

What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?

Nurse. Ay, forsooth.

Cap. Well, be may chance to do some good on her.

A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.

 

Enter Juliet.

 

Nurse. See where she comes from shrift with merry look.

Cap. How now, my headstrong? Where have you been gadding?

Jul. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin Of disobedient opposition

To you and your behests, and am enjoin’d By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here To 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 tomorrow 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, 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 tomorrow?

Mother. No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.

Cap. Go, nurse, go with her. We’ll to church tomorrow.

Exeunt Juliet and Nurse.

Mother. We shall be short in our provision.

‘Tis now near night.

Cap. Tush, I will stir about,

And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.

Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.

I’ll not to bed tonight; 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 tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light, Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.

Exeunt.

 

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 tonight; For I have need of many orisons

To move the heavens to smile upon my state, Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin.

 

Enter Mother.

 

Mother. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?

Jul. No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries As are behooffull for our state tomorrow.

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.

Mother. Good night.

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

Exeunt [Mother and Nurse.]

Jul. Farewell! God 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, vial.

What if this mixture do not work at all?

Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?

No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.

Lays down a dagger.

What if it be a poison which the friar Subtilly hath minist’red 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, 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 this 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 madO, 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 desp’rate 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 [drinks and] falls upon her bed within the curtains.

 

Scene IV.

Capulet’s house.

 

Enter Lady of the House and Nurse.

 

Lady. Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, nurse.

Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

 

Enter Old Capulet.

 

Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow’d, The curfew bell hath rung, ‘tis three o’clock.

Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica; Spare not for cost.

Nurse. Go, you cot-quean, go,

Get you to bed! Faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow For this night’s watching.

Cap. No, not a whit. What, I have watch’d ere now All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.

Lady. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time; But I will watch you from such watching now.

Exeunt Lady and Nurse.

Cap. A jealous hood, a jealous hood!

 

Enter three or four [Fellows, with spits and logs and baskets.

 

What is there? Now, fellow,

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

Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit Fellow.] Sirrah, fetch drier logs.

Call Peter; he will show thee where they are.

Fellow. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs And never trouble Peter for the matter.

Cap. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!

Thou shalt be loggerhead. [Exit Fellow.] Good faith, ‘tis day.

The County will be here with music straight, For so he said he would. Play music.

I hear him near.

Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!

 

Enter Nurse.

Go waken Juliet; go and trim her up.

I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste, Make haste! The bridegroom he is come already: Make haste, I say.

[Exeunt.]

 

Scene V.

Juliet’s chamber.

 

[Enter Nurse.]

 

Nurse. Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.

Why, lamb! why, lady! Fie, you slug-abed!

Why, love, I say! madam! sweetheart! Why, bride!

What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now!

Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant, The County Paris hath set up his rest That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!

Marry, and amen. How sound is she asleep!

I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!

Ay, let the County take you in your bed!

He’ll fright you up, i’ faith. Will it not be?

[Draws aside the curtains.]

What, dress’d, and in your clothes, and down again?

I must needs wake you. Lady! lady! lady!

Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead!

O weraday that ever I was born!

Some aqua-vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!

 

Enter Mother.

 

Mother. What noise is here?

Nurse. O lamentable day!

Mother. What is the matter?

Nurse. Look, look! O heavy day!

Mother. O me, O me! My child, my only life!

Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!

Help, help! Call help.

 

Enter Father.

 

Father. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.

Nurse. She’s dead, deceas’d; she’s dead! Alack the day!

Mother. Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!

Cap. Ha! let me see her. Out alas! she’s cold, Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated.

Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

Nurse. O lamentable day!

Mother. O woful time!

Cap. Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail, Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.

 

Enter Friar [Laurence] and the County [Paris], with Musicians.

 

Friar. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

Cap. Ready to go, but never to return.

O son, the night before thy wedding day Hath Death lain with thy wife. See, there she lies, Flower as she was, deflowered by him.

Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir; My daughter he hath wedded. I will die And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death’s.

Par. Have I thought long to see this morning’s face, And doth it give me such a sight as this?

Mother. Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!

Most miserable hour that e’er time saw In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, But one thing to rejoice and solace in, And cruel Death hath catch’d it from my sight!

Nurse. O woe? O woful, woful, woful day!

Most lamentable day, most woful day

That ever ever I did yet behold!

O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!

Never was seen so black a day as this.

O woful day! O woful day!

Par. Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!

Most detestable Death, by thee beguil’d, By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!

O love! O life! not life, but love in death Cap. Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d!

Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now To murther, murther our solemnity?

O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!

Dead art thou, dead! alack, my child is dead, And with my child my joys are buried!

Friar. Peace, ho, for shame! Confusion’s cure lives not In these confusions. Heaven and yourself Had part in this fair maid! now heaven hath all, And all the better is it for the maid.

Your part in her you could not keep from death, But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.

The