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

most you sought was her promotion, For ‘twas your heaven she should be advanc’d; And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?

O, in this love, you love your child so ill That you run mad, seeing that she is well.

She’s not well married that lives married long, But she’s best married that dies married young.

Dry up your tears and stick your rosemary On this fair corse, and, as the custom is, In all her best array bear her to church; For though fond nature bids us all lament, Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.

Cap. All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral-Our instruments to melancholy bells,

Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change; Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse; And all things change them to the contrary.

Friar. Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him; And go, Sir Paris. Every one prepare

To follow this fair corse unto her grave.

The heavens do low’r upon you for some ill; Move them no more by crossing their high will.

Exeunt. Manent Musicians [and Nurse].

1. Mus. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.

Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up!

For well you know this is a pitiful case. [Exit.]

1. Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

 

Enter Peter.

 

Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’ ‘Heart’s ease’!

O, an you will have me live, play ‘Heart’s ease.’

1. Mus. Why ‘Heart’s ease”,

Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is full of woe.’ O, play me some merry dump to comfort me.

1. Mus. Not a dump we! ‘Tis no time to play now.

Pet. You will not then?

1. Mus. No.

Pet. I will then give it you soundly.

1. Mus. What will you give us?

Pet. No money, on my faith, but the gleek. I will give you the minstrel.

1. Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.

Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate.

I will carry no crotchets. I’ll re you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?

1. Mus. An you re us and fa us, you note us.

2. Mus. Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

Pet. Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.

 

‘When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound’-

 

Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’?

What say you, Simon Catling?

1. Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

Pet. Pretty! What say You, Hugh Rebeck?

2. Mus. I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.

Pet. Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?

3. Mus. Faith, I know not what to say.

Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer. I will say for you. It is ‘music with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for sounding.

 

‘Then music with her silver sound With speedy help doth lend redress.’ [Exit.

 

1. Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same?

2. Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner.

Exeunt.

 

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ACT V. Scene I.

Mantua. A street.

 

Enter Romeo.

 

Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth 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 (Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!) And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips That I reviv’d and was an emperor.

Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess’d, When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!

 

Enter Romeo’s Man Balthasar, booted.

 

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.

Man. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.

Her body sleeps in Capel’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 e’en so? Then I defy you, stars!

Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper And hire posthorses. I will hence tonight.

Man. I do beseech you, sir, have patience.

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?

Man. 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 lie with thee tonight.

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 ‘a dwells, which late I noted In tatt’red 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-shaped 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 scattered, 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.’

O, this same thought did but forerun 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.

 

Apoth. 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 mall 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.

Apoth. 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 fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes, Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back: 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.

Apoth. My poverty but not my will consents.

Rom. I pay thy poverty and not thy will.

Apoth. 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 murther in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst 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.

 

Scene II.

Verona. Friar Laurence’s cell.

 

Enter Friar John to Friar Laurence.

 

John. Holy Franciscan friar, brother, ho!

 

Enter Friar Laurence.

 

Laur. 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 barefoot 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.

Laur. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?

John. I could not send it-here it is again-Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, So fearful were they of infection.

Laur. 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. Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee. Exit.

Laur. Now, must I to the monument alone.

Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.

She will beshrew me much that Romeo

Hath had no notice of these accidents; But I will write again to Mantua,

And keep her at my cell till Romeo come-Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb! Exit.

 

Scene III.

Verona. A churchyard; in it the monument of the Capulets.

 

Enter Paris and his Page with 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 yond yew tree 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. [aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure. [Retires.]

Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew (O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones) 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.

Whistle Boy.

The boy gives warning something doth approach.

What cursed foot wanders this way tonight To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?

What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile. [Retires.]

 

Enter Romeo, and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock, and a crow of iron.

 

Rom. 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 hearest 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.

The time and my intents are savage-wild, More fierce and more inexorable far

Than empty tigers or the