Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare [top rated books of all time txt] 📗

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 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 an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

 

FRIAR LAURENCE: 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 vial, being then in bed,

And this distilled liquor drink thou off;

When presently through all thy veins shall run

A cold and drowsy humor, 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, deprived of supple government,

Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death: And in this borrow’d 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,

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 inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,

Abate thy valor in the acting it.

JULIET: Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

 

FRIAR LAURENCE: 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.

 

JULIET: Love give me strength! and strength shall help

afford.

Farewell, dear father!

 

[Exeunt.] SCENE II: Hall in Capulet’s house.

[Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, Nurse, and two

Servingmen.]

CAPULET: So many guests invite as here are writ. [Exit First Servant.]

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

 

Second Servant: You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they

can lick their fingers.

 

CAPULET: How canst thou try them so?

 

Second Servant: Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his

own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.

 

CAPULET: Go, be gone.

 

[Exit Second Servant.]

 

We shall be much unfurnished for this time. What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?

 

Nurse: Ay, forsooth.

 

CAPULET: Well, he may chance to do some good on her:

A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.

 

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

 

[Enter JULIET.]

 

CAPULET: How now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?

 

JULIET: Where I have learn’d me to repent the sin

Of disobedient opposition

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 ruled by you.

 

CAPULET: Send for the county; go tell him of this: I’ll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.

 

JULIET: I met the youthful lord at Laurence’ cell; And gave him what becomed love I might,

Not step o’er the bounds of modesty.

CAPULET: 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,

Our whole city is much bound to him.

 

JULIET: 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?

 

LADY CAPULET: No, not till Thursday; there is time enough.

 

CAPULET: Go, nurse, go with her: we’ll to church to- morrow.

 

[Exeunt JULIET and Nurse.]

 

LADY CAPULET: We shall be short in our provision:

’Tis now near night.

 

CAPULET: 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 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: Juliet’s chamber.

[Enter JULIET and Nurse.]

 

JULIET: 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]

 

LADY CAPULET: What, are you busy, ho? need you my

help?

 

JULIET: 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.

 

LADY CAPULET: Good night: Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.

 

[Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse.]

 

JULIET: 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 to-morrow morning? No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.

[Laying down her 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 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.

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 packed:

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies festering 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 forefather’s 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 falls upon her bed, within the curtains.]

 

 

SCENE IV: Hall in Capulet’s house.

 

[Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse.]

 

LADY CAPULET: Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

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

 

[Enter CAPULET.]

 

CAPULET: Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow’d,

The curfew-bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock: Look to the baked meats, good Angelica: Spare not for the cost.

 

Nurse: Go, you cot-quean, go, Get you to bed; faith, You’ll be sick to-morrow For this night’s watching.

 

CAPULET: No, not a whit: what! I have watch’d ere now

All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.

 

LADY CAPULET: Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;

But I will watch you from such watching now. [Exeunt LADY CAPULET and Nurse.]

CAPULET: A jealous hood, a jealous hood!

 

[Enter three or four Servingmen, with spits, logs, and baskets]

 

Now, fellow, What’s there?

 

First Servant: Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.

 

CAPULET: Make haste, make haste. [Exit First Servant.]

Sirrah, fetch drier logs:

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

 

Second Servant: I have a head, sir, that will find out logs,

And never trouble Peter for the matter. [Exit.]

CAPULET: Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!

Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, ’tis day: The county will be here with music straight,

For so he said he would: I hear him near. [Music within.]

Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say! [Re-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 war

rant her, she:

Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!

Why, love, I say! madam! sweet-heart! 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 must needs 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? [Undraws 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, well-a-day, that ever I was born!

Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady! [Enter LADY CAPULET]

LADY CAPULET: What noise is here?

Nurse: O lamentable day!

 

LADY CAPULET: What is the matter?

 

Nurse: Look, look! O heavy day!

 

LADY CAPULET: O me, O me! My child, my only life, Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!

Help, help! Call help.

 

[Enter CAPULET]

 

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

Nurse: She’s dead, deceased, she’s dead; alack the day! LADY CAPULET: Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead,

she’s dead!

 

CAPULET: 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!

 

LADY CAPULET: O woful time!

 

CAPULET: 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 PARIS, with Musicians] FRIAR LAURENCE: Come, is the bride ready to go to

church?

 

CAPULET: Ready to go, but never to return. O son! the night before thy wedding-day

Hath Death lain with thy wife. 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.

 

PARIS: Have I thought long to see this morning’s face,

And doth it give me such a sight as this?

 

LADY CAPULET: Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!

Most miserable hour that e’er time saw

In lasting labor 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!

 

PARIS: Beguiled, 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!

 

CAPULET: Despised, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d! Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now

To murder, murder our solemnity?

O child! O child! my soul, and not my child! Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;

And with my child my joys are buried.

 

FRIAR LAURENCE: 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