William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
Romeo and Juliet (c. 1593)
ACT FOUR
SCENE 1. Friar Laurence's cell.
Enter Friar Laurence and Paris
Friar Laurence
- On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.
Paris
- My father Capulet will have it so;
- And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
Friar Laurence
- You say you do not know the lady's mind:
- Uneven is the course, I like it not.
Paris
- Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
- 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.
Friar Laurence
- Aside I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.
- Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
Enter Juliet
Paris
- Happily met, my lady and my wife!
Juliet
- That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Paris
- That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.
Juliet
- What must be shall be.
Friar Laurence
- That's a certain text.
Paris
- Come you to make confession to this father?
Juliet
- To answer that, I should confess to you.
Paris
- Do not deny to him that you love me.
Juliet
- I will confess to you that I love him.
Paris
- So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
Juliet
- If I do so, it will be of more price,
- Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
Paris
- Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.
Juliet
- The tears have got small victory by that;
- For it was bad enough before their spite.
Paris
- Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.
Juliet
- That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
- And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
Paris
- Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.
Juliet
- It may be so, for it is not mine own.
- Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
- Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
Friar Laurence
- My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
- My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Paris
- God shield I should disturb devotion!
- Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
- Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
Exit
Juliet
- O shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
- Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!
Friar Laurence
- 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.
Juliet
- Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
- 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-experienced time,
- 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.
Friar Laurence
- 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 copest with death himself to scape from it:
- And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.
Juliet
- 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-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 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, 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 valour 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 2. 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
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 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.
- 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 4. 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
Enter Nurse
Nurse
- Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! fast, I warrant 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 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!
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 it for the maid:
- Your part in her you could not keep from death,
- But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
- The most you sought was her promotion;
- For 'twas your heaven she should be advanced:
- And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced
- 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 an lament,
- Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
Capulet
- 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 laurence
- 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 lour upon you for some ill;
- Move them no more by crossing their high will.
Exeunt CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, PARIS, and FRIAR LAURENCE
First musician
- Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.
Nurse
- Honest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up;
- For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.
Exit
First musician
- Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
Enter PETER
Peter
- Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease, Heart's
- ease:' O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'
First musician
- Why 'Heart's ease?'
Peter
- O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My
- heart is full of woe:' O, play me some merry dump,
- to comfort me.
First musician
- Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.
Peter
- You will not, then?
First musician
- No.
Peter
- I will then give it you soundly.
First musician
- What will you give us?
Peter
- No money, on my faith, but the gleek;
- I will give you the minstrel.
First musician
- Then I will give you the serving-creature.
Peter
- 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?
First musician
- An you re us and fa us, you note us.
Second musician
- Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.
Peter
- 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?
Musician
- Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
Peter
- Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
Second musician
- I say 'silver sound,' because musicians sound for silver.
Peter
- Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?
Third musician
- Faith, I know not what to say.
Peter
- 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
First musician
- What a pestilent knave is this same!
Second musician
- Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the
- mourners, and stay dinner.
Exeunt