Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees, 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 lent 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!

Nurse.

God in heaven bless her!

You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue, Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

Nurse. I speak no treason.

Cap.

Nurse. May not one speak?

Cap.

O, God ye good-den!

Peace, you mumbling fool!

Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,
For here we need it not.

Lady C.

You are too hot.

Cap. God's bread! it makes me mad:
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match'd, and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,

Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's heart could wish a man,-
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer, I'll not wed,-I cannot love,
I am too young,-I pray you pardon me;-
But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me:
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 i' 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.
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!

[Exit.

Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

Lady C. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word; Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

[Exit.

Jul. O God!-0 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.-

Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself!—

What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, nurse.

Nurse.
Faith, here 'tis: Romeo
Is banished; and all the world to nothing
That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;
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 'twere as good he were,
As living here, and you no use of him.
Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart?
Nurse.

Or else beshrew them both.

Jul.

Nurse.

From my soul too,

Amen!

What?

Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.

Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,

Having displeas'd my father, to Lawrence' cell

To make confession, and to be absolv'd.

Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
Jul. Ancient damnation! O most wicked 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;

[Exit.

Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.-
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy;
If all else fail, myself have power to die.

[Exit.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-FRIAR LAWRENCE'S Cell.

Enter FRIAR LAWRENCE and PARIS.

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,
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.
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 ye, 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.
Jul. The tears have got small victory by that;

For it was bad enough before their spite.

Par. Thou wrong'st it more than tears with that report. Jul. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;

And what I spake I spake it to my face.

Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.

Jul. 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?

Fri. L. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.-My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

Par. God shield I should disturb devotion!-
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you:
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

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,
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,
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,
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 cop'st with death himself to scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

Jul. 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,

[Exit.

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.

Fri. L. 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 liv'st;
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:
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 meantime, 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!

Fri. L. 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.