It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua :
Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not to be gone.
Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say, yon gray is not the morning's eye,
"Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay than will to go;—
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.-
How is't, my soul? let's talk, it is not day.
Jul. It is, it is, hie hence, be gone, away;
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps.
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.
Rom. More light and light ?—more dark and dark our woes.
Nurse. Madam !
Jul. Nurse?
Nurse. Your lady mother's coming to your chamber. [Ex. Nurse Rom. Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.
Jul. Art thou gone so ? my love! my lord!
I must hear from thee every day i' the hour,
For in a minute there are many days:
O! by this count I shall be much in years,
Ere I again behold my Romeo.
Rom. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
[ROMEO descends my friend!
Jul. O, think'st thou, we shall ever meet again?
Rom. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
Jul. O Heaven! I have an ill-divining soul;
Methinks, I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb;
Either my eye-sight fails, or thou look'st pale.
Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye, so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu! adieu!'
Jul. O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle:
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back..
Capulet determines to marry Juliet, immediately, to the County Paris; she implores ha parents in vain, to defer the match,-distracted at the thought of being compelled to marry a second husband while Romeo is yet living, she consults Friar Laurence in her ⚫xtremity.
SCENE I.-Friar Laurence's Cell.
Enter Friar LAURENCE, and PARIS.
Fri. 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. 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;
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. I would I knew not why it should be slow'd. Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
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.
Par. Come you to make confession to this father?
Jul. To answer that, were to confess to you.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
Fri. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now :— My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Par. Heaven shield, I should disturb devotion! Juliet, farewell.
Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me: Past hope, past cure, past help!
Fri. Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must, and nothing must 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:
.f, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help, Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
Heaven joined 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.
Fri. 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,
Q'er-covered quite with dead men's rattling bones;
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. 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 phial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor, which shall seize
Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep
His natural progress, but surcease to beat:
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 remain full 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 unconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valor in the acting it.
Jul. Give me, O give me! tell me not of fear.
Fri. 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!
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 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.
La. Cap. What, are you busy? do you need my help?
Jul. 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.
Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.
[Exeunt Lady CAPULET, and Nurse.
Jul. Farewell!-heaven 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.—
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Must I of force be married to the county ?-
No, no ;-this shall forbid it :-lie thou there.-
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 :
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 these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;
Where bloody Tyhalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort :-
O! 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 desperate brains ?
O, look! methinks, I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo.-Stay, Tybalt, stay!—
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
[She throws herself on the bed.
Juliet being supposed dead is interred in "the Tomb of the Capulets."
SCENE I.-Mantua. A Street.
Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye 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
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