The 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,
And in her best array bear her to church;
For though fond nature bids us all 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 LAWRENCE.
Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,
And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave.
The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;
Move them no more by crossing their high will.
[Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar.]
FIRST MUSICIAN.
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.
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
[Exit Nurse.]
Enter Peter.
PETER.
Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’ ‘Heart’s ease’, O, and 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’. 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 will I 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.
And 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 griefs 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?
FIRST MUSICIAN.
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
PETER.
Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
SECOND MUSICIAN.
I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.
PETER.
Prates 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.]
ACT V
SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
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
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 Balthasar.
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.
BALTHASAR.
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.
ROMEO.
Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.
BALTHASAR.
I do beseech you sir, have patience.
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.
ROMEO.
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?
BALTHASAR.
No, my good lord.
ROMEO.
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 he dwells,—which late I noted
In tatter’d 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 scatter’d, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
And 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.
APOTHECARY.
Who calls so loud?
ROMEO.
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 may 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.
APOTHECARY.
Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.
ROMEO.
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear’st 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.
APOTHECARY.
My poverty, but not my will consents.
ROMEO.
I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
APOTHECARY.
Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
ROMEO.
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder 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. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Enter Friar John.
FRIAR JOHN.
Holy Franciscan Friar! Brother, ho!
Enter Friar Lawrence.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
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.
FRIAR 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.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
FRIAR JOHN.
I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
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.
FRIAR JOHN.
Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.
[Exit.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
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. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.
Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.
PARIS.
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 thy 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
