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
Scene 3
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 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
Scene 5
Juliet’s chamber.
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!