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What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath ministered to have me dead;
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonored,
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 packed;

1

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; 2-
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, that did spit his body

Gifford), were worn at all times by every woman in England; whether they were so worn in Italy, Shakspeare, I believe, never inquired, and I cannot tell."-Works of Ben Jonson, vol. v. p. 221.

1 To fester is to corrupt.

2 The mandrake (says Thomas Newton in his Herbal) has been idly represented as a creature having life."

66

Upon a rapier's point.-Stay, Tybalt, stay!—
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

[She throws herself on the bed

SCENE IV. Capulet's Hall.

Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse.

La. Cap. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.1 [Exit Nurse.

Enter CAPULet.

Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath

crowed,

The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.—

Look to the baked meats, good Angelica:

Spare not for cost.

La. Cap.

Go, go, you cot-quean, go,

Get you to bed; 'faith, you'll be sick to-morrow

For this night's watching.3

Cap. No, not a whit; what! I have watched ere

now

All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.

La. Cap. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your

time;

But I will watch you from such watching now.

[Exit LADY CAPULET. Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!—Now, fellow, What's there?

1 The room where the pastry was made.

2 A man that troubles himself with women's affairs-probably cookquean.

3 This speech, which in the old copies is attributed to the nurse, should surely be given to lady Capulet.

4 The animal called the mouse-hunt is the weasel. The intrigues of this animal, like those of the cat kind, are usually carried on in the night.

Enter Servants, with spits, logs, and baskets.

Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.
Cap. Make haste, make haste.

Sirrah, fetch drier logs;

[Exit 1 Serv.]

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter.

[Exit. Cap. 'Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson! ha, Thou shalt be loggerhead.-Good faith, 'tis day; The county will be here with music straight.

[Music within.

For so he said he would. I hear him near.
Nurse!-Wife!-what, ho;-what, nurse, I say!

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 V. Juliet's Chamber; JULIET on the bed.

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,'

1 Nashe, in his Terrors of the Night, quibbles in the same manner on this expression:-"You that are married and have wives of your owne, and yet hold too nere friendship with your neighbors, set up your rests, that the night will be an ill neighbor to your rest, and that you shall have as little peace of minde as the rest."

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That you shall rest but little.-God forgive me,
(Marry and amen!) how sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her.-Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the county take you in your bed;

He'll fright you up, in faith.-Will it not be?
What, dressed! 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-vitæ, ho!-my lord! my lady!

Enter LADY CAPULET.

La. Cap. What noise is here?
Nurse.

O lamentable day!

Look, look! O heavy day!

La. Cap. What is the matter?
Nurse.

La. Cap. O me, O me!-my child, my only life, Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!

Help, help!-call help.

Enter CAPULet.

Cap. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. Nurse. She's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the

day!

La. Cap. Alack the day! she's dead, she's dead, she's dead.

Cap. 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!
Accursed time! unfortunate old man.1

Nurse. O lamentable day!

La. Cap.

O woful time!

Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make

me wail,

Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.

1 This line is taken from the first quarto, 1597.

Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians.

Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
Cap. Ready to go, but never to return.

O son, the night before thy wedding-day

Hath death lain, with thy bride.-See, there she lies,
Flower as she was, defloured 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 leaving, all is death's.

Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face,' And doth it give me such a sight as this?

La. Cap. Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!

Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw

In lasting labor of his pilgrimage!

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,

But one thing to rejoice and solace in,

And cruel death hath catched 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!

Par. Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!
Most détestable death, by thee beguiled,

By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown!—

O love! O life!-not life, but love in death!

Cap. Despised, distressed, hated, martyred, killed ' Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now

To murder, murder our solemnity?—

1 The quarto of 1597 continues the speech of Paris thus:

"And doth it now present such prodigies?

Accurst, unhappy, miserable man,

Forlorn, forsaken, destitute I am,

Born to the world to be a slave in it:

Distrest, remediless, unfortunate.

Oh, heavens! Oh, nature! wherefore did you make me

To live so vile, so wretched as I shall?"

In the text, the edition of 1599 is here followed. The nurse's exclama

tory speech is not in the first quarto.

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