The Best of Shakespeare:. William Shakespeare

My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—

       My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

       Paris.

       God shield I should disturb devotion!—

       Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you:

       Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

       [Exit.]

       Juliet.

       O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,

       Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!

       Friar.

       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.

       Juliet.

       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’s 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 empire; 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.

       Friar.

       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.

       Juliet.

       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,

       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.

       Friar.

       Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent

       To marry Paris: Wednesday is tomorrow;

       Tomorrow 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 livest;

       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 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.

       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 II. Hall in Capulet’s House.

       [Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse, and Servants.]

       Capulet.

       So many guests invite as here are writ.—

       [Exit first Servant.]

       Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

       2 Servant. You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their fingers.

       Capulet.

       How canst thou try them so?

       2 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, begone.—

       [Exit second Servant.]

       We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time.—

       What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?

       Nurse.

       Ay, forsooth.

       Capulet.

       Well, be may chance to do some good on her:

       A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.

       Nurse.