Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 1
Mantua. A street.
Romeo : If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
[p]My dreams presage
some joyful news at hand:
[p]My bosom's lord sits lightly in his
throne;
[p]And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
[p]Lifts me above
the ground with cheerful thoughts.
[p]I dreamt my lady came and found
me dead--
[p]Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave
[p]to
think!--
[p]And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,
[p]That I
revived, and was an emperor.
[p]Ah me! how sweet is love itself
possess'd,
[p]When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!
[p][Enter
BALTHASAR, booted]
[p]News from Verona!--How now, Balthasar!
[p]Dost
thou not bring me letters from the friar?
[p]How doth my lady? Is my
father well?
[p]How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
[p]For nothing
can be ill, if she be well.
Balthasar : Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
[p]Her body sleeps in
Capel's monument,
[p]And her immortal part with angels lives.
[p]I saw
her laid low in her kindred's vault,
[p]And presently took post to
tell it you:
[p]O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
[p]Since you
did leave it for my office, sir.
Romeo : Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
[p]Thou know'st my lodging: get
me ink and paper,
[p]And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.
Balthasar : I do beseech you, sir, have patience:
[p]Your looks are pale and wild,
and do import
[p]Some misadventure.
Romeo : Tush, thou art deceived:
[p]Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee
do.
[p]Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?
Balthasar : No, my good lord.
Romeo : No matter: get thee gone,
[p]And hire those horses; I'll be with thee
straight.
[p][Exit BALTHASAR]
[p]Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee
to-night.
[p]Let's see for means: O mischief, thou art swift
[p]To
enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
[p]I do remember an
apothecary,--
[p]And hereabouts he dwells,--which late I noted
[p]In
tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
[p]Culling of simples; meagre
were his looks,
[p]Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
[p]And in
his needy shop a tortoise hung,
[p]An alligator stuff'd, and other
skins
[p]Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
[p]A beggarly
account of empty boxes,
[p]Green earthen pots, bladders and musty
seeds,
[p]Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
[p]Were
thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
[p]Noting this penury, to myself
I said
[p]'An if a man did need a poison now,
[p]Whose sale is present
death in Mantua,
[p]Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it
him.'
[p]O, this same thought did but forerun my need;
[p]And this
same needy man must sell it me.
[p]As I remember, this should be the
house.
[p]Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.
[p]What, ho!
apothecary!
Apothecary : Who calls so loud?
Romeo : Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor:
[p]Hold, there is forty
ducats: let me have
[p]A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
[p]As
will disperse itself through all the veins
[p]That the life-weary
taker may fall dead
[p]And that the trunk may be discharged of
breath
[p]As violently as hasty powder fired
[p]Doth hurry from the
fatal cannon's womb.
Apothecary : Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
[p]Is death to any he that
utters them.
Romeo : Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
[p]And fear'st to die?
famine is in thy cheeks,
[p]Need and oppression starveth in thine
eyes,
[p]Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;
[p]The world is not
thy friend nor the world's law;
[p]The world affords no law to make
thee rich;
[p]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,
[p]And drink it off; and, if
you had the strength
[p]Of twenty men, it would dispatch you
straight.
Romeo : There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
[p]Doing more murders
in this loathsome world,
[p]Than these poor compounds that thou mayst
not sell.
[p]I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.
[p]Farewell:
buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
[p]Come, cordial and not poison,
go with me
[p]To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 2
