Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

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 pack’d:
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 IV

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 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 V

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!
O, well-a-day, that ever I was born!
Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!

Enter Lady Capulet. Lady Capulet What noise is here? Nurse O lamentable day! Lady Capulet What is the matter? Nurse Look, look! O heavy day! Lady Capulet

O me, O me! My child, my only life,
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!
Help, help! Call help.

Enter Capulet. Capulet For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. Nurse She’s dead, deceased, she’s dead; alack the day! Lady Capulet Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead! Capulet

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.

Nurse O lamentable day! Lady Capulet O woeful time! Capulet

Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.

Enter Friar Laurence and Paris, with Musicians. Friar Laurence Come, is the bride ready to go to church? Capulet

Ready to go, but never to return.
O son! the night before thy wedding-day
Hath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered 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, living, all is Death’s.

Paris

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

Lady Capulet

Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight!

Nurse

O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!
Most lamentable day, most woeful 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 woeful day, O woeful day!

Paris

Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!
Most detestable death, by thee beguiled,
By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!
O love! O life!