Romeo and Juliet PDF Download
Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

Act 4, Scene 3

Julietโ€™s Chamber.

Enterย Julietย andย Nurse.

JULIET.
Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou knowโ€™st, is cross and full of sin.

Enterย Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?

JULIET.
No, madam; we have cullโ€™d such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.
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.

[Exeuntย Lady Capuletย andย 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.
Iโ€™ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!โ€”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 tomorrow 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 ministerโ€™d to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonourโ€™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? Thereโ€™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 this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packโ€™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 resortโ€”
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 forefathersโ€™ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsmanโ€™s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O look, methinks I see my cousinโ€™s ghost
Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body
Upon a rapierโ€™s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, hereโ€™s drink! I drink to thee.

[Throws herself on the bed.]

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Table of Contents

Dramatis Personรฆ
The Prologue
Act 1, Scene 1
Act 1, Scene 2
Act 1, Scene 3
Act 1, Scene 4
Act 1, Scene 5
Act 2
Act 2, Scene 1
Act 2, Scene 2
Act 2, Scene 3
Act 2, Scene 4
Act 2, Scene 5
Act 2, Scene 6
Act 3, Scene 1
Act 3, Scene 2
Act 3, Scene 3
Act 3, Scene 4
Act 3, Scene 5
Act 4, Scene 1
Act 4, Scene 2
Act 4, Scene 4
Act 4, Scene 5
Act 5, Scene 1
Act 5, Scene 2
Act 5, Scene 3