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