ARKCODEX
Act IV, Scene 1
1Friar Laurence’scell.
2Enter Friar Laurence and Paris.
3Friar LaurenceOn Thursday, sir? the time is very short.
4ParisMy father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
5Friar LaurenceYou say you do not know the lady’s mind:
Uneven is the course, I like it not.
6ParisImmoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway,
And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society:
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
7Friar LaurenceAside. I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
8Enter Juliet.
9ParisHappily met, my lady and my wife!
10JulietThat may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
11ParisThat may be must be, love, on Thursday next.
12JulietWhat must be shall be.
13Friar LaurenceThat’s a certain text.
14ParisCome you to make confession to this father?
15JulietTo answer that, I should confess to you.
16ParisDo not deny to him that you love me.
17JulietI will confess to you that I love him.
18ParisSo will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
19JulietIf I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
20ParisPoor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.
21JulietThe tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.
22ParisThou wrong’st it, more than tears, with that report.
23JulietThat is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
24ParisThy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.
25JulietIt may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
26Friar LaurenceMy leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
27ParisGod shield I should disturb devotion!
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss. Exit.
28JulietO shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!
29Friar LaurenceAh, 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.
30JulietTell 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 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-experienced time,
Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, 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.
31Friar LaurenceHold, 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 copest with death himself to scape from it;
And, if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.
32JulietO, 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.
33Friar LaurenceHold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
To-morrow 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, deprived 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 meantime, 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.
34JulietGive me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!
35Friar LaurenceHold; 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.
36JulietLove give me strength! and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father! Exeunt.