The Best of Shakespeare:. William Shakespeare
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did leave it for my office, sir.
Romeo.
Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!—
Thou know’st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire posthorses. 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 deceiv’d:
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; I’ll be with thee straight.
[Exit Balthasar.]
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
Let’s see for means;—O mischief, thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted
In tatter’d 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 stuff’d, 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 scatter’d, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
An 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 beggar’s shop is shut.—
What, ho! apothecary!
[Enter 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 mall fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
Apothecary.
Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.
Romeo.
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness
And fear’st 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 world’s 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 men’s souls,
Doing more murders 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 Juliet’s grave; for there must I use thee.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
[Enter Friar John.]
Friar John.
Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!
[Enter Friar Lawrence.]
Friar Lawrence.
This same should be the voice of Friar John.
Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
Friar John.
Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.
Friar Lawrence.
Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
Friar John.
I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
Friar Lawrence.
Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge
Of dear import; and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence;
Get me an iron crow and bring it straight
Unto my cell.
Friar John.
Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.
[Exit.]
Friar Lawrence.
Now must I to the monument alone;
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake:
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come;—
Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb!
[Exit.]
SCENE III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.
[Enter Paris, and