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They are all forth :-Well, I will walk myself
To county Paris, to prepare him up

Against to-morrow: my heart is wondrous light,
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

JULIET's Chamber. Enter JULIET and Nurse.

Jul. Ay, those attires are best :-But, gentle nurse, I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;

For I have need of many orisons +

To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin.
Enter Lady CAPULET.

La. Cap. What, are you busy? do you need my help Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries As are behoveful for our state to-morrow :

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.

La. Cap. Good night!

Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.

[Exeunt Lady CAP. and Nurse. Jul.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 :
I'll call them back again to comfort me ;-
Nurse! What should she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.-
Come, phial.-

What if this mixture do not work at all?
Must I of force be married to the county ?-
No, no ;-this shall forbid it :-Lie thou there.

[Laying down a 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 :
I will not entertain so bad a thought.-
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo

7

Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,

To whose foul mouth no health some 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 fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort ;—
Alack, alack! is it not like, that I,5

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 forefathers' 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 throws herself on the bed.

SCENE IV.

CAPULET'S Hall. Enter Lady CAPULET and Nurse.

La. Cap. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry. Enter CAPULET.

Cap.Come,stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,

[4] This idea was probably suggested to our poet by his native place. The charnel at Stratford-upon-Avon is a very large one, and perhaps contains a greater number of bones than are to be found in any other repository of the same kind in England. I was furnished with this observation by Mr. Murphy, whose very elegant and spirited defence of Shakspeare against the criticisms of Voltaire, is not one of the least considerable out of many favours which he has conferred on the literary world. STEEVENS.

[5] This speech is confused, and inconséquential, according to the disorder of Juliet's mind. JOHNSON. [6] Distracted. STEEVENS.

The curfeu bell hath rung,7 'tis three o'clock :-
Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica:

Spare not for cost.

Nurse. Go, go, you cot-quean, go,

Get you to bed; 'faith, you'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.

Cap. No, not a whit; What! I have watch'd ere now All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.

8

La. Cap. Ay,you have been a mouse-hunt in your time, & But I will watch you from such watching now.

[Exeunt Lady CAPULET and Nurse. Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!-Now, fellow, What's there?

Enter Servants, with spits, logs, and baskets.

1 Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what. Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Ex.1 Serv.] Sirrah, fetch drier logs;

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter.

[Exit. Cap. '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,

[Music within.

For so he said he would. I hear him near :-
Nurse!-Wife !-what, ho!-what, nurse, I say!

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.

[7] The curfeu bell is universally rung at eight or nine o'clock at night; generally according to the season. The term is here used with peculiar impropriety, as it is not believed that any bell was ever rung so early as three in the morning. The derivation of curfeu is well known, but it is a mere vulgar error that the institution was a badge of slavery imposed by the Norman conqueror To put out the fire became necessary only because it was time to go to bed: And if the curfeu commanded all fires to be extinguished, the morning bell ordered them to be lighted again. In short, the ringing of those two bells was a manifest and essential service to people who had scarcely any other means of measuring their time. RITSON.

[8] In Norfolk, and many other parts of England, the cant term for a weasle is a mouse-hunt. The intrigues of this animal, like those of the cat kind, are usually carried on during the night. This circumstance will ac count for the appellation which Lady Capulet allows her husband to have' formerly deserved STEEVENS.

SCENE V.

JULIET's Chamber; JULIET on the Bed. Enter Nurse. Nurse. Mistress !-what, mistress !-Juliet !—fast, I warrant her, she :—

Why, lamb !—why, lady !-fye, 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 needs must 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 ?
What, drest! 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-vitæ, ho!-my lord! my lady!

Enter Lady CAPULET.

La. Cap. What noise is here?

Nurse. O lamentable day!

La. Cap. What is the matter?

Nurse. Look, look! O heavy day!

La. Cap. O me, O me !-my child, my only life, Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!—

Help, help!-call help.

Enter CAPULET.

Cap. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. Nur. She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead; alack the day! La. Cap. Alack the day! she's dead, she's dead,

she's dead.

Cap. 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.

Accursed time! unfortunate old man !
Nurse. O lamentable day!

La. Cap. O woful time!

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

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians. Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church? Cap. Ready to go, but never to return :

O son, the night before thy wedding-day

Hath death lain with thy bride.-See, 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 leaving, all is death's.

Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face,

And doth it give me such a sight as this?

La. Cap. Accurs'd, 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 woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day! most woful 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 woful day! O woful day!

Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain !
Most détestable death, by thee beguil'd,

By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown !—
O love! O life!-not life, but love in death!

Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd! Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now

To murder murder our solemnity ?

O child! O child !—my soul, and not my child !—
Dead art thou, dead!-alack! my child is dead ;
And, with my child, my joys are buried!

Fri. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself

Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,

And all the better is it for the maid :

Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was-her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanc'd :
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well:

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