The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 454
me.
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1 MUSICIAN Not a dump we! ’Tis no time to play now.
PETER You will not then?
1 MUSICIAN No.
PETER I will then give it you soundly.
1 MUSICIAN What will you give us?
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PETER No money, on my faith, but the gleek! I will give
you the minstrel.
1 MUSICIAN Then will I give you the serving-creature.
PETER Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on
your pate. I will carry no crotchets. I’ll re you, I’ll fa
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you. Do you note me?
1 MUSICIAN And you re us and fa us, you note us.
2 MUSICIAN Pray you put up your dagger and put out
your wit.
PETER Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat
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you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger.
Answer me like men.
‘When griping griefs the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound’ –
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Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver
sound’? What say you, Simon Catling?
1 MUSICIAN
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
PETER Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
2 MUSICIAN I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians
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sound for silver.
PETER Prates too. What say you, James Soundpost?
3 MUSICIAN Faith, I know not what to say.
PETER O, I cry you mercy, you are the singer. I will say
for you. It is ‘music with her silver sound’ because
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musicians have no gold for sounding.
‘Then music with her silver sound
With speedy help doth lend redress.’Exit.
1 MUSICIAN What a pestilent knave is this same.
2 MUSICIAN Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry
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for the mourners, and stay dinner. Exeunt.
5.1 Enter ROMEO.
ROMEO If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
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I dreamt my lady came and found me dead –
Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think! –
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips
That I reviv’d and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d
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When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.
Enter BALTHASAR, Romeo’s man, booted.
News from Verona! How now, Balthasar,
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How doth my Juliet? That I ask again,
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For nothing can be ill if she be well.
BALTHASAR
Then she is well and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capels’ monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault
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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 e’en so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
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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.
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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
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To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
I do remember an apothecary –
And hereabouts ‘a dwells – which late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples. Meagre were his looks,
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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-shap’d fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
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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,
‘And if a man did need a poison now,
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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.
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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
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As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may 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.
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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 thy eyes,
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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.
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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 dispatch you straight.
ROMEO
There is thy gold – worse poison to men’s souls,
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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
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To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee. Exeunt.
5.2 Enter FRIAR JOHN. FRIAR JOHN Holy Franciscan Friar, Brother, ho!
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE.
FRIAR LAURENCE
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,
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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,
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Seal’d up the doors and would not let us forth,
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.
FRIAR LAURENCE 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,
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So fearful were they of infection.
FRIAR LAURENCE
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,
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Get me an iron crow and bring it straight
Unto my cell.
FRIAR JOHN Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee. Exit.
FRIAR LAURENCE Now must I to the monument alone.
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
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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.
5.3 Enter PARIS and his Page, with flowers and sweet water.
PARIS Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof.
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew trees lay thee all along,
Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
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Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me
As signal that thou hear’st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee. Go.
PAGE I am almost afraid to stand alone
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Here in the churchyard. Yet I will adventure.
[Retires. Paris strews the tomb with flowers.]
PARIS
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans.
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The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
[Page whistles.]
The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?
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What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile.
[Paris retires.]
Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR with a torch, a mattock and a crow of iron.
ROMEO Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee,
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Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death
Is partly to behold my lady’s face
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
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A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I farther shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint,
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And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild,
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
BALTHASAR I will be gone, sir, and not trouble ye.
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ROMEO
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.
Live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.
BALTHASAR For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout.
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
[Balthasar retires.]
ROMEO Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death
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Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
And in despite I’ll cram thee with more food.
[Romeo opens the tomb.]
PARIS This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin – with which grief