 | Romeo and Juliet |  |
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 heav'ns 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.
Then good night:
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.
[Exeunt.
Jul.
Farewel,—heav'n 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,—yet what should they do here?
54
[Takes out the phial.
Come, vial—What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I of force be married to the Count?
No, no, this shall forbid it; lie thou there—
[Pointing to a dagger.
What if it be a poison, which the Friar
Subt'ly hath ministred, 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—
How, if when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Comes to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsom air breathes in?
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 Tibalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festring in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—)
Or if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
(Invironed with all these hideous fears,)
And madly play with my forefathers joints,
And pluck the mangled Tibalt from his shroud?
And in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone
As with a club, dash out my desp'rate brains?
O look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo—Stay, Tibalt, stay!
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
[Drinks.
[She throws herself on the bed.
| Romeo and Juliet | |