Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep
His natural progress, but surcease to beat :
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'st;
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, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death :
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt remain full 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 mean time, 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 unconstant toy, 4 nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

Jul. Give me, O give me! tell me not of fear.
Fri. Hold; 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.

Jul. Love, give me strength! and strength shall

help afford.

Farewell, dear father!

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

A Room in CAPULET's House. Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, Nurse, and Servants.

Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.

[Exit Servant.

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.1

2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick their fingers.

[4] If no fickle freak, no light caprice, no change of fancy, hinder the performance. JOHNSON.

Cap. How canst thou try them so ?

2 Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers; therefore he, that cannot lick his fingers, goes not with me.

Cap. Go, begone.

[Exit Servant.

We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.

What, is my daughter gone to friar Lawrence ?

Nurse. Ay, forsooth.

Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good on her:

A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

Enter JULIET.

Nur. See where she comes from shrift with merry look. Cap. How now, my head-strong? where have you

been gadding?

Jul. Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin

Of disobedient opposition

To you, and your behests; and am enjoin'd
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon :-Pardon, I beseech you !
Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.

Cap. Send for the county; go tell him of this;
I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.
Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.

Cap. Why, I am glad on't; this is well,-stand up :
This is as't should be.-Let me see the county ;
Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.-
Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.

Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,

To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?

La. Cap. No, not till Thursday; there is time enough. Cap. Go, nurse, go with her :-we'll to church to[Exeunt JULIET and Nurse.

morrow.

La. Cap. We shall be short in our provision ;3

'Tis now near night.

Cap. Tush! I will stir about,

And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife :
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck her up ;.
I'll not to bed to-night ;-let me alone;

I'll play the housewife for this once. - What, ho!

[3] We shall be defective. JOHNSON.

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 meetagain.
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

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

To whose foul mouth no healthsome 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 1,5
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, 6
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 inconsequential, according to the disorder of Juliet's mind. JOHNSON. [6] Distracted. STEEVENS.

1

The curfeu bell hath rung, '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.

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 shits, 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.