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.
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
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy.
Enter Romeo's man Balthasar, <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 Lady Juliet? That I ask again,
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.
MAN:
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,
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 deny you stars.
Thou know'st my lodging, get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses, I will hence to-night.
MAN:
I do beseech you sir, have patience:
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
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?
ROMEO:
No matter: get thee gone,
And hire those horses, I'll be with thee straight.
Well Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night:
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 a' 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.
Nothing 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 holy day the beggar's shop is shut.
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 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.
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,
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 dispatch you straight.
ROMEO:
There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murther 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.