Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare
ACT 4 SCENE 1
(Friar Laurence and Paris speaK)
(Enter Juliet)
Paris: Happily met, my lady and my wife!
Juliet: That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Paris: That must be, love, on Thursday next.
Juliet: What must be shall be.
Paris: Do not deny to him that you love me.
Juliet: I will confess to you that I love him.
Paris: So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
Juliet: If I do so, it will be spoke behind your back, than to your face.
Paris: Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.
Juliet: Are you at leisure, holy father, now;
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
Friar Laurence: My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Paris: God shield I should disturb devotion!
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:
Till then, adieu.
(Exit Paris)
Juliet: O shut the door! Come weep with me;
past hope, past cure, past help!
Friar Laurence: Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must,On Thursday next be married to this county.
Juliet: Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
Friar Laurence: Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope.
If, rather than to marry County Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.
Juliet: O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
Friar Laurence: Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow:
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
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;
Thou shalt continue like this for two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come!
Juliet: Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!
