Enter Juliet and Nurse. JULIET
Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight,
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin. 5 Enter Lady Capulet. LADY CAPULET
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help? JULIET
No, madam, we have culled such necessaries
As are behooveful for our state tomorrow.
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the Nurse this night sit up with you, 10
For I am sure you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business. LADY CAPULET Good night.
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need. Lady Capulet and the Nurse exit. | Juliet convinces the Nurse and Lady Capulet to leave her alone. She tells the Nurse she has a lot of prayers to say to make up for her sinning ways. Then she says the Nurse should stay with Lady Capulet tonight since there are so many things still to do for the wedding. She's sure her mom could use the help. |
JULIET
Farewell.—God knows when we shall meet again. 15
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. 20
Come, vial. She takes out the vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
She takes out her knife
and puts it down beside her.
No, no, this shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
What if it be a poison which the Friar 25
Subtly hath ministered to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonored
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. 30
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, 35
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 40
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed;
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— 45
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
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, 50
Environèd 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 desp’rate brains? 55
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, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink. I drink to
thee. She drinks and falls upon her bed 60
within the curtains. | After they leave, stakes out the potion the Friar gave her, and runs through a series of "what if" scenarios. What if it doesn't work? (She makes sure she has her dagger nearby, just in case.) What if the Friar gave her real poison to cover his tracks in this scandal? What if she wakes up before Romeo gets there, and there's not enough air, and she suffocates? What if she wakes up and freaks out because she's surrounded by the bones of all her dead relatives? And what if because she's surrounded by all those dead people, she flips out, and uses one of their bones to club herself in the head? Okay, so Juliet's a little bit nervous about this plan. Just before she drinks the poison, she thinks she sees Tybalt's ghost searching for Romeo. Still, she plucks up her courage, drinks the poison, and falls onto her bed. |