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Act 4, Scene 3

Juliet's Chamber.

  1. [Enter Juliet and Nurse.]
  2. Juliet
  3. 2388 Ay, those attires are best:—but, gentle nurse,
  4. 2389 I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;
  5. 2390 For I have need of many orisons
  6. 2391 To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
  7. 2392 Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin.
  8. [Enter Lady Capulet.]
  9. Lady Capulet
  10. 2393 What, are you busy, ho? need you my help?
  11. Juliet
  12. 2394 No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries
  13. 2395 As are behoveful for our state to-morrow:
  14. 2396 So please you, let me now be left alone,
  15. 2397 And let the nurse this night sit up with you;
  16. 2398 For I am sure you have your hands full all
  17. 2399 In this so sudden business.
  18. Lady Capulet
  19. 2400 Good night:
  20. 2401 Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.
  21. [Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse.]
  22. Juliet
  23. 2402 Farewell!—God knows when we shall meet again.
  24. 2403 I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
  25. 2404 That almost freezes up the heat of life:
  26. 2405 I'll call them back again to comfort me;—
  27. 2406 Nurse!—What should she do here?
  28. 2407 My dismal scene I needs must act alone.—
  29. 2408 Come, vial.—
  30. 2409 What if this mixture do not work at all?
  31. 2410 Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning?—
  32. 2411 No, No!—this shall forbid it:—lie thou there.—
  33. [Laying down her dagger.]
  34. Juliet
  35. 2412 What if it be a poison, which the friar
  36. 2413 Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,
  37. 2414 Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
  38. 2415 Because he married me before to Romeo?
  39. 2416 I fear it is: and yet methinks it should not,
  40. 2417 For he hath still been tried a holy man:—
  41. 2418 I will not entertain so bad a thought.—
  42. 2419 How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
  43. 2420 I wake before the time that Romeo
  44. 2421 Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
  45. 2422 Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
  46. 2423 To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
  47. 2424 And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
  48. 2425 Or, if I live, is it not very like
  49. 2426 The horrible conceit of death and night,
  50. 2427 Together with the terror of the place,—
  51. 2428 As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
  52. 2429 Where, for this many hundred years, the bones
  53. 2430 Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;
  54. 2431 Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
  55. 2432 Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
  56. 2433 At some hours in the night spirits resort;—
  57. 2434 Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
  58. 2435 So early waking,—what with loathsome smells,
  59. 2436 And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
  60. 2437 That living mortals, hearing them, run mad;—
  61. 2438 O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
  62. 2439 Environed with all these hideous fears?
  63. 2440 And madly play with my forefathers' joints?
  64. 2441 And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
  65. 2442 And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
  66. 2443 As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?—
  67. 2444 O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
  68. 2445 Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
  69. 2446 Upon a rapier's point:—stay, Tybalt, stay!—
  70. 2447 Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
  71. [Throws herself on the bed.]