Act 4, Scene 5

Juliet's Chamber; Juliet on the bed.

[Enter Nurse.]
Nurse
2478 Mistress!—what, mistress!—Juliet!—fast, I warrant her, she:—
2479 Why, lamb!—why, lady!—fie, you slug-abed!—
2480 Why, love, I say!—madam! sweetheart!—why, bride!—
2481 What, not a word?—you take your pennyworths now;
2482 Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
2483 The County Paris hath set up his rest
2484 That you shall rest but little.—God forgive me!
2485 Marry, and amen, how sound is she asleep!
2486 I needs must wake her.—Madam, madam, madam!—
2487 Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
2488 He'll fright you up, i' faith.—Will it not be?
2489 What, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!
2490 I must needs wake you.—lady! lady! lady!—
2491 Alas, alas!—Help, help! My lady's dead!—
2492 O, well-a-day that ever I was born!—
2493 Some aqua-vitae, ho!—my lord! my lady!
[Enter Lady Capulet.]
Nurse
2494 Lady Capulet
2495 What noise is here?
Nurse
2496 O lamentable day!
Lady Capulet
2497 What is the matter?
Nurse
2498 Look, look! O heavy day!
Lady Capulet
2499 O me, O me!—my child, my only life!
2500 Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!—
2501 Help, help!—call help.
[Enter Capulet.]
Capulet
2502 For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.
Nurse
2503 She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead; alack the day!
Nurse
2504 Lady Capulet
2505 Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!
Capulet
2506 Ha! let me see her:—out alas! she's cold;
2507 Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;
2508 Life and these lips have long been separated:
2509 Death lies on her like an untimely frost
2510 Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
2511 Accursed time! unfortunate old man!
Nurse
2512 O lamentable day!
Lady Capulet
2513 O woful time!
Capulet
2514 Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,
2515 Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.
[Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris, with Musicians.]
Friar Lawrence
2516 Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
Capulet
2517 Ready to go, but never to return:—
2518 O son, the night before thy wedding day
2519 Hath death lain with thy bride:—there she lies,
2520 Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
2521 Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir;
2522 My daughter he hath wedded: I will die.
2523 And leave him all; life, living, all is death's.
Paris
2524 Have I thought long to see this morning's face,
2525 And doth it give me such a sight as this?
Lady Capulet
2526 Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!
2527 Most miserable hour that e'er time saw
2528 In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
2529 But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
2530 But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
2531 And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight!
Nurse
2532 O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!
2533 Most lamentable day, most woeful day
2534 That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
2535 O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
2536 Never was seen so black a day as this:
2537 O woeful day! O woeful day!
Paris
2538 Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!
2539 Most detestable death, by thee beguil'd,
2540 By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!—
2541 O love! O life!—not life, but love in death!
Capulet
2542 Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!—
2543 Uncomfortable time, why cam'st thou now
2544 To murder, murder our solemnity?—
2545 O child! O child!—my soul, and not my child!—
2546 Dead art thou, dead!—alack, my child is dead;
2547 And with my child my joys are buried!
Friar Lawrence
2548 Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not
2549 In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
2550 Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
2551 And all the better is it for the maid:
2552 Your part in her you could not keep from death;
2553 But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
2554 The most you sought was her promotion;
2555 For 'twas your heaven she should be advanc'd:
2556 And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd
2557 Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
2558 O, in this love, you love your child so ill
2559 That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
2560 She's not well married that lives married long:
2561 But she's best married that dies married young.
2562 Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
2563 On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
2564 In all her best array bear her to church;
2565 For though fond nature bids us all lament,
2566 Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
Capulet
2567 All things that we ordained festival
2568 Turn from their office to black funeral:
2569 Our instruments to melancholy bells;
2570 Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
2571 Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
2572 Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
2573 And all things change them to the contrary.
Friar Lawrence
2574 Sir, go you in,—and, madam, go with him;—
2575 And go, Sir Paris;—every one prepare
2576 To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
2577 The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;
2578 Move them no more by crossing their high will.
[Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris, and Friar.]
First Musician
2579 Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.
Nurse
2580 Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up;
2581 For well you know this is a pitiful case.
[Exit.]
First Musician
2582 Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
[Enter Peter.]
Peter
2583 Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease,' 'Heart's ease':
2584 O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'
First Musician
2585 Why 'Heart's ease'?
Peter
2586 O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My heart is
2587 full of woe': O, play me some merry dump to comfort me.
First Musician
2588 Not a dump we: 'tis no time to play now.
Peter
2589 You will not then?
First Musician
2590 No.
Peter
2591 I will then give it you soundly.
First Musician
2592 What will you give us?
Peter
2593 No money, on my faith; but the gleek,—I will give you the
2594 minstrel.
First Musician
2595 Then will I give you the serving-creature.
Peter
2596 Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate.
2597 I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you, I'll fa you: do you note
2598 me?
First Musician
2599 An you re us and fa us, you note us.
Second Musician
2600 Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.
Peter
2601 Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you with an
2602 iron wit, and put up my iron dagger.—Answer me like men:
Peter
2603 'When griping grief the heart doth wound,
2604 And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
2605 Then music with her silver sound'—
Peter
2606 why 'silver sound'? why 'music with her silver sound'?—
2607 What say you, Simon Catling?
First Musician
2608 Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
Peter
2609 Pretty!—What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
Second Musician
2610 I say 'silver sound' because musicians sound for silver.
Peter
2611 Pretty too!—What say you, James Soundpost?
Third Musician
2612 Faith, I know not what to say.
Peter
2613 O, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say for you.
2614 It is 'music with her silver sound' because musicians have no
2615 gold for sounding:—
Peter
2616 'Then music with her silver sound
2617 With speedy help doth lend redress.'
[Exit.]
First Musician
2618 What a pestilent knave is this same!
Second Musician
2619 Hang him, Jack!—Come, we'll in here; tarry for the
2620 mourners, and stay dinner.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2481archaic vocab
“you take your pennyworths now”
A 'pennyworth' is a small measure of something bought cheaply or taken a little at a time. The Nurse is joking that Juliet is stealing extra sleep in tiny installments — 'getting her penny's worth' of rest before her wedding night.
TLN 2483wordplay
“hath set up his rest”
To 'set up one's rest' means to stake everything on a single resolve, a phrase from the card game primero where you commit your remaining stake as a final bet. The Nurse means Paris has firmly decided to marry Juliet. But the word 'rest' also plays against Juliet's current 'rest' (sleep), sharpening the irony.
TLN 2485archaic vocab
“Marry, and amen”
'Marry' is a mild oath derived from the name of the Virgin Mary, used as a filler equivalent to 'indeed' or 'why.' It is not a reference to the act of getting married. 'Amen' here functions as an emphatic 'so be it' appended to her self-correction on line 2484.
TLN 2493archaic vocab
“Some aqua-vitae”
Aqua vitae is Latin for 'water of life' — distilled spirits such as brandy or whisky. In Elizabethan England it was used medicinally as a stimulant and restorative for shock or faintness. The Nurse cries for it because she believes Juliet is dead and wants something strong to revive the household.
TLN 2509rhetorical device
“Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field”
Capulet compares Juliet's death to a killing frost that strikes the sweetest flower out of season. The figure is a simile built around a familiar agricultural image: unexpected cold snap destroying crops or blossoms before their time.
TLN 2521rhetorical device
“Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir; My daughter he hath wedded: I will die”
Capulet's three short declarative lines use anaphora — the repetition of 'Death is' and 'death is' at the start of parallel clauses — to hammer in his desolation. He has cast Death legally as son-in-law and heir: Juliet married Death, so Death inherits everything Capulet has.
TLN 2560rhetorical device
“She's not well married that lives married long: But she's best married that dies married young”
Friar Lawrence offers this as consolation: a woman who dies young while still happily married is better off than one who lives long enough to outlast her happiness. The couplet is an antithesis — opposite propositions balanced against each other — that sounds comforting but carries the cruel irony that Friar Lawrence caused Juliet's predicament.
TLN 2562cultural context
“stick your rosemary On this fair corse”
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) was the Elizabethan herb of remembrance, placed on coffins at funerals and also at weddings as a pledge of fidelity. Friar Lawrence tells the mourners to lay sprigs of rosemary on Juliet's body before carrying her to church — the same herb that featured in her wedding preparations now serves her funeral.
TLN 2567rhetorical device
“All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral”
Capulet lists four pairs of contraries — instruments/bells, wedding feast/burial feast, hymns/dirges, bridal flowers/funeral flowers — each a festival thing turned to its funeral opposite. The repeated grammatical pattern (our X / to Y) is a figure of antithesis; 'ordained festival' means things appointed for celebration.
TLN 2583cultural context
“musicians, 'Heart's ease,' 'Heart's ease'”
'Heart's ease' was a real Elizabethan popular song, a cheerful tune associated with relief from grief. Peter demands it because, he says, his own heart is playing 'My heart is full of woe' — another actual song. The musicians' refusal because it is 'no time to play now' clashes with Peter's demand for consolation, turning the scene briefly comic.
TLN 2593archaic vocab
“the gleek,—I will give you the minstrel”
To 'give the gleek' means to make a scornful or mocking jest at someone's expense. To 'give the minstrel' (as the First Musician replies) is to insult someone by calling him a common hired player — a low-status taunt. The two men are exchanging ritual insults, each trying to land the wittier jibe.
TLN 2597wordplay
“I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you, I'll fa you: do you note me”
Peter packs three music puns into a threat. A 'crotchet' is both a quarter-note in music and a whimsical, perverse notion — he will 'carry no nonsense.' 'Re' and 'fa' are solmization syllables (notes of the scale) which Peter uses as verbs meaning 'I will deal with you'; 'note' means both 'pay attention' and 'play a musical note.' The musicians immediately volley the pun back: 'An you re us and fa us, you note us.'