FRIAR LAWRENCE
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.
PARIS
My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course; I like it not.
PARIS
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she do give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears,
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.—
Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.
PARIS
Happily met, my lady and my wife!
JULIET
That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
PARIS
That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.
JULIET
What must be shall be.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
That’s a certain text.
PARIS
Come you to make confession to this father?
JULIET
To answer that, I should confess to you.
PARIS
Do not deny to him that you love me.
JULIET
I will confess to you that I love him.
PARIS
So will , I am sure, that you love me.
JULIET
If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back than to your face.
PARIS
Poor soul, face is much abus’d with tears.
JULIET
The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.
PARIS
wrong’st it more than tears with that report.
JULIET
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
PARIS
face is mine, and slander’d it.
JULIET
It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
FRIAR LAWRENCE
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 ,
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
JULIET
O shut the door, and when done so,
Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!
FRIAR LAWRENCE
O Juliet, I already know grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this County.
JULIET
Tell me not, Friar, that hear’st of this,
Unless tell me how I may prevent it.
If in wisdom, canst give no help,
Do but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it .
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, our hands;
And this hand, by to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel, or behold
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die,
If what speak’st speak not of remedy.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it.
And if dar’st, I’ll give remedy.
JULIET
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower,
Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk
Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble,
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow;
Tomorrow night look that lie alone,
Let not Nurse lie with in chamber.
Take this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink off,
When through all veins shall run
A cold and drowsy ; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify livest,
The roses in lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; eyes’ windows fall,
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part depriv’d of supple government,
Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death.
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse from bed, there art dead.
Then as the manner of our country is,
In best robes, uncover’d, on the bier,
be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And shall he come, and he and I
Will watch waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear to Mantua.
And this shall free from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate valour in the acting it.
JULIET
Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear!
FRIAR LAWRENCE
Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to lord.
JULIET
Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father.