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Romeo and Juliet: Act IV, Scene 1

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Romeo and Juliet
Act IV, Scene 1

Scene 1

Friar Lawrence’s cell.

  1. Enter Friar Lawrence and County Paris.

Friar Lawrence

1
  1. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

Paris

2 - 3
  1. My father Capulet will have it so,
  2. And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

Friar Lawrence

4 - 5
  1. You say you do not know the lady’s mind?
  2. Uneven is the course, I like it not.

Paris

6 - 15
  1. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
  2. And therefore have I little talk’d of love,
  3. For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
  4. Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
  5. That she do give her sorrow so much sway;
  6. And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,
  7. To stop the inundation of her tears,
  8. Which, too much minded by herself alone,
  9. May be put from her by society.
  10. Now do you know the reason of this haste.

Friar Lawrence

16 - 17
  1. Aside.
  2. I would I knew not why it should be slowed.—
  3. Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.
  1. Enter Juliet.

Paris

18
  1. Happily met, my lady and my wife!

Juliet

19
  1. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

Paris

20
  1. That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.

Juliet

21
  1. What must be shall be.

Friar Lawrence

22
  1.                        That’s a certain text.

Paris

23
  1. Come you to make confession to this father?

Juliet

24
  1. To answer that, I should confess to you.

Paris

25
  1. Do not deny to him that you love me.

Juliet

26
  1. I will confess to you that I love him.

Paris

27
  1. So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

Juliet

28 - 29
  1. If I do so, it will be of more price,
  2. Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

Paris

30
  1. Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears.

Juliet

31 - 32
  1. The tears have got small victory by that,
  2. For it was bad enough before their spite.

Paris

33
  1. Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.

Juliet

34 - 35
  1. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
  2. And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

Paris

36
  1. Thy face is mine, and thou hast sland’red it.

Juliet

37 - 39
  1. It may be so, for it is not mine own.
  2. Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
  3. Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

Friar Lawrence

40 - 41
  1. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
  2. My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

Paris

42 - 44
  1. God shield I should disturb devotion!
  2. Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye;
  3. Till then adieu, and keep this holy kiss.
  1. Exit.

Juliet

45 - 46
  1. O, shut the door, and when thou hast done so,
  2. Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!

Friar Lawrence

47 - 50
  1. O Juliet, I already know thy grief,
  2. It strains me past the compass of my wits.
  3. I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
  4. On Thursday next be married to this County.

Juliet

51 - 68
  1. Tell me not, friar, that thou hearest of this,
  2. Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
  3. If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,
  4. Do thou but call my resolution wise,
  5. And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
  6. God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands,
  7. And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
  8. Shall be the label to another deed,
  9. Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
  10. Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
  11. Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
  12. Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
  13. ’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
  14. Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
  15. Which the commission of thy years and art
  16. Could to no issue of true honor bring.
  17. Be not so long to speak, I long to die,
  18. If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.
Costume design for Paris

Costume design for Paris

Percy Anderson, circa 1900

Friar Lawrence

69 - 77
  1. Hold, daughter! I do spy a kind of hope,
  2. Which craves as desperate an execution
  3. As that is desperate which we would prevent.
  4. If rather than to marry County Paris,
  5. Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
  6. Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
  7. A thing like death to chide away this shame,
  8. That cop’st with Death himself to scape from it;
  9. And if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.

Juliet

78 - 89
  1. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
  2. From off the battlements of any tower,
  3. Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk
  4. Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears,
  5. Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
  6. O’ercover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
  7. With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
  8. Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
  9. And hide me with a dead man in his shroud—
  10. Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble—
  11. And I will do it without fear or doubt,
  12. To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

Friar Lawrence

90 - 121
  1. Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent
  2. To marry Paris. We’n’sday is tomorrow;
  3. Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,
  4. Let not the nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
  5. Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
  6. And this distilling liquor drink thou off,
  7. When presently through all thy veins shall run
  8. A cold and drowsy humor; for no pulse
  9. Shall keep his native progress, but surcease;
  10. No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest;
  11. The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
  12. To wanny ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall,
  13. Like death when he shuts up the day of life;
  14. Each part, depriv’d of supple government,
  15. Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death,
  16. And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
  17. Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
  18. And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
  19. Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
  20. To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
  21. Then, as the manner of our country is,
  22. In thy best robes, uncovered on the bier,
  23. Thou shall be borne to that same ancient vault
  24. Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
  25. In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
  26. Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
  27. And hither shall he come, an’ he and I
  28. Will watch thy waking, and that very night
  29. Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
  30. And this shall free thee from this present shame,
  31. If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
  32. Abate thy valor in the acting it.

Juliet

122
  1. Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

Friar Lawrence

123 - 125
  1. Hold, get you gone. Be strong and prosperous
  2. In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
  3. To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

Juliet

126 - 127
  1. Love give me strength! And strength shall help afford.
  2. Farewell, dear father!
  1. Exeunt.

And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours

John Hayter, 19th century

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