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Romeo and Juliet: Act V, Scene 1

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Romeo and Juliet
Act V, Scene 1

Scene 1

Mantua. A street.

  1. Enter Romeo.

Romeo

1 - 16
  1. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
  2. My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
  3. My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne,
  4. And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
  5. Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
  6. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead—
  7. Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
  8. And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips
  9. That I reviv’d and was an emperor.
  10. Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d,
  11. When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!
  12. Enter Romeo’s man Balthasar, booted.
  13. News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
  14. Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
  15. How doth my lady? Is my father well?
  16. How doth my Juliet? That I ask again,
  17. For nothing can be ill if she be well.

Balthasar

17 - 23
  1. Then she is well and nothing can be ill:
  2. Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
  3. And her immortal part with angels lives.
  4. I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
  5. And presently took post to tell it you.
  6. O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
  7. Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Romeo

24 - 26
  1. Is it e’en so? Then I defy you, stars!
  2. Thou knowest my lodging, get me ink and paper,
  3. And hire post-horses; I will hence tonight.

Balthasar

27 - 29
  1. I do beseech you, sir, have patience.
  2. Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
  3. Some misadventure.

Romeo

30 - 32
  1.                    Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
  2. Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
  3. Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

Balthasar

33
  1. No, my good lord.

Romeo

34 - 59
  1.                   No matter, get thee gone,
  2. And hire those horses; I’ll be with thee straight.
  3. Exit Balthasar.
  4. Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
  5. Let’s see for means. O mischief, thou art swift
  6. To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
  7. I do remember an apothecary—
  8. And hereabouts ’a dwells—which late I noted
  9. In tatt’red weeds, with overwhelming brows,
  10. Culling of simples; meager were his looks,
  11. Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
  12. And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
  13. An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
  14. Of ill-shap’d fishes, and about his shelves
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    Apothecaries often had curiosities on display in their shops.
  15. A beggarly account of empty boxes,
  16. Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
  17. Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    Rose petals compressed into cakes for their perfume.
  18. Were thinly scattered, to make up a show.
  19. Noting this penury, to myself I said,
  20. “An’ if a man did need a poison now,
  21. Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
  22. Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.”
  23. O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
  24. And this same needy man must sell it me.
  25. As I remember, this should be the house.
  26. Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.
  27. What ho, apothecary!
  1. Enter Apothecary.

Put this in any liquid thing you will and drink it off, and if you had the strength of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.

George Cruikshank, 1867

Apothecary

60
  1.                      Who calls so loud?

Romeo

61 - 68
  1. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.
  2. Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    Gold coins minted in Venice; also a general purpose name for other European coins. Ducats were used throughout Europe.
  3. A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
  4. As will disperse itself through all the veins
  5. That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
  6. And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
  7. As violently as hasty powder fir’d
  8. Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.

Apothecary

69 - 70
  1. Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law
  2. Is death to any he that utters them.
    Feb 16, 2021 Miko
    sells

Romeo

71 - 77
  1. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
  2. And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
  3. Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
  4. Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;
  5. The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law,
  6. The world affords no law to make thee rich;
  7. Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

Apothecary

78
  1. My poverty, but not my will, consents.

Romeo

79
  1. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

Apothecary

80 - 82
  1. Put this in any liquid thing you will
  2. And drink it off, and if you had the strength
  3. Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.

Romeo

83 - 89
  1. There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
  2. Doing more murder in this loathsome world,
  3. Than these poor compounds that thou mayest not sell.
  4. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
  5. Farewell! Buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
  6. Exit Apothecary.
  7. Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
  8. To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.
  1. Exit.

There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls, doing more murder in this loathsome world, than these poor compounds that thou mayest not sell

J. Coghlan, circa 1825

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