ACT FIFTH

SCENE I

Mantua. A street.

Enter Romeo.

Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne,
And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful
thoughts.

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead-
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to
think!-

And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,
That I revived and was an emperor.

Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,

When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

10

1. "flattering truth"; so Qq., Ff.; Malone following (Q. 1) reads "flattering eye"; Collier MS., "flattering death"; Grant White, “flattering sooth," etc.-I. G.

3-5. "These three lines are very gay and pleasing. But why does Shakespeare give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just before the extremity of unhappiness? Perhaps to show the vanity of trusting to those uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many consider as certain foretokens of good and evil" (Johnson).— H. N. H.

Enter Balthasar, booted.

News from Verona! How now, Balthasar! Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar? How doth my lady? Is my father well? How fares my Juliet? that I ask again; For nothing can be ill, if she be well. Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill: Her body sleeps in Capels' monument, And her immortal part with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault, And presently took post to tell it you: O, pardon me for bringing these ill news, Since you did leave it for my office, sir. Rom. Is it e'en so? then I defy you, stars!

20

Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,

And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.
Bal. I do beseech you, sir, have patience:

Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Rom.

Tush, thou art deceived: Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. 30 Hast thou no letters to me from the friar? Bal. No, my good lord.

Rom.

No matter; get thee gone, And hire those horses; I 'll be with thee straight. [Exit Balthasar.

24. "I defy you"; Pope's reading; (Q. 1), “I defie my”; Qq. 2, 3, 4, F. 1, “I denie you"; Ff. 2, 3, 4, Q. 5, "I deny you.”—I. G.

27. "I do beseech you, sir, have patience"; Pope (from Q. 1) reads “Pardon me sir, I dare not leave you thus"; Steevens (1793) reads "Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus."”—I. G.

Ap.

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's see for means:-O mischief, thou art
swift

To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,

And hereabouts a' dwells, which late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meager were his looks; 40
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
An if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.

50

O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house:
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.
What, ho! apothecary!

Enter Apothecary.

Who calls so loud?

43. "Alligator stuff'd"; we learn from Nashe's Have with You to Saffron Walden, 1596, that a stuffed alligator then made part of the furniture of an apothecary's shop: “He made an anatomie of a rat, and after hanged her over his head, instead of an apothecary's crocodile or dried alligator."-H. N. H.

Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor;
Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have

A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear 60
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,

And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently as hasty powder fired

Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.
Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
Is death to any he that utters them.

70

Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty and not thy will.
Ap. 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. Rom. There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,

Doing more murder in this loathsome world,

80

71. "Contempt... back"; thus the old copies. Otway copied the line in his Caius Marius, only changing starveth to stareth, which has been adopted into the text by Singer, and may be right. Pope changed "starveth in thy eyes" to "stare within thy eyes." As it stands, the expression conveys a strong sense, though it will hardly bear analyzing. The two nouns with a verb in the singular was not ungrammatical according to old usage.-In the next line, the first quarto has, "Upon thy back hangs ragged misery," which is strangely preferred by some editors.-H. N. H.

Than these poor compounds that thou mayst
not sell:

I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II

Friar Laurence' cell.

Enter Friar John.

Fri. J. Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!

Enter Friar Laurence.

Fri. L. This same should be the voice of Friar John.

Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo? Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter. Fri. J. Going to find a bare-foot brother out, One of our order, to associate me,

6. "To associate me"; each friar had always a companion assigned him by the superior, when he asked leave to go out. In the Visitatio Notabilis de Seleborne, a curious record printed in White's Natural History of Selborne, Wykeham enjoins the canons not to go abroad without leave from the prior, who is ordered on such occasions to assign the brother a companion, "ne suspicio sinistra vel scandalum oriatur." There is a similar regulation in the statutes of Trinity College, Cambridge. So in the poem:

"Apace our frier John to Mantua him hyes,
And, for because in Italy it is a wonted gyse

That friers in the towne should seldome walke alone,
But of theyr covent ay should be accompanide with one
Of his profession, straight a house he fyndeth out,

In mynde to take some frier to walke the town about."