Therefore, out of thy 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 thy years and art

Could to no issue of true honour bring.

Be not so long to speak. I long to die,

If what thou 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

Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,

Then is it likely thou wilt undertake

A thing like death to chide away this shame,

That cop’st with death himself to scape from it.

And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee 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 thou lie alone,

Let not thy Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.

Take thou this vial, being then in bed,

And this distilled liquor drink thou off,

When presently through all thy veins shall run

A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse

Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.

No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest,

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade

To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall,

Like death when he shuts up the day of life.

Each part depriv’d of supple government,