Chapter: ACT V. 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 breath'd such life with kisses in my lips
    That I reviv'd and was an emperor.
    Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
    When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

                Enter Romeo's Man 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.

  Man. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.
    Her body sleeps in Capel's 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!
    Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper
    And hire posthorses. I will hence to-night.

  Man. I do beseech you, sir, have patience.
    Your looks are pale and wild and do import
    Some misadventure.

  Rom. Tush, thou art deceiv'd.
    Leave me and do the thing I bid thee do.
    Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

  Man. No, my good lord.

  Rom. No matter. Get thee gone
    And hire those horses. I'll be with thee straight.
                                               Exit [Balthasar].
    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 tatt'red weeds, with overwhelming brows,
    Culling of simples. Meagre were his looks,
    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 scattered, 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.'
    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.


  Apoth. Who calls so loud?

  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
    As will disperse itself through all the veins
    That the life-weary taker mall fall dead,
    And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath
    As violently as hasty powder fir'd
    Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

  Apoth. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
    Is death to any he that utters them.

  Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness
    And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
    Need and oppression starveth in thine 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.

  Apoth. My poverty but not my will consents.

  Rom. I pay thy poverty and not thy will.

  Apoth. 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 murther in this loathsome world,
    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.

 Then I defy you, stars. On Wednesday morning, on a street in Mantua, a cheerful Romeo describes a wonderful dream he had the night before: Juliet found him lying dead, but she kissed him, and breathed new life into his body. Just then, Balthasar enters, and Romeo greets him happily, saying that Balthasar must have come from Verona with news of Juliet and his father. Romeo comments that nothing can be ill in the world if Juliet is well. Balthasar replies that nothing can be ill, then, for Juliet is well: she is in heaven, found dead that morning at her home. Thunderstruck, Romeo cries out "Then I defy you, stars". He tells Balthasar to get him pen and paper and to hire horses, and says that he will return to Verona that night. Balthasar says that Romeo seems so distraught that he is afraid to leave him, but Romeo insists. Romeo suddenly stops and asks if Balthasar is carrying a letter from Friar Lawrence. Balthasar says he is not, and Romeo sends his servant on his way. Once Balthasar is gone, Romeo says that he will lie with Juliet that night. He goes to find an apothecary, a seller of drugs. After telling the man in the shop that he looks poor, Romeo offers to pay him well for a vial of poison. The Apothecary says that he has just such a thing, but that selling poison in Mantua carries the death sentence. Romeo replies that the Apothecary is too poor to refuse the sale. The Apothecary finally relents and sells Romeo the poison. Once alone, Romeo speaks to the vial, declaring that he will go to Juliet's tomb and kill himself

