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.

 In exile in Mantua, Romeo wakes up feeling good. He has just had a dream in which Juliet found him dead, but then kissed him back to life. That sound you just heard was the anvil of foreshadowing. Romeo's servant Balthasar arrives with the news from Verona. There's no good way to say this: Juliet's dead. Um, is there any message from Friar Laurence? Nope. Romeo immediately decides that the only thing he can do is go to Juliet's grave and commit suicide there. He knows a poor apothecary who sells illegal drugs, including poisons. He goes to said "poor apothecary," whose sunken cheeks and hollow looking eyes suggest that he is starving to death, and Romeo convinces him to sell him a dram of poison , since, you know, the guy is starving and really needs the money. Then Romeo heads for Verona.

