Juliet sends the Nurse away for the night. After facing her terror at the prospect of awaking in her family’s burial vault, Juliet drinks the potion that Friar Lawrence has given her.
Enter Juliet and Nurse.
JULIET 2490Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle nurse, 2491I pray thee leave me to myself tonight, 2492For I have need of many orisons 2493To move the heavens to smile upon my state, 24945Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin.
Enter ⌜Lady Capulet.⌝
LADY CAPULET 2495What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help? JULIET 2496No, madam, we have culled such necessaries 2497As are behooveful for our state tomorrow. 2498So please you, let me now be left alone, 249910And let the Nurse this night sit up with you, 2500For I am sure you have your hands full all 2501In this so sudden business. LADY CAPULET2502Good night. 2503Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need. ⌜Lady Capulet and the Nurse⌝ exit. JULIET 250415Farewell.—God knows when we shall meet again. 2505I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins 2506That almost freezes up the heat of life. 2507I’ll call them back again to comfort me.— 2508Nurse!—What should she do here? 250920My dismal scene I needs must act alone. 2510Come, vial.⌜She takes out the vial.⌝ 2511What if this mixture do not work at all? 2512Shall I be married then tomorrow morning? ⌜She takes out her knife and puts it down beside her.⌝ 2513No, no, this shall forbid it. Lie thou there. 251425What if it be a poison which the Friar
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2515Subtly hath ministered to have me dead, 2516Lest in this marriage he should be dishonored 2517Because he married me before to Romeo? 2518I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not, 251930For he hath still been tried a holy man. 2520How if, when I am laid into the tomb, 2521I wake before the time that Romeo 2522Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point. 2523Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, 252435To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, 2525And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? 2526Or, if I live, is it not very like 2527The horrible conceit of death and night, 2528Together with the terror of the place— 252940As in a vault, an ancient receptacle 2530Where for this many hundred years the bones 2531Of all my buried ancestors are packed; 2532Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 2533Lies fest’ring in his shroud; where, as they say, 253445At some hours in the night spirits resort— 2535Alack, alack, is it not like that I, 2536So early waking, what with loathsome smells, 2537And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, 2538That living mortals, hearing them, run mad— 253950O, if I ⌜wake,⌝ shall I not be distraught, 2540Environèd with all these hideous fears, 2541And madly play with my forefathers’ joints, 2542And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud, 2543And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone, 254455As with a club, dash out my desp’rate brains? 2545O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost 2546Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body 2547Upon a rapier’s point! Stay, Tybalt, stay! 2548Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink. I drink to 254960thee.⌜She drinks and falls upon her bed within the curtains.⌝
