More bustling, and suddenly, it’s day: wedding time! (4.4.13-28)

CAPULET                    A jealous hood, a jealous hood! Enter three or four [SERVINGMEN] with spits and logs and baskets                                                                         Now, fellow,                                     What is there? FIRST SERVINGMANThings for the cook, sir, but I know not what. CAPULET                    Make haste, make haste.                                                             [Exit First Servingman]                                                                         Sirrah, fetch drier logs.                                     Call Peter, he will show […]

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Baking, bustle, and getting in the way (4.4.1-12)

[4.4] Enter lady of the house [LADY CAPULET] and NURSE [with herbs]. LADY CAPULET         Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, Nurse. NURSE                        They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.                                     Enter old CAPULET. CAPULET                    Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crowed, The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock. Look to […]

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Romeo! I drink to thee [Juliet falls, insensible] (4.3.55-58)

JULIET                        O look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost                         Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body                         Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!                         Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink – I drink to thee.                         [She falls upon her bed, within the curtains.] (4.3.55-58) A final, terrified hallucination – and yes, […]

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Juliet’s living nightmare, #3 (really losing it, now) (4.3.45-54)

JULIET                        Alack, alack, is it not like that I,                         So early waking – what with loathsome smells,                         And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,                         That living mortals hearing them run mad –                         O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,                         Environèd with all these hideous fears,                         […]

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Juliet’s living nightmare, #2 (4.3.36-44)

JULIET                        Or if I live, is it not very like                         The horrible conceit of death and night,                         Together with the terror of the place –                         As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,                         Where for this many hundred years the bones                         Of all my buried ancestors are packed,                         Where bloody […]

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Juliet’s living nightmare, #1 (4.3.30-35)

JULIET                        How if, when I am laid into the tomb,                         I wake before the time that Romeo                         Comes to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!                         Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,                         To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,                         And there lie strangled ere my Romeo […]

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Dagger ready, just in case – but what if it’s a trick? (4.3.21-29)

JULIET                        What if this mixture do not work at all?                         Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?                         No, no, this shall forbid it; lie thou there.                         [Laying down her dagger.]                         What if it be a poison which the Friar                         Subtly hath ministered to have me dead,                         Lest in this […]

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Acting alone: come, vial (4.3.14-20)

JULIET                        Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.                         I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins                         That almost freezes up the heat of life:                         I’ll call them back again to comfort me.                         Nurse! – What should she do here?                         My dismal scene I needs must act alone. […]

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Good night, good night – and Juliet left alone (4.3.6-13)

Enter Mother [LADY CAPULET] LADY CAPULET         What, are you busy, ho? need you my help? JULIET                                    No, madam, we have culled such necessaries                                     As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.                                     So please you, let me now be left alone,                                     And let the Nurse this night sit up with you,                                     For I am […]

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Leave me, Nurse, I need to pray (4.3.1-5)

[4.3] Enter JULIET and NURSE. JULIET                        Ay, those attires are best, but, gentle Nurse,                         I pray thee leave me to myself tonight: For I have need of many orisons                         To move the heavens to smile upon my state,                         Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin. (4.3.1-5) Again the time jumps forward: only […]

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