FRIAR LAWRENCE                             Friar John, go hence,                                     Get me an iron crow and bring it straight                                     Unto my cell. FRIAR JOHN               Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.                             Exit. FRIAR LAWRENCE     Now must I to the monument alone,                                     Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.                                     She will beshrew me much that […]

FRIAR LAWRENCE     Who bare my letter then to Romeo? FRIAR JOHN               I could not send it – here it is again –                                     Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,                                     So fearful were they of infection. FRIAR LAWRENCE     Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,                                     The letter was not nice but full of charge, […]

[5.2] Enter FRIAR JOHN. FRIAR JOHN               Holy Franciscan Friar, brother, ho!                                     Enter [FRIAR] LAWRENCE. FRIAR LAWRENCE     This same should be the voice of Friar John.                                     Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?                                     Or if his mind be writ, give me his letter. FRIAR JOHN               Going to find a barefoot brother out,                                     One of our […]

APOTHECARY            My poverty, but not my will, consents. ROMEO                       I pay thy poverty and not thy will. APOTHECARY            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. ROMEO                       There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s […]

APOTHECARY            Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law                                     Is death to any he that utters them. ROMEO                       Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,                                     And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,                                     Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,                                     Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;                                     The […]

ROMEO                       What ho, apothecary!                                     [Enter APOTHECARY.] APOTHECARY                                    Who calls so loud? ROMEO                       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 may fall dead, […]

ROMEO           Noting this penury, to myself I said,                         ‘And 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 […]

ROMEO                                   … meagre were his looks,                         Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;                         And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,                         An alligator stuffed, and other skins                         Of ill-shaped fishes, and about his shelves                         A beggarly account of empty boxes,                         Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,                         […]

ROMEO           Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.                         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 tattered weeds, with overwhelming brows,                         Culling of simples… (5.1.34-40) […]

BALTHASAR   I do beseech you, sir, have patience:                         Your looks are pale and wild, and do import                         Some misadventure. ROMEO                                               Tush, thou art deceived.                         Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.                         Hast thou no letters for me from the Friar? BALTHASAR   No, my good lord. ROMEO                                   No matter, […]