Musical banter #1 (4.5.108-117)

PETER                                    I will then give it to you soundly. FIRST MUSICIAN       What will you give us? PETER                                    No money, on my faith, but the gleek; I will give you the minstrel. FIRST MUSICIAN       Then will I give you the serving-creature. PETER                                    Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will carry no […]

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Musicians: play ‘Heart’s ease’! (4.5.96-107)

FIRST MUSICIAN       Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone. NURSE                        Honest good fellows, ah put up, put up,                                     For well you know this is a pitiful case.      [Exit.] FIRST MUSICIAN       Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.                                                 EnterPETER. PETER                        Musicians, O musicians, ‘Heart’s ease’, ‘Heart’s ease’! O, and […]

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Strew rosemary, and prepare for a funeral (4.5.91-95)

FRIAR              Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,                         And go, Sir Paris. Everyone prepare                         To follow this fair corse unto her grave.                         The heavens do low’r upon you for some ill;                         Move them no more by crossing their high will. [They all, but the Nurse and the Musicians, go […]

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Change everything, from wedding to funeral (4.5.84-90)

CAPULET        All things that we ordainèd festival,                         Turn from their office to black funeral:                         Our instruments to melancholy bells,                         Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;                         Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;                         Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;                         And all things change them to the […]

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Stick your rosemary…. (4.5.75-83)

FRIAR              O, in this love, you love your child so ill                         That you run mad, seeing that she is well.                         She’s not well married that lives married long,                         But she’s best married that dies married young.                         Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary                         On this fair corse, and as […]

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Juliet, in heaven (4.5.65-74)

FRIAR              Peace ho, for shame! Confusion’s cure lives not                         In these confusions. Heaven and yourself                         Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,                         And all the better is it for the maid:                         Your part in her you could not keep from death,                         But heaven keeps his part in […]

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Cheated by death: all joy is gone (4.5.55-64)

PARIS              Beguiled, divorcèd, wrongèd, spited, slain!                         Most detestable Death, by thee beguiled,                         By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown!                         O love! O life! not life, but love in death! CAPULET        Despised, distressèd, hated, martyred, killed!                         Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now                         To murder, murder our solemnity?                         O child, O child! […]

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Woeful, woeful, woeful: in defence of the Nurse (4.5.49-54)

NURSE            O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!                         Most lamentable day, most woeful day                         That ever, ever I did yet behold!                         O day, O day, O day, O hateful day!                         Never was seen so black a day as this.                         O woeful day, O woeful day! (4.5.49-54) This is probably the […]

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An only child, gone (4.5.43-48)

LADY CAPULET         Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!                                     Most miserable hour that e’er time saw                                     In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!                                     But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,                                     But one thing to rejoice and solace in,                                     And cruel Death hath catched it from my sight! (4.5.43-48) So this is […]

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More flowers, and more death, and Paris speaks (4.5.35-42)

CAPULET        O son, the night before thy wedding day                         Hath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,                         Flower as she was, deflowerèd by him.                         Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir,                         My daughter he hath wedded. I will die,                         And leave him all; life, living, all is Death’s. […]

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