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Romeo & Juliet
 


    
ACT IV, Scene i
Act IV Scene i: Frair Laurence's cell. Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS.
FRIAR LAURENCE
  Your wedding is Thursday, sir? That's a very short time away.
PARIS
  My new father-in-law Capulet wants it that way,
and I'll not slow his hasty arrangements by being slow myself.
FRIAR LAURENCE
  You say you don't know what the young lady thinks about the marriage.
That's unusual. I don't like it.
PARIS
  she cries all the time over Tybalt's death,
so I haven't talked much about love.
Love is not welcome in the midst of grief.
Her father thinks it's dangerous
that she gives in so much to her sorrow.
So in his wisdom, he's rushing the marriage
to stop her grief
which she thinks about too much when she's by herself.
Being around people might help her get over her grief.
So now you know the reason for our haste.
FRIAR LAURENCE (to himself)
  I wish I didn't know why this wedding must be slowed down.
(To Paris) Look, sir, here comes the lady now.
Enter JULIET.
PARIS
  How happy I am to see you, my lady and my wife.
JULIET
  That may be, sir--when I become your wife.
PARIS
  Your "may be" will be a "must," my love, on Thursday.
JULIET
  What must be, shall be.
FRIAR LAURENCE
  That's the truth.
PARIS
  Did you come to make your confession to this father?
JULIET
  In order to answer that, I'd have to confess to you.
PARIS
  Don't deny to him that you love me.
JULIET
  I'll confess to you that I love him.
PARIS
  I'm sure you will confess to him that you love me.
JULIET
  If I do, it will mean more
if I say it behind your back rather than to your face.
PARIS
  Poor soul, your face is very stained with tears.
JULIET
  The tears have made little difference
for my face was unattractive enough before I cried.
PARIS
  You do more injustice to your face with that statement than those tears did.
JULIET
  It's not slander, sir, to speak the truth.
And what I said, I said to my own face.
PARIS
  Your face is mine, and you have slandered it.
JULIET
  You may be right because my face is not my own.
Are you free now, holy father,
or should I come to you at evening mass?
FRIAR LAURENCE
  I'm free to see you now, my thoughtful daughter.
(To Paris) My lord, I must beg you to leave us alone.
PARIS
  God, forbid that I should disturb a confession.
Juliet, I'll awaken you early Thursday morning.
Until then, goodbye, and keep this holy kiss.
He kisses her and exits.
JULIET
  O, close the door, and when you have done so,
come cry with me! I'm beyond hope, beyond care, beyond help!
FRIAR LAURENCE
  O Juliet, I already know your grief.
It drives me past my wit's end.
I hear you must be married to this count
next Thursday and that nothing can postpone it.
JULIET
  Don't tell me that you have heard about this, friar,
unless you can tell me how to prevent it.
If even you and your wisdom can't help me,
just say that my way of solving the problem is wise--
and with this knife, I'll put my plan into action at once.
God joined my heart and Romeo's, and you joined our hangs.
And before this hand, which you joined to Romeo's,
can seal another deal in marriage
or before my faithful heart can turn in treacherous revolt
to another man, this hand will destroy both my hand and heart.
Therefore, out of your great experience,
give me some advice. Otherwise,
between me and my distress, this bloody knife
will determine whether I live or die, deciding that
which your experience and skill
could not honorably resolve.
Don't wait long to speak. I want to die
if what you speak can't help me.
FRIAR LAURENCE
  Wait, daughter! I see some hope.
But it's as dangerous to carry out
as the danger we're trying to prevent.
If rather than marrying Count Paris,
you have the strength of will to kill yourself,
then you'd probably be willing to risk
something like death to avoid this shame
that requires you to deal with Death himself in order to escape this marriage.
If you have the courage, I'll give you the remedy.
JULIET
  O, tell me to leap off the top of any tower
rather than marry Paris.
Rather than marry Paris, tell me to wlk on a road where robbers hide,
or tell me to linger where snakes are, or chain me up with roaring bears,
or lock me in a vault with old bones every night,
completely covering me with dead men's rattling bones,
stinking leg bones, and yellow, jawless skulls.
Rather than marry Paris, tell me to lie in a newly-made grave
and hide me with a dead man in his burial cloth.
Things that, to hear them spoken of have frightened me,
I'll do without fear or doubt,
in order to remain a faithful wife to my sweet love.
FRIAR LAURENCE
  All right, then. Go home, be happy, give your consent
to marry Paris. Tomorrow is Wednesday.
Tomorrow night, be sure to sleep alone.
Don't let the nurse sleep in your room.
Take this bottle, and when you're in bed,
drink this distilled liquor.
Immediately, a cold and uieting liquid
shall run through all your veins. Your pulse will stop.
There'll be no warmth or breath to prove that you're alive.
The color in your lips and cheeks will fade
to pale ashes; your eyelids will close
like death when he shuts up the last day of your life.
Each part of your body, stripped of its ability to move,
shall be stiff and rigid and cold, as in death.
And in this imitation of death,
you'll remain forty-two hours,
and then you'll awake as if from a pleasant sleep.
When Paris comes on Thursday morning
to rouse you from your bed, you will seem dead.
Then, as is customary,
dressed in your best clothes and with an uncovered face,
you'll be carried to the ancient vault
where all of the Capulets are buried.
In the meantime, before you awake,
Romeo will learn through a letter from me what we're doing.
He'll return here, and he and I
will watch for you to awake. Then that very night you awake,
Romeo will take you to Mantua.
This will let you escape your present shame
if no fickle whim or womanish fears
sap your courage to go through with it.
JULIET
  Give it to me! Give it to me! Don't talk of fear!
FRIAR LAURENCE
  Enough! Go, and be strong and prosperous
in this plan. I'll send a friar to speed
to Mantua with letters to Romeo.
JULIET
  Love will give me strength, and strength will help me through.
Goodbye, dear father.
They exit.