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ACT V, Scene i |
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Act V, Scene I: A street in
Mantua. Enter ROMEO. |
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ROMEO |
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If I may trust the truth of sleep's
illusions,
my dreams predict I'm about to receive some joyful news.
My heart feels light in my breasts,
and all day an unusual spirit has
lifted me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamed my lady came and found me dead--
it's a strange dream that lets a dead man think--
and breathed such a life with her kisses
that I revived and became an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is real love
when just love's images are so joyful. |
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Enter BALATHASAR, his
servant. |
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News from Verona! Well, Balthasar?
Didn't you bring me letters from the friar?
How's my lady? Is my father well?
How's Juliet? I ask that again
because nothing can be bad if she's well. |
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BALATHASAR |
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Then she is well, so nothing
can be bad.
Her body sleeps in the Capulet's tomb,
and her soul is with the angels.
I saw her laid down in her ancestor's vault,
and I immediately hired horses to ride here to tell you.
O, forgive me for bringing this bad news,
since you made it my duty, sir. |
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ROMEO |
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Is it true? Then I defy you,
fate!
(To Balathasar) You know where I live. Get me some
ink and paper,
and hire me some horses. I'll leave tonight. |
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BALTHASAR |
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I beg you, sir, be pateint.
Your face is pale and wild, and you look like
you're heading for trouble. |
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ROMEO |
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Nonsense, you're mistaken.
Leave me, and do what I asked you to do.
Don't you have any letters for me from the friar? |
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BALTHASAR |
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No, my good lord. |
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ROMEO |
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It doesn't matter. Go
and hire the horses. I'll be with you right away. |
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BALTHASAR exits. |
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Well, Juliet, I'll lie with you
tonight.
Let's see, what method shall I use? O mischief, you're quick
to enter the thoughts of desperate men.
I remember a pharmacist
who lives near here. I noticed him recently,
with his tattered clothes and overhanging eyebrows,
as he sorted medical herbs. He was very thin.
Sharp misery had worn him to skin and bones.
In his poor shop hung a tortoise,
a stuffed alligator, and other skins
of misshapen fish. On his shelves
were a few empty boxes,
gray clay pots, bladders, musty seeds,
bits of twine, and old packets of rose petals--
all thinly scattered for show.
Noticing how poor he was, I said to myself,
"If a man should need poison now--
when its sale here in Mantua is punishable by death--
then here lives a miserable wretch who should sell it to him."
This thought came to me before I ever thought about needing
poison,
and this same needy man must sell it to me.
If I remember, this should be his house.
Since this is a holiday, the poor man's shop is closed.
(He calls) Hello! Pharmacist! |
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Enter PHARMACIST. |
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PHARMACIST |
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Who calls so loudly? |
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ROMEO |
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Come here, man. I see that you're
poor.
There are forty gold coins. Let me have a vial of poison of
such quick-working stuff
that it will flow all throught the veins
and make the life-weary taker fall dead.
Then the body may be discharged of breath
as violently as fired gunpowder
speeds from the deadly cannon's barrel. |
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PHARMACIST |
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I have such deadly drugs, but
Mantua's law
states that anyone who sells them will be executed. |
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ROMEO |
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You're so poor and wretched-
and yet you're still afraid of death (by execution)?
There's poverty in your cheeks,
need and oppression starving in your eyes,
and contempt and beggary hangs on your back.
The world is not your friend or the world's law.
The world has no law to make you rich.
Then be poor, but break the law and take this gold. |
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PHARMACIST |
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My poverty, but not my will,
agrees. |
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ROMEO |
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Then I'll pay your poverty, not
your will. |
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PHARMACIST |
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Put this drug in any kind of
liquid you wish,
and drink it all, and even if you had the strength
of twenty men, it would kill you immediately. |
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ROMEO |
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There's your gold--which is a
worse poison to men's souls
since it causes more murder in this hateful world
than these poor drugs that you're not allowed to sell.
I sell you poison--you haven't sold me any.
Goodbye. Buy food and get some flesh on your bones.
Come, restoring drug, you are not poison. Go with me
to Juliet's grave, for that is where I'll use you. |
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ROMEO and the PHARMACIST
exit. |
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