SCENE I. Mantua. A street. Romeo and Juliet  Shakespeare homepage  |  Romeo and Juliet  | Act 5, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. Mantua. A street. 

 Enter ROMEO  ROMEO  If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, 

 My dreams presage some joyful news at hand: 

 My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne; 

 And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit 

 Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. 

 I dreamt my lady came and found me dead-- 

 Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave 

 to think!-- 

 And breathed such life with kisses in my lips, 

 That I revived, and was an emperor. 

 Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd, 

 When but love's shadows are so rich in joy! 



 Enter BALTHASAR, booted  News from Verona!--How now, Balthasar! 

 Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar? 

 How doth my lady? Is my father well? 

 How fares my Juliet? that I ask again; 

 For nothing can be ill, if she be well. 

 BALTHASAR  Then she is well, and nothing can be ill: 

 Her body sleeps in Capel's monument, 

 And her immortal part with angels lives. 

 I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault, 

 And presently took post to tell it you: 

 O, pardon me for bringing these ill news, 

 Since you did leave it for my office, sir. 

 ROMEO  Is it even so? then I defy you, stars! 

 Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper, 

 And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night. 

 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 to me from the friar? 

 BALTHASAR  No, my good lord. 

 ROMEO  No matter: get thee gone, 

 And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight. 



 Exit BALTHASAR  Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. 

 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 he dwells,--which late I noted 

 In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, 

 Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, 

 Sharp misery had worn him to the bones: 

 And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, 

 An alligator stuff'd, and other skins 

 Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves 

 A beggarly account of empty boxes, 

 Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds, 

 Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses, 

 Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show. 

 Noting this penury, to myself I said 

 'An 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 me. 

 As I remember, this should be the house. 

 Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. 

 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 

 And that the trunk may be discharged of breath 

 As violently as hasty powder fired 

 Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb. 

 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 fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks, 

 Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes, 

 Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back; 

 The world is not thy friend nor the world's law; 

 The world affords no law to make thee rich; 

 Then be not poor, but break it, and take this. 

 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 souls, 

 Doing more murders in this loathsome world, 

 Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. 

 I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none. 

 Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh. 

 Come, cordial and not poison, go with me 

 To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Romeo and Juliet  | Act 5, Scene 1 

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