And hire those horses; I 'U be with thee straight.
[Exit Baltkasar
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let 's see for means: 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, 4

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



108 ROMEO AND JULIET [Act Fira

" An if a man did need a poison now, to

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.
1 As I remember, this should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.
What, ho! apothecary!

Enter Apothecary

Ap. Who calls SO loud?

Rom. 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.
Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
Is death to any he that utters them.
