Romeo and Juliet — Act 4, Scene 3in modern English, side by side

Juliet’s Chamber · Juliet, Nurse, Lady Capulet

It is the night before the wedding to Paris, which has been moved up to tomorrow morning. Alone in her room with Friar Lawrence's potion, Juliet must actually drink it — knowing that if anything goes wrong she will either be married in the morning or wake up alone in the family tomb.

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Enter Juliet and Nurse

Juliet

Ay, those attires are best.

Yes, those clothes are the best ones.

But, gentle Nurse,

I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;

For I have need of many orisons

To move the heavens to smile upon my state,

Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin.5

But, gentle Nurse, please leave me to myself tonight, because I need many prayers to persuade heaven to smile on my situation — which, as you well know, is troubled and full of sin.

Enter Lady Capulet

Lady Capulet

What, are you busy, ho?

Are you busy in here?

Need you my help?

Do you need my help?

Juliet

No, madam;

No, madam.

we have cull’d such necessaries

As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.

We've picked out everything we'll need for the ceremony tomorrow.

So please you, let me now be left alone,

And let the nurse this night sit up with you,10

For I am sure you have your hands full all

In this so sudden business.

So please, let me be left alone now, and have the Nurse sit up with you tonight, because I'm sure your hands are completely full with all this rushed business.

Lady Capulet

Good night.

Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.

Get to bed and rest — you need it.

_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._

Juliet

Farewell.15

Farewell!

God knows when we shall meet again.15

God knows when we'll meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins

That almost freezes up the heat of life.

There's a faint, cold fear tingling through my veins that almost freezes the warmth of life out of me.

I’ll call them back again to comfort me.

I'll call them back to comfort me.

Nurse!

—What should she do here?

— No. What would she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.20

I have to act out my grim scene alone.

Come, vial.

What if this mixture do not work at all?

What if this mixture doesn't work at all?

Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?

Would I be married tomorrow morning, then?

No, No!

No, no

This shall forbid it.

— this will prevent that.

Lie thou there.

Lie there.

_Laying down her dagger._

Juliet

What if it be a poison, which the Friar25

Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead,

Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d,

Because he married me before to Romeo?

But what if it's a poison the Friar has slyly given me to make sure I die — in case this marriage would dishonor him, since he already married me to Romeo?

I fear it is.

I'm afraid it might be.

And yet methinks it should not,

For he hath still been tried a holy man.30

And yet — no, surely not, because he has always proved himself a holy man.

How if, when I am laid into the tomb,

I wake before the time that Romeo

Come to redeem me?

But what if, once I'm laid in the tomb, I wake up before the time when Romeo comes to rescue me?

There’s a fearful point!

That's a terrifying thought!

Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,

To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,35

And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

Won't I suffocate in the vault — that foul mouth no wholesome air ever breathes into — and die strangled there before my Romeo comes?

Or, if I live, is it not very like,

The horrible conceit of death and night,

Together with the terror of the place,

As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,40

Where for this many hundred years the bones

Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,

Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,

At some hours in the night spirits resort—45

Alack, alack, is it not like that I,

So early waking, what with loathsome smells,

And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,

That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.

Or, if I do live, isn't it very likely that the horrible idea of death and night, together with the terror of the place — a vault, an ancient burial chamber where the bones of all my dead ancestors have been packed away for hundreds of years; where bloody Tybalt, still fresh in the ground, lies rotting in his shroud; where, people say, at certain hours of the night the spirits gather — oh no, isn't it likely that I, waking too early, surrounded by disgusting smells and by shrieks like the screams of mandrakes torn out of the earth — sounds that drive living people mad when they hear them —

O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,50

Environed with all these hideous fears,

And madly play with my forefathers’ joints?

And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?

Oh, if I wake, won't I lose my mind, hemmed in by all these hideous terrors, and madly play with my ancestors' bones, and tear the mangled Tybalt out of his shroud?

And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,

As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?55

And in that frenzy, won't I grab some great ancestor's bone and, using it like a club, smash out my own desperate brains?

O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost

Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body

Upon a rapier’s point.

Oh, look! I think I see my cousin's ghost, hunting for Romeo — Romeo, who ran his body through on the point of a rapier.

Stay, Tybalt, stay!

Stop, Tybalt, stop!

Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink!

Romeo, Romeo, Romeo — here's the drink.

I drink to thee.

I drink to you.

_Throws herself on the bed._

Famous lines in this scene

“My dismal scene I needs must act alone.” line 20

Juliet reaches for a theater metaphor for what she is about to do: no Nurse, no mother, no ally — she must perform her "scene" of fake death entirely by herself. The line measures how far the young girl has grown, and how completely every adult who should protect her has failed or been shut out.

“What if it be a poison, which the Friar” line 25

The opening fear of Juliet's great potion soliloquy: maybe the Friar wants her dead to cover up his part in her secret marriage. She reasons her way past the suspicion, but the question shows how utterly alone she is — she can no longer entirely trust her one remaining ally, and she drinks anyway.

“Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink! I drink to thee.” line 59

Juliet's toast as she swallows the potion, turning a wedding custom — drinking to a loved one's health — into an act that imitates death. Repeating Romeo's name three times shows he is her whole reason for taking the risk. Onstage, the line ends the scene as she falls onto the bed.

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