Page 3242 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1
P. 3242
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. [55]
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.
What ho! Apothecary!
Enter Apothecary.
APOT HECARY
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 [60]
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb. [65]
APOT HECARY
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 thy eyes, [70]
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.
APOT HECARY
My poverty, but not my will consents. [75]
ROMEO
I pay thy poverty and not thy will.
